so here we are.
I be cheering for
Flo over Wash - with everything I got
TB over Tor, - flip of a coin, dont like either team
Bos over Car - a fair bit
NYR over Pitts - a lot
Nash over Col - a lot
St. L over Minn - a little bit, like both teams
Dallas over Cal - a lot
LAK over ED - a lot
I would like to see a Flo or NYR / Nash or ST. L or Minni Cup
Unfortunately for your hopes Nashville is done before it starts. They don’t have a goalie and staggered to an 8th place finish when all they needed to do was beat Arizona yesterday to avoid first round annihilation by the Avalanche. Bad for the Flames too.
Wondering if there is any interest in a playoff pool picking teams to win round by round?
The only team I really don't want to win is the Caps! 
It would be a travesty if he broke Gretzky's record
The only teams I want to win are the Roughriders and Tiger Cats.
Let’s have a pool to see if the Leafs get out of the 1st Round.
Hopefully we will be talking about that in November!
For fun I'll hand in my guesses for the first round.
Like I did with the 2022 CFL Forum Masters Tournament, I have elected to use the litmus configuration as an important part of my strategy.
The first three days of games on merely ESPN networks in the US blows - terrible decision by the NHL there. That reality changes on Thursday and I hope is never the case again.
Western Conference
Colorado
Saint Louis
Calgary
Edmonton
Eastern Conference
Florida
Toronto
Carolina
New York Rangers
Though I would love to see the usual failure given the flopping history of the Leafs, I am being the contrarian and choosing the Leafs to win in the first round.
I think they match up better against this year’s edition of the Tampa Bay Lightning.
I’m already interested as noted above. 
Agreed, but I still want to see their big experiment in corporate synergy fail.
West
CGY
EDM
COL
MIN
East
FLO
TB
CAR
PIT
The article by a Washington media outlet summarized what many, including myself, have posted regarding Ovie the terrible. Good post Grover!
That’s crappy news about the TV coverage.
The main reason I suggested the pool was so that we could have a new forum champion and hopefully wouldn’t have to be reminded of your Masters pool victory daily (just kidding). Good luck Paolo.
Alright. Grover and Paolo have made their first round picks. I’ll weigh in with mine below. I will volunteer to keep track of how everyone is doing. The winner will receive the coveted CFL Forum 2022 NHL Playoff Cup. I am hoping that @Maaax will volunteer to produce his usual excellent digital trophy for the winner.
We’ll keep the rules simple. All participants must pick the teams they think will win the series no later than one hour before game time of the start of each round. For the first round that will be tomorrow at 6 pm eastern, 5 central, 4 mountain and 3 pacific time. The winner will be the person who gets the most picks right through to the Final. If there is a tie then we will have a golf like count back to determine one winner, meaning that if two or more are tied then the winner will be the person who most recently had the most correct picks, counting back from the Final. In other words, if one person picked the Final winner correctly and another didn’t, the latter will be eliminated and if both picked the Final correctly we will then go to the semi final and so on.
As always, everyone is welcome to pick, even if they are a Leafs fan. Good luck to everyone.
My picks:
Carolina. (over Boston)
Tampa (over you know who)
St. Louis (over Minnesota)
Edmonton. (over LA)
Pitt (over NYR)
Florida (Ovie Wash)
Colorado (over Nashville)
Calgary (over Dallas)
I consider the St. Louis/Minn, Pitt/NYR and Calgary/Dallas series to be the closest and hardest to pick, although there will no doubt be upsets in the other series. I have always thought that the best round for excitement of any playoffs in any sport is the first round of the NHL playoffs. Only the second round of the NFL playoffs comes close. May everyone do well but be at least one short of my correct total.
My picks:
Florida
Tampa
Carolina
NYR
Colorado
St. Louis
LA Kings (my heart won't let me pick against them.) 
Calgary
The Kings aren’t as big an upset pick as many think. All you have to do to beat the Oilers is shut down two players, which admittedly isn’t easy as they are two of the top 10 players in the world. Also shoot lots at their suspect goaltending. The Kings gave a huge edge in net with two time Cup winner Quick.
I feel standings do not represent teams at all this year
Lots of strong teams heading home early and some weaker teams who just fluked into playoffs
Colorado destroys Nashville. Nashville has been terrible all the way back to March and they are facing Colorado.
Minnesota edges out St Louis. Evenly matched in so many ways, I just like Minny better.
Calgary over Dallas. Calgary tends to choke an awful lot but they are just too good to fold in first round again. Right? Excluding the covid injuries when AHL players got ice time they have been dominant all season. And hot goalie.
I want Edmonton to beat LA but this is more a wish than a confident vote. Kings are tough this year. Only thing going in Edm favour is LA had a weak finish to season.
Florida over Washington. Florida (like Col) has been unreal this year and Washington is just ok.
Tampa over Toronto. The juiciest and most obvious upset material is right here. Tampa is the better team. Toronto scored more beating up patsies during regular season but goaltending is gonna cost them again
Carolina looks stronger I just am not feeling good choosing them. This is another upset primed to happen.
Rangers over Pittsburgh. Just on goaltending alone. Scoring is similar and teams are similar pointwise.
You win the award for the hardest to decipher picks. I will mark you down for Edmonton and Carolina, along with your other picks, unless you tell me differently.
Pretty clear I chose em
I just do not feel confident on them
Good picks. I agree the STL vs Minny is a tough pick. I went with Blues because if I recall they swept the season series against the Wild. Still though Kaprizov on the Wild is lethal. I’ve seen him take over games all by himself.
The Oilers vs Kings will be interesting. At about the 60 game mark in the regular season the Kings had a string of injuries. They had 8 players out and approximately $35 million of their cap was sitting in IR. As some of these players returned the Kings made a nice final push and finished their last 6 games with a 5-0-1 record. They are still missing Doughty but the rest of their young defencemen need to step up.
