Like pro football, where it's give me parity or give me death, all four teams still in the Stnaley Cup hunt missed the playoffs during the previous season. The final will be a matchup that almost no one could have anticipated with teams that once were paupers have become princes, as Damien Cox wrote in today's Toronto Star.
For the NHL, is it bad for business that a big-market team hasn't made it through to the semifinals? Well, really, it just doesn't matter after the schmozzle Gary Bettman has made of the league's TV situation.
In Canada, people haven't tuned out en masse simply because Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal didn't have teams involved after Round 1. If they are tuning out at all, it's because the weather is getting nicer and the season takes too damn long. (But that's another column.)
As for the U.S., the ratings are going to be microscopic no matter what. People can't find the games on television, which is a goddamn shame, and there isn't one team that can't create enough nationwide buzz to the ratings from 0.2 to, say, 0.5. There isn't one.
So you might as well have Buffalo-Carolina and Anaheim-Edmonton in the semifinals. Like Eli said in The Girl Next Door, learn to like it.
WESTERN FINAL: EDMONTON vs. ANAHEIM
You heard it here first -- if we still have the same format for the 2010 Olympic tournament, Craig MacTavish will be coaching Team Canada. He's shown that he's got the chops to pull a team together and make in-game adjustments. There's that, plus he is Wayne's Friend.
So the big angle is which 30-minutes-a-night defenceman can handle the other team's pesky forecheckers -- Edmonton's Chris Pronger or Anaheim's Scott Niedermayer.
Probably Pronger, who doesn't have Niedermayer's offensive flair. The other element this series hinges on is depth -- both teams are essentially three-line clubs. Who's going to be able to better pay the physical price if this lasts six or seven games? Remember, Anaheim is more rested and has a fourth line it can actually put out for 10 minutes a night.
Edmonton's finally meeting a team that can match their physical play and kills penalties well enough to get them frustrated. The Ducks have given up just one extra-man goal in the last eight games.
So it seems like the Oilers are up against it, but they've gone this far, so all bets are off. As for the Ducks. I knew they wouldn't roll over against Calgary, and after Randy Carlyle pulled the masterstroke by benching J.S. Giguere for Ilya Bryzgalov, they won Games 6 and 7 to douse the Flames.
If Roloson keeps this up, and if the Oilers can recover elements of that patient game that never failed them against the Red Wings, and if they can beat Bryzgalov while playing that style, and if they can go toe-to-toe with a deeper and equally rough Ducks team, then yes, Edmonton could pull this off.
Other predictions
David Amber, ESPN.com: Anaheim in 7.
John Buccigross, ESPN.com: Anaheim in 5.
Scott Burnside, ESPN.com: Anaheim in 6.
Damien Cox, Toronto Star: Anaheim in 6.
E.J. Hradek, ESPN.com: Edmonton in 6.
Barry Melrose, ESPN.com: Edmonton in 7.
Darryl G. Smart (sports ed., Woodstock Sentinel-Review): Edmonton in 7.
Scott Unger, director of media relations, Manitoba Junior Hockey League: Edmonton in 6.
Cory Smith (Woodstock Sentinel-Review sports guy): Edmonton in 6.
Battle of Alberta: "My rough sense, based on season- and playoffs-to-date, is that the Oilers' Best is probably better than the Ducks' Best, but that in any given game you're more liable to see the latter than the former."
Personal rooting interest: Edmonton. Unlike the Flames in '04, this is a Canadian team you can get behind since they not only play physically, but also try to score once in a while. I just couldn't get with the program when Calgary made its run, because the Flames played the boringest, couldn't-score-to-save-their-lives hockey.
Gut feeling: Anaheim in 7.
EASTERN FINAL: BUFFALO vs. CAROLINA
The Sabres can win, but it's going to take one or more of the following: 1) Ryan Miller standing on his head 2) Eric Staal pulling a Heatley every time he gets the puck down low on the power play 3) Cam Ward going deer-in-the-headlights 4) Buffalo continuing its eerie ability to score first in nearly every game and 5) Some key injuries on Carolina's side.
Interesting matchup: Carolina's power play (27.8% in the playoffs) is going up against Buffalo's aggressive penalty killers, who have five short-handed goals in these playoffs, including Jason Pominville's series-winner against Ottawa that, were ours a just god, would play on a continuous loop on a video screen in the Byward Market, 24/7/365.
Thumbnail sketch of the Sabres: they're young, they come at you with four lines and they try to skate opponents into the ground. Thing is, Carolina faced that in the first round against the Canadiens, and after losing first two games, they had the Habs more or less figured out.
Other predictions
David Amber, ESPN.com: Carolina in 6.
John Buccigross, ESPN.com: Buffalo in 7.
Scott Burnside, ESPN.com: Carolina in 7.
E.J. Hradek, ESPN.com: Carolina in 7 (gee, what happened to variety?)
Barry Melrose, ESPN.com: Carolina in 7.
Darryl G. Smart (sports ed., Woodstock Sentinel-Review): Lifelong Sabres fan -- he keeps a Gilbert Perrault sweater at his desk -- is hoping for the Sabres to win in 5, but dares not predict it. He hasn't made a prediction yet.
Cory Smith (Woodstock Sentinel-Review sports guy): Buffalo in 6.
Scott Unger, director of media relations, Manitoba Junior Hockey League: Buffalo in 5.
Rooting interest: Buffalo. Some of best friends are Sabres fans.
Gut feeling: Carolina in 6.
CONN SMYTHE CANDIDATES
Anaheim: Teemu Selanne. Could be Scott Niedermayer.
Buffalo: Ryan Miller. Gee, maybe this guy should have been playing in the Olympics.
Carolina: Eric Staal. Gee, maybe this guy should have been . . . well, that line worked so well that last time.
Edmonton: Dwayne Roloson seems to be the force that has the Oilers playing with quiet confidence. Without his Game 3 overtime save on Jonathan Cheechoo, we'd be talking about an Anaheim-San Jose Western final.
REQUIEM FOR A "GARDEN VARIETY" GOALIE
Last night, Roloson, while not being rude about it, gave CBC's Scott Oake a kind of polite dressing-down during an on-ice interview, as James Mirtle and Battle of Alberta noted:
Oake: Are you playing the best hockey of your life, Dwayne?
Roloson: No, this is how I play. This is how I played in Minnesota.
He was polite about it, but you could see the exasperated look flash across Roloson's face. You can undertstand that if he would be sick of the insiders who have, to use Damien Cox's phrase, continually panned him as a "garden variety journeyman goalie." My aforementioned friend Darryl G. Smart, who covered Roloson's career extensively during his time at the Simcoe Reformer, says he nearly flipped out when Oake put that question to Roloson.
Mirtle and Colby Cosh have both writtens odes (Mirtle's word, not mine) to Roli the goalie, whom yours truly has also championed from over the past couple days (here and here), as well as over at my old Sportspages blog.
Us bloggers must see Roloson as a kindred spirit. Like us, he's been overlooked for far too long.
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