Who's your dark horse?

[thedaigle1]

It's almost that time of year when somebody (but really almost everybody) leaves this NHL season behind in a state of total disappointment. There will be upsets! Who are your dark horse teams and fantasy players for the 2014 Stanley Cup playoffs?

Gotta go with Dallas personally. If Kari Lehtonen gets hot, watch out.

[Dean Ambrose]

Re: Who's your dark horse?

Montreal is winning the Cup.

[Josh]

Re: Who's your dark horse?

I guess St. Louis isn't considered a dark horse anymore, or I would have taken them and Backes. If the Rangers still had Callahan if have taken them and him. Fuck it, I'll take the Red Wings and Alfredsson.

[Matt the Aussie]

Re: Who's your dark horse?

I'm also going with St Louis - double reverse psychology :P

[Dean Ambrose]

Re: Who's your dark horse?

King Pacioretty will lead us to the Cup.

[Alfie11]

Re: Who's your dark horse?

The only Eastern team that I could see winning the Cup is Boston. In the West, I could see St. Louis, Chicago, San Jose or LA. I don't have a lot of trust in Colorado or Anaheim. My dark horse choices would probably be either Detroit, who could get healthy, or Philly who's been playing pretty good hockey overall since their new coach arrived.

[Dean Ambrose]

Re: Who's your dark horse?

Pacioretty, Vanek and Price will sit atop the throne as they lead the Habs to the playoffs. It will then be capped off with Vanek re-signing and the Habs winning 7 straight cups as Vanek signs at 7 year deal.

[Josh]

Re: Who's your dark horse?

Pacioretty, Vanek and Price will sit atop the throne as they lead the Habs to the playoffs. It will then be capped off with Vanek re-signing and the Habs winning 7 straight cups as Vanek signs at 7 year deal.

Yeah, I dunno man... I'd love for any Canadian team to win it, really, but only Boston looks like they could win a series against those top West teams. Even Boston... I think the West takes it again this year.

[Dean Ambrose]

Re: Who's your dark horse?

Nah, Montreal's got this.

[thedaigle1]

Re: Who's your dark horse?

I see a healthy Detroit or Philly potentially causing some upsets. Do any of the top six teams in the west even qualify as underdogs? Even LA and Colorado have great odds.

[matchesmalone]

Re: Who's your dark horse?

I never gave up on St. Louis either. Seems like every single pundit and talking head I see has already jumped off the St. Louis bandwagon. I think they'll get passed Chicago, at least. They just better hope they don't have to play L.A. again. They always have so much trouble with L.A.'s size.

[Josh]

Re: Who's your dark horse?

Matches! Great to see you! There's a couple votes going on in the keeper league thread, you should vote :)

[matchesmalone]

Re: Who's your dark horse?

I see a healthy Detroit or Philly potentially causing some upsets. Do any of the top six teams in the west even qualify as underdogs? Even LA and Colorado have great odds.

I see Detroit as the big upset chance in round one. With Datsyuk back, Legwand in to finally give them the 2nd line center they've been missing all year since Filppula left and Weiss flopped, Kronwall playing the best hockey of his career, and the injection of youth and speed from the young guns, led by Nyquist and DeKeyser, through to Tatar, Jurco, Sheahan, down to Joakim Andersson and Luke Glendening, all of whom have big playoff experience from the Calder Cup run last year, Detroit is going to be tough for anyone to beat.

Dekeyser is healthy again and back to looking like he's going to be a 25 minute shutdown defenseman - not dissimilar to Ryan McDonagh - and maybe very soon. Nyquist is simply the real deal. In the future, when people talk about the latter portion of the Detroit Red Wings dynasty, it will be Datsyuk, Zetterberg, and Nyquist. Another late pick and he's gonna be a superstar. His first full NHL season and in one span from late December through the end of February, in 29 games he had 23 goals and 36 points. Are you kidding me?! 23 goals in 29 games?! Those are numbers you see from Stamkos, Crosby, Ovechkin. This kid is gonna be scary.

Zetterberg might be back if it goes to six or seven. And throw in the leadership and playoff experience of Daniel Alfredsson, and Franzen's playoff heroics, I'd give this team a chance against any team in the league.

And on the Boston side, Seidenberg is still out, Chara is completely washed up. The Nyquist goal was the ultimate exposure of that. The old line about making defensemen look like pilons has become well-established cliche nowadays, but Nyquist injected a whole new life and meaning into it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhigRET-3DE

Boston has Rask, which is their biggest edge, and they have a good group of forwards, but no match for Detroit's. For Boston to win this, they're going to have to lure Detroit into the gutter, i.e. be the aggravating, instigating fuckers that they are and make Detroit take retaliation penalties. Normally Detroit would never fall into such a trap, but with such a young team, some of those kids might bite. Babcock's greatest task in this series is going to be keeping them calm and under control.

Detroit in seven.