Playoff Time!


I've been busy. The last two nights I ran playoff hockey drafts, one with my hockey team the other at my work. I thought I'd analyze the draft results in order to get a general consensus of which teams people are picking in the playoffs this year.

I counted the number of players chosen from each NHL team out of the top 50 selections in each pool. I figure, if I compare the number of players from each team in each series I can get a nice sample of how 18 different knowledgeable hockey fans are predicting the playoffs. Remember, this was done in Vancouver so there may be a bit of bias...although, out of the 19 different pool teams chosen, 8 of them selected NO Canucks (of course 2 of those were my squads). The results are as follows (numbers are then translated to represent a seven game series)

New York 7 picks,  Ottawa 2 picks  
4-1
Pittsburgh 15 picks,  Philadelphia 3 picks
4-1

Boston 11 picks,  Washington 4 picks 
4-2

New Jersey 6 picks,  Florida 1 pick  
4-1



Vancouver 17 picks,  Los Angeles 7 picks 
4-2

Chicago 4 picks,  Phoenix  0 picks 
4-0

Detroit 8 picks,  Nashville 5 picks  
4-3

San Jose 5 picks, St. Louis 5  
4-3 one way or the other...let`s say Game 7 Overtime in this one.


Not surprisingly, of the 100 draft selections I looked at, the most with 17 were Canucks and the next highest was Pittsburgh. This seems to be a popular choice throughout the hockey world as the most likely Cup Final. Also, the West looks to be the tougher conference to predict with perhaps two series going the distance. I am surprised that the Flyers got such little respect, although I do agree with it. I do also agree with Vancouver and Los Angeles going at least six games with a possible upset for the Kings.

Bring on the playoffs.

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