OK so it's that time of year again. I'm in two playoff pools already, one draft and one free-for-all so I spent the weekend going over stats and figuring out who was going to beat who and move forward and whatnot. Here's my results:

Western Conference Round One

Calgary beats Detroit in seven games.

Anaheim beats Minnesota in five games.

Vancouver beats Dallas in six games.

San Jose beats Nashville in six games.

Eastern Conference Round One

Buffalo sweeps New York Islanders in four.

New Jersey beats Tampa Bay in six games.

Atlanta beats New York Rangers in five games.

Pittsburgh sends Ottawa to the golf course in seven.

Western Conference Round Two

Calgary beats Anaheim in six games.

Vancouver over San Jose in five.

Eastern Conference Round Two

Buffalo sends Pittsburgh home in five.

New Jersey beats Atlanta in six games.

Western Final

Vancouver over Calgary in seven games.

Eastern Final

Buffalo over New Jersey in five.

Stanley Cup Final

Vancouver over Buffalo in six games, riots in Vancouver on Robson St.
-or
Buffalo over Vancouver in game seven overtime... riots in Vancouver on Robson St. :)

Once I had all the teams ranked and predicted how many games each they would play, then it's time to look at the top forwards and defensemen. I looked at their point totals and points-per-game over the regular season and multipled the ppg and the estimated games played to come up with a forecasted number of points for each player in the playoffs and then used that primarily to pick my team for the free-for-all pools. I tried to spread my picks out for contingencies... i.e. in case I'm so far off-base that it's laughable... it might happen! :) Here's my picks for the Paperman's Coffeehouse NHL Playoff Pool:

Forwards (nine)
Daniel Briere (Buf)
Thomas Vanek (Buf)
Maxim Afinogenov (Buf)
Daniel Sedin (Van)
Henrik Sedin (Van)
Jarome Iginla (Cgy)
Sidney Crosby (Pit)
Joe Thornton (SJ)
Marian Hossa (Atl)

Defensemen (six)
Chris Pronger (Ana)
Sergei Gonchar (Pit)
Brian Rafalski (NJ)
Brian Campbell (Buf)
Dion Phaneuf (Cgy)
Sami Salo (Van)

Goalies (two) [I'm not sure of the pool's rules yet, i.e. how goalies factor in, but winning is good I suppose)
Roberto Luongo (Van)
Ryan Miller (Buf)

I will admit to not being 100% logical where the Canucks are concerned. Rule number one of gambling is remove all emotion from your decisions, and I haven't entirely done that. I think a lot of people would like to see a Vancouver/Calgary Western final and Vancouver/Buffalo final with Vancouver ultimately winning and it is possible, and maybe even likely but it's definately not a shoe-in. If history has shown us anything, it's that Vancouver can choke so incredibly in the playoffs that it's not even funny. I am pretty confident in picking Buffalo to go to the finals, so my picks should hold up well... but we'll see :)

 Update: When I handed in my picks to Paul at Paperman's Coffeehouse this morning, he kind of smirked and said that a lot of people were "Buffalo and Vancouver -heavy" so we'll see how all that works out.