My playoff predictions and breakdown of the Stanley Cup Final ans who I think will be the Conn Smythe winner.
Recap Second round
My Predictions
New York R in 7
Edmonton n 6
What actually happened
Tampa Bay in 6
Colorado in 4
I went 0 for 2 in predicting teams
I went 0 for 2 in predicting series length
Stanley Cup Final
1C Colorado vs Tampa Bay 3A
This is the ever matchup between Colorado and Tampa Bay and this will be the Lightning’s 5th time to reach the Stanley cup Final and the 3rd time in as many years, and have won back to back Cups and 3 of their 4 appearances in the final, while this will be the Avalanches 3rd Stanley Cup Final appearance in franchise history, and they won both of their previous appearances in 2001 against New Jersey and 1996 against Florida.
Regular season record vs each other:
Colorado 2-0-0 7-5+2
Tampa Bay 0-1-1 5-7-2
My X-Factors for each team for the series: Cale Makar vs Andrei Vasilevskiy. Both of these players have been crucial in each teams respective runs to the cup Final and I think that these two players who would be Conn Smythe favourites in my opinion if there team won the Cup have to continue to play at high levels to help there team win. First for Makar as the Avalanche defensemen is having himself a playoffs as he had had a amazing 22 points in 14 games which is stunningly tied for 12th in NHL history for most points by a defensemen in a playoff year and is only 4 points back of top 5 and gayer the season he had as well I am going to say that Makar is the driving force of the offense in the playoffs and now Mackinnon. If Makar once again can get going and have a few multi point games, then I have no doubt he could lead the Avalanche to win the Cup. As for Vasilevskiy he has had some bad games this year especially games 1 and 3 against Toronto and game 1 against New York R, but in the other 14 games he has been absolutely phenomenal. Vasilevskiy has a 2.27 GAA and a .928 SV% in the playoffs and helped shutdown the powerful offenses in Toronto and New York R when the Bolts needed him most and helped completely obliterate the best offense in the league in Florida and if he is at the top of his game then the Bolts will have a overwhelming chance of three-peating. So if Vasilevskiy can shutdown Makar and the Avs offence then the Bolts will most likely win, but if Makar and the Avalanche can get inside Vasilevskiy’s head and rattle him then the series will swing in the Avalanche favour, so I think that the better of these two players will give their team a huge advantage to win the cup.
Who has the advantage in my opinion:
Offensively: Colorado. These two have really good offenses that can score key goals in tight games but I would say that the Avalanche have the better offense. The reason will depend on the injuries because in a fully healthy lineup between these two I would say that the Avalanche have the better depth but if Kadri is out and Point is in then I would give the advantage to Tampa but I think both will be close to healthy and the Avalanche have the more talented and deeper group.
Defensively: Colorado. This is a really close position as both of these teams have amazingly good and deep D-Corp and the 4 best defensemen and 7 best defensemen are really close with the Avalanche being without Girard but even with that I would give the edge to Colorado because of one word. Makar. Makar and Hedman are both really good defensively and offensively but Makar at a way younger age has I think surpassed Hedman in being a complete defensemen and with Toews at his side the Avs have a slightly more complete defence then Tampa.
Goaltending: Tampa Bay. Both of the teams have good goaltending and has at times made key stops but the Bolts have the way better option in goaltending. Vasilevskiy is fresh hot of a huge battle of maybe the two best goalies in the world against Shesterkin and now he faces off against Kuemper or maybe even Francouz and I think there is a absolute advantage in the Bolts favour given that while Kuemper and Francouz are both good goalies and have some pretty good nights, Vasilevskiy is the best in the league and if Shesterkin can’t outdo Vasilevskiy then I can’t see Kuemper or Francouz our doing him.
Matchup I am most intrigued by: Colorado’s offense vs Vasilevskiy. The Avalanche have been the more productive offense and have shown it with their ability to score at will in the first three rounds but they haven’t faced a goalie like Vasilevskiy before as Saros was injured for the entire first round, playoff Binnington was injured in game 3 of the second round when it looked like the Blues could oust the Avs, and Smith is nowhere near to being a elite NHL goalie anymore so Vasilevskiy will be a entirely different monster for Colorado and I would love to see how these two stack up against each other. Now while the Panthers had no answer for Vasilevskiy, the Rangers and Maple Leafs were able to get to him early but allowed him to gain his confidence as those series went on and then he took control of those series to lead Tampa past them. I think that if this series goes long with Vasilevskiy getting better as it goes then I see the Avalanche having trouble but if they can rattle him and while maybe not win four in a row but consistently score on him in each and every game then I would give the Avs a fighting chance but I am very intrigued to see who wins this matchup.
My Prediction is COL in 7 games.
Reasons: these are the two teams who most would have picked to be in the cup final at the beginning of the season as these are literally two heavyweight teams going at it in the Stanley cup final and I would be surprised if this series is finished in 4 or 5 games as I think it has a real shot of going the distance but there are a few reasons that I pick the Avalanche to win their 3 Stanley Cup in franchise history. First would have to be Makar as the Bolts have done a good job shutting down top defensemen as Reilly 6 against the Bolts, Ekblad had none and Fox was only able to get 5 with no points coming in the last three games but Makar is a entirely different beast. The extremely well rounded defensemen can not only put up points like no other defensemen, but also has mad defensive skills and as teams in the playoffs playing the Avalanche have found out he is almost as hard to contain as McDavid so I believe that Makar will produce a lot more then any other defensemen in the playoffs against Tampa Bay. Secondly is that the Avalanche will be able to contain the Bolts offense and not let in to many goals. While I do believe the Bolts have the better goalie in Vasilevskiy I think that as a team this Avalanche team can shutdown the opposing offense amazingly as we saw against the Oilers as while the Avalanche did win two last goal wins games, they were also able to shutdown McDavid and Draisaitl in games 2 and 3 and given that LA or Calgary cam nowhere close to doing that says something and if they can contain McDavid and Draisaitl then they can shutdown Kucherov and Stamkos as well. And lastly is the Avalanches power play as the Rangers during a stretch against the Bolts had only scored PPG’s and still have the best power play numbers in the playoffs and while the Bolts PK could have done better it will have to do superbly better against the Avalanche who have the second best power play in the playoffs as Colorado can kill you on the power play and if Tampa becomes undisciplined too many teams the Avalanche will capitalize on the opportunities and these are the reasons I think the Stanley Cup is coming to Denver.
Conn Smythe winner: Cale Makar.
What can I say about the kid. He is only 23 years old and is drawing comparaison to Bobby Orr, he has 22 points in 14 games as a defensemen which is outstanding and on top of being a defensive dynamo, he can defend like the best of them. He is a special player and if the Avalanche wins up winning the Cup I can’t think of anyone else to be the MVP of the playoffs then Makar and for Makar this will be just the beginning.
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