Does anyone think the West has a chance this year?

[2023FriendshipTour]

Colorado and St. Louis can take any team in the East if healthy. Dallas or Vegas would put a good fight if they made it through.

 

[Imnotagoodposter]

I don't know of anybody that had the Blues winning about a year ago, or the Jackets sweeping Tampa. So you never know.

I had the blues winning the cup. Didn’t have Tampa getting swept though.

 

[onetweasy]

Eastern Conference being overrated....shocking

 

[snipes]

Stanley Cup champs coming from the Pacific. Confirmed.

 

[Elysian]

Any of the top 3 in the Central have a good enough shot, IMO.

 

[onetweasy]

I always like the teams that are in the habit of grinding out 3-2 wins and have faced some degree of adversity through the year.

High scoring teams that coast through the regular season always seem to fall flat on their face in Round 1. Tampa and the Flames showed this last year.

So I say a team from the West wins it!

 

[Magic Mittens]

Why do people keep saying the West has an easier path to the finals? Just because the East has more teams in the top 10 doesn’t have anything to do with it being harder on the players bodies

let’s take the Avs for example, say they make the finals and had to go through Dallas, STL and Vegas. I’d feel pretty safe to say they’d that all three of those series would be just as physical of even more physical then what the final East team went through

Also look how close the west divisions are in points, there should be a lot of 6 or 7 game series

 

[Atas2000]

The Blues are the obvious maybe, but have looked very meh lately.
The Avs if they figure out how to play well consistently.
Everyone else is pretty blah.

The East on the other hand

Caps - awesome
Pens - getting healthy
Bruins - awesome
Lightning - figured it out
Sabres - Scary good

It's not like 8 western teams are going to play in the Finals. It takes only one good team. And by the same logic you are using, the grind in the East will be tremendous. Whoever beats out all thoese eastern powers might be gassed, decimated and stick-a-fork-in-them done come SCF.

 

[Muikea Bulju]

Sabres - Scary good

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

Of course the West has a chance. They're guaranteed to have a team in the finals. So the "West" probably has a better shot than any individual team, given they're guaranteed to make it that far.

Yes, that's a bit pedantic. But it's true. If you're guaranteed a shot at being one of the two teams in the finals, then you've got a chance.

 

[DL44]

Thank god only one Eastern team can make the final eh.

 

[Crow]

I’d give them a 49% chance

 

[DL44]

The Blues are the obvious maybe, but have looked very meh lately.
The Avs if they figure out how to play well consistently.
Everyone else is pretty blah.

The East on the other hand

Caps - awesome
Pens - getting healthy
Bruins - awesome
Lightning - figured it out
Sabres - Scary good

A team from the West is GUARANTEED to win more playoff games than every team on the above list, except one.

 

[c9777666]

That's why they play the games

 

[thaman8765678]

Also I find it amazing people are writing Vegas off. They've got one of the deepest forward depth in the league, a goalie who steps up in the playoffs and many players who step up in playoffs.

They also likely get to beat up on the Flames/Oilers/Canucks until the conference finals.