Ok, maybe I’ll lose a little credibility, but I didn’t have that much to begin with. Either way, I avenged my first round loss against grier by beating him handily in the second round prediction department, 7 games off to 10. Good Rangers pick, by the way.

I did watch the Wings take Dallas apart last night, and I remembered when Detroit was up 4-0 in the second that I never posted my CF predictions. Now you have the Western one. Quick observation- Detroit makes decisions about 5 times faster than the Sharks do. If the guy with the puck isn’t going full speed, he quickly passes it to someone who is. There’s none of this “draw the defender to you to open lanes” crap. They make their own lanes with speed. Even when they have nobody around they still press the pace. And I was pretty shocked to see how effective it was against a speedy team like Dallas. The Stars got their counter-punch in the turnover that led to Morrow’s goal (how automatic is that guy?) but if Detroit has the puck 75% of the time, there’s not going to be enough mistakes to capitalize on.

For the East, now that Timmonen is out for Philly, they’re going to have even more trouble stopping the waves of Penguins looking for scoring chances. Only if Biron finds another gear (and I don’t even know if that’s possible, given how well he’s been playing) will the Flyers have a chance. Pittsburgh in five.