Long Time, No See!

It's been quite a while since my last post. Well, the only recent political news that's really interested me much is the US Attorney scandal, and I really don't have much to add that hasn't already been said. Hmmm, well, I might try to cook something up on that if I run across anything new. There are a couple things I've been meaning to talk about on the geek front, with a few bits of video game and comics news that I could post. Honestly it's just that for whatever reason the habbit was interrupted and I ended up taking a break, but I'm back now!

Anyhow, why not break back into it by posting about something completely different: sports! With the regular season over, and my hopes of winning the fantasy league championship dashed like so much whatever, we can all begin speculating on who's going to end up with the best trophy in pro sports. Here are the first round matchups:

The East
Buffalo v. Long Island
Tampa Bay v. New Jersey
New York v. Atlanta
Pittsburg v. Ottawa

The West
Calgary v. Detroit
Minnesota v. Anaheim
San Jose v. Nashville
Vancouver v. Dallas

As per usual the West is packed with contenders and the East has a few great teams and the teams that could lace up their skates well enough to roll over Philly and Boston. Here are my picks for the first round: Buffalo, New Jersey, Atlanta, Ottawa, Detroit, Minnesota, Nashville, Vancouver. Tampa Bay would be more of a contender if their entire team couldn't be reduced to three really good guys, none of whom was a goalie. The New York/Atlanta matchup is almost completely unimportant as neither team will last five games in the second round. The same goes for Pittsburg/Ottawa, except that those teams are much better. The trouble is that as good as Crosby and Heatley are, all their strength is up front and anyone with a good goalie and a decent shooter will stop them.

Out West things are a bit more interesting. Calgary and Detroit have both been a bit flakey all year, but Detroit put on an amazing post-All Star push to tie Buffalo for a lead in points at the end of the season. Calgary also suffers from a bit of a lack in depth, so I'll bet on Detroit. I would have picked Anaheim to win the Cup during the first half of the season, but after their injury troubles they just haven't had the unstoppable drive they had early on. Minnesota, on the other hand, has been a completely different team after Marion Gaborik came back from the injury that kept him out of the first half of the season, and in these last few weeks they've been completely indominable. Nashville/San Jose could go either way, but I don't expect either team to go all the way. Nashville bought up some players to make a run at the Cup, but they still look like a patchwork team to me that will buckle under pressure. I think Vancouver is the dark horse team that will do much better than anyone expects. I'm not sure they'll win the Cup, but I wouldn't be surprised if they made it to the Conference Finals.

My early pick for a Stanley Cup matchup is New Jersey v. Vancouver, with Jersey taking home another Cup. Ok, so I'm biased. Buffalo might have a shot too.

One last thing, there's a distinction between good teams and teams that are good this year that I think is worth addressing. Just as the two teams from last year's Finals (Carolina and Edmonton) won't be playing in the playoffs this year, a few of these teams have put a good run together but won't be much of a factor next year, some because they got lucky this year and some because they put a temporary fix on some holes in their team that are coming right back in the Fall. In particular, Long Island, New York, and Minnesota got lucky this year. Atlanta, Anaheim, and Nashville made some pickups before and during the season that might not be back in the Fall which means they better have some good guys coming up through the system if they don't want this season to be a fluke.