2008 NHL STANLEY CUP PLAYOFFS: FIRST ROUND REPORT CARD

The second round of the 2008 Stanley Cup playoffs starts tonight, so it's time for a first round blognostication report cards.

Kris: 6/8. Great job by the BIGGEST SABRES FAN IN FRANCE, considering he can only view barely-illegal hockey through his laptop using a convoluted collection of wires, aluminum foil, ball bearings, duct tape and whiskey. Additionally, the distance allowed him to not get sucked in by Ovechkin Fever like I did, and he learned to stop worrying and love Sid n' MAF.
Grade: B+

Jeff: 5/8. I got the entire Campbell Conference correct despite only being able to see about 8% of the games on VERSUS. However, I choked on the Wales, only picking the Habs to move on, as the Devs and Sens turned out to be just as crappy as they appeared to be.
Grade: C

Rob: 1/1. After the Devils won home ice the last day of the regular season, he sent me a text message saying: "Meh. Rangers in 5." Spot on!
Grade: INCOMPLETE

Every Facet Of The Game blog made a nifty comparison chart comparing human "hockey expert" picks vs. EA Sports' NHL 08. As it turns out the computer simulation got 100% of its picks correct. Now that's scary. As Wyshynski deftly noted, ESPN's Barry Melrose was rocked by Barry Melrose Rocks. Special shout-out to Ashley at Ultimate Hat Trick who got 7/8 correct. Nicely done! I guess it pays to spend a lot of time in the hockey hotbed of Nova Scotia. (Slow down there, Maestro: there's a NEW Scotland?)

Anyway, in light of this shocking news I will be posting my own computer predictions using NHL 2002 on the PC with the current playoff rosters. I doubt they will be as accurate as these, but who knows?

(Coming soon, as I forgot to bring the game with me to work.)