With both the NBA and Stanley Cup Playoffs in high gear, let’s go right ahead and preview the Conference Finals matchups!
Western Conference Finals
Dallas vs. Edmonton
Well, that’s all she wrote! The Dallas Stars just beat the Winnipeg Jets with 18:27 left in the first overtime with a near last-second power play goal from Taylor Hartley, who received a brilliant pass from superstar Tyler Seguin! Now, they will battle Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, and the Edmonton Oilers in what should be an excellent conference final. For the Oilers, I believe they can hope to hold serve or get a tight hold on the series until Mattias Ekholm comes back; they sure could use him, too. Ekholm had nine goals in his books, 33 points in total, 143 shots on net, 95 blocked shots, and 42 hits during the regular season. At 5’5, 225 pounds, he adds a lot of raw size and grit that Edmonton still needs if they’re going to beat Dallas and get back to the Stanley Cup Finals.
For Dallas, they’ve been there before, too, as they just came up short in 2018 to Tampa Bay. The Stars are very dangerous with their roster. With Hitnz, Rantanen, Granlund, Duchene, Robertson, Niskanen, and Hartley, Oettinger in goal, and the old duo of Seguin and Benn, they have everything a team needs to win the Cup. However, they can’t give away power plays to Edmonton, nor play sloppy five-on-five. If they do, they can easily lose this series, resulting in a huge, wasted season for the Stars.
Eastern Conference Finals
Florida vs. Carolina
Both teams are so deeply stacked from top to bottom. Seeing both teams, I won’t go over the rosters because they speak for themselves. People may talk about ‘Canes like Sebastian Aho, Jordan Staal, Taylor Hall, Dimitri Orlov, and Brent Burns. Same thing with the Panthers, who just annihilated the Toronto Maple Leafs IN Toronto! Aleksander Barkov, Aaron Ekblad, and Matthew Tkachuk; what makes them even more dangerous is that they have Brad Marchand, who torched the Leafs in that game for three points, especially the empty-net dagger in the closing minutes. I’m looking at people in this series. On one side, there’s someone named two-time Vezina Trophy winner Sergei Bobrovsky! So far, he has a 2.31 goals against average and two shutouts, while Freddie Anderson leads the playoffs in GAA with 1.36 according to Hockey Reference.com. With those two goalies, it’s going to be an excellent defensive series.
Thank you so much for reading! I can’t wait to come back for both the NBA and Stanley Cup Finals!
