I THINK I KNOW WHO'S GOING TO WIN THE STANLEY CUP

Some pals from work asked me to join their NHL playoff pool this morning, and it's forced the issue to your benefit. Now you get to be the beneficiary of my prognostications, as you were last year, when I correctly picked the Pittsburgh Penguins to beat the Nashville Predators and win the Cup. Wait, lemme check that. Right, I was a little off on that one. I will say that this has been one of my favorite hockey seasons ever; my guess is it only being a strike-shortened 48 games, as opposed to 82, might have something to do with it. I've been following pretty closely and I feel really good about my upset pick to win it all this year, The St. Louis Blues. (If they DO in fact win, I'm gonna win something like 2,000 Norwegian kroner, which is approximately 27 bucks).

Here's what you should be looking for in May and June, round by round:

Round 1

Pittsburgh over New York Islanders
Montreal over Ottawa
Washington over New York Rangers
Toronto over Boston

Chicago over Minnesota
Detroit over Anaheim
San Jose over Vancouver
St. Louis over Los Angeles

Quarterfinals

Pittsburgh over Montreal
Toronto over Washington

Chicago over Detroit
St. Louis over San Jose

Semifinals

Pittsburgh over Toronto
St. Louis over Chicago

Stanley Cup Finals

St. Louis over Pittsburgh