It’s great to see five Canadian teams make the NHL playoffs this year, but nostalgic or sentimental allegiances can make it the thorny task of untangling the winners from the losers and the roses from the pricks all the more difficult, writes Jim Algie.
I’d love to see Montreal upset the Capitals in the first round, but that’s probably wishful drinking. After all, the Canadiens choke so often that every member of the team and the coaching staff should have to learn how to do the Heimlich maneuver, so the Habs don’t become the Hab nots.
The Leafs are odds-on favorites to impeach the Senators in the Battle of Ontario, despite the fact that Ottawa won all three regular-season games against them.
The Oilers’ captain Connor McDavid is one of the league’s most incandescent stars.
OILERS VS KINGS, JETS VS THE BLUES
Can our hometown heroes the Edmonton Oilers dethrone the Kings four years in a row in the NHL playoffs? Plagued by injuries to key players like goalkeeper Stuart Skinner, the Oilers are on the ropes and the Kings have home-rink advantage. Nevertheless, Edmonton’s comeback in the first game was a tribute to Yogi Berra’s old sporting adage: “it ain’t over till it’s over.”
After Winnipeg victories in the first two games of the series made St. Louis moan the blues, the Jets have the best chance of flying the Stanley Cup back to Canada for the first time in 32 years.
But what do I know? Some of the commentators on Sportsnet are predicting that the Leafs will drink champagne from the cup this year because they’re thirstier for it after a decades-long drought and losing spree. The great Wayne Gretzky, whose all-time goal-scoring record was smashed this year by Alex Ovechkin from the Cap, predicts that the Oilers will face off against Tampa Bay in the finals.
But in the playoffs anything can happen: Champs become chumps; underdogs have their day; lackluster players in the regular season shine with new potential.
My old teammate Greg “The Goon” Burley taught us that it doesn’t even matter whether you win or lose, as long as you rough up as many opposition players as possible and have fun doing it.
Elbows up Leafs, Habs, Sens, Jets and Oilers.
Jim Algie is a former hockey goalie whose books are available on Amazon.
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