Ok, I have held off having to make this pick as long as humanly possible and I have only one word to say when describing my excitement at making this pick...
UGH!
Well here goes...
Anaheim and Detroit.
Detroit: Last round I went out on a limb and I said I believed the two best teams in the NHL were playing each other in the San Jose/Anaheim series. After watching how Detroit played against the Blue Jackets and eliminated a VERY good team with ridiculous, machine-like ease, I am going to say the that the Red Wings and Ducks are the two best teams in hockey.
The Red Wings deserve more praise and respect than I have given them...So much so that I apologized to the team and their fans. This Red Wings team set an NHL record this year with its 9th, that's right NINTH!, consecutive 100 point season. That is amazing! Especially when you consider that this was done partially in the Salary Cap era.
The great Pavel Datsyuk has arguably had his best season ever. The current Selke Award Champion finishing 4th in scoring this year in the NHL! Lidstrom, Rafalski, are all among the top scorers for D-men...Lidstrom despite a lot of injuries.
This is basically the team that rolled to a relatively easy Cup victory last year...Except they added one of the best players in the game in Marian Hossa.
The Wings are so good that in the final month of the season while watching them I actually got a sense that they were toying with teams they were playing, essentially deciding when or when not to turn on a switch and dominate.
The Cap world will mean trouble this off-season of course, so we all must enjoy this team for what it is right now. The best of the best and arguably a team that, should they go on to win a Stanley Cup, be listed as one of the top 10 NHL teams of all-time. The Red Wings have been great for a decade, and this Wings team may be the best Wings team ever assembled.
The Anaheim Ducks:
Two years ago, the Ducks rolled essentially to their own Cup with a team built around perhaps the best defense ever assembled and a great goalie. This Ducks team is better than the Cup team in so many ways.
First off, the Cup team had Nieds, Pronger, and Beauchemin...This team has Nieds, Pronger, Beauchemin, Whitney and Wisniewski (who is a future All-Star)
Up Front the addition of Bobby Ryan, who is now passing "budding star" status and is just a STAR over Penner and the rise of players like Miller, and Carter, and Brown makes the Ducks better than the Cup team as well.
In goal the Cup team was mostly Giguere, but remember Bryzgalov had some starts...this team is all Jonas Hiller. He has been beyond outstanding and at the point around the deadline where all felt lost it was Hiller's play that helped this team.
The Ducks had a bad year for the most part as they battled injuries and controversy...But they arrived at the playoffs playing their best hockey and at this point they are just rolling. Their victory over the Sharks told you all you needed to know about Anaheim..
Prediction: Again. Ugh. These teams played in 1997 one of the greatest series to end in a sweep of all time with 3 of the four games going to OT's including a double OT and a triple OT.
This year will be like that series. It may not be a sweep, but in essence each game is a toss up, and when you flip a coin to get to four games sometimes it ends in four flips, sometimes in 7. That is how even these teams are in my opinion.
There are two of the best and most underrated stars in the game on each team's offense in Datsyuk and Getzlaf, and there are two of the most decorated well known defenseman on each team in Niedermayer and Lidstrom.
This is a ridiculous series. My pick is a little sentimental and a little Voodoo. After watching Detroit in the last round I swore up and down that I would NEVER underrate the Wings again. I also am picking the team that my Dad just worshiped my whole life...Going back to the days of trying to pick up WJBR and Dave Strader when the Wings couldn't make the playoffs.
Wings in 7
Burt the Dog's Second Round Pick HERE
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