Forget the Experts: Habs in Six!!!

Game One of the first round of the Habs second season starts tomorrow and things don’t look good on paper for the Bleu-Blanc-Rouge.

Many have the Washington Capitals ousting Montreal in four games. The chart below breaks down some of the predictions. You will find links to their justifications by clicking on the names.

Name	Affiliation	Prediction
The Hockey News		Capitals in Four
Pat Hickey	HIO/Mtl Gazette	Capitals in Six
Mike Brophy	Rogers Sportsnet	Capitals in Six
“The Panel”	TSN	Capitals in Five
Scott Morrison	CBC/HNIC	Capitals in Five
Mike Boone	Habs Inside/Out	Capitals in Five

The Vegas Odds courtesy of the Las Vegas Hiton Superbook and additional comments from Todd Jacobs.

Montreal Canadians +460 vs Washington Capitals -600.

Another eight seed, the Montreal Canadians taking on a formidable opponent in the number one seed Washington Capitals. Why are the Washington Capitals -600? Alex Ovechkin is one NHL player that can take control of every game. Washington should skate circles around the once proud Montreal team. Washington -600 will beat Montreal soundly in four games.

Call me crazy, or just a solid gut feeling, but along with CJAD play-by-play man Rick Moffat (although he does have a question mark up), I say Habs in six.

The injury-riddled Canadiens managed to hold their own against the Capitals in the regular season, and a team that is closer to 100% health wise has a great shot of upending the top seed.

Arguments will say “but this is the playoffs, it’s a different season”. Why yes it is, and perhaps they should look up the Canadiens first-round playoff success in 1971 and 2002.

Both of those came from outstanding goaltending (Ken Dryden and Jose Theodore respectively). The Capitals never saw Jaroslav Halak this season….hmmmm.

The fact that everyone is ranting how Jose Theodore has returned to his Vezina and Hart form has me strongly sensing the final two games of the second round of the 2002 playoffs coming back to haunt him.

As for the verbal exchanges between Theodore and the Canadiens Tomas Plekanec, all I’ll say is time to put your words aside and prove yourselves on the ice.

Habs in six!

Recommended reading:

OK there are tons of articles and blog postings out there on the upcoming series, and the puck has yet to drop for the first game.

Here’s just a few suggestions. There are several more on my blogroll to the right.

HabsEyesOnThePrize.com : Robert has been firing out stats/history and everything else since he knew who the Habs were facing in the first round.

The Daily-Hab-it: Arpon Basu is not only an excellent blogger nd writer, but has the inside track as CBC’s playoff blogger for the Habs.

Dennis Kane: Just because it’s Dennis Kane.

BerkshireontheHabs: Nothing playoffs related just yet, but Andrew has a great compilation of top-10 games from the Canadiens regular season to get us fired up.