THE PLAYOFFS ARE HERE!!!!

I haven’t been doing much writing lately because I’ve been busting my hump at work and at work (second, side gig). This weekend I ended up working an extra 24 hours and I’m exhausted. The network exploded at school last week and I spent all week fighting fires (including one server room filled with smoke). Then I worked myself to the bone (literally, with stitches in my arm) on my theater project. The show goes up on Thursday and there’s still a major set piece to build tonight. We hung and rehung the Cyc, a set of travellers, a teaser, 2 sets of legs and took down a set of legs. We loaded in all the lighting gear, hung it and focused yesterday. The major cleaning started yesterday too, including moving 200′ of traveller track from a pile on the back wall to a pile up on the fly bridge.

The point being that I’m physically and mentally exhausted from working my ass off.

HOWEVER, it is now the playoffs and a flurry of activity has taken place this morning. I now have tickets to the Devils/Rangers first round at The Rock (games 1 and 2) with the promise of more tickets for the MSG games on the way. The seats aren’t as amazing as what I’ve been blessed with all year, but that’s to be expected.

I also took the morning to make some predictions.

1. This will be a year of no major upsets.
2. Malkin will be MVP.
3. Ty Conklin will redeem himself in one game and all will be forgiven with Pens fans.

I also worked out my bracket.

East

Round 1

• Habs will trash the Bruins, but it’ll take 6.
• Pens will beat the Sens because the Sens will fail to play physical enough. The Sens aren’t fast enough to catch the Pens without playing a heavy check and they aren’t coordinated enough at this point to check hard and not give up the easy goals.
• Caps in 5. Damn straight.
• Devils in 6, of which at least 3 go to OT.

Round 2

• Habs take down the Devils in 6. It’ll be close, but the Devils defense will crumble.
• Pens take down the Caps in 5. The Pens have too much depth for the Caps to shut down. The Caps have… OV.

Finals

• Pens upset the Habs in 5.

West

Round 1

• Wings in 5 over the Preds. The Preds have something to prove, so they’ll make it interesting.
• Sharks lose in a 4-game rout to the Flames. Iginla and Phaneuf will rattle their confidence and they seem fragile right now.
• Wild in 7 over the Avs. Yes, they might be old but they’re playing tighter.
• The Stars beat the Ducks in 6. The 4 they win will be routs, embarrassing anybody who thought Neidermeyer #1 was a god and making Teemu piss himself with one HUGE check.

Round 2

• The Wings dominate the Flames in an uneventful 4.
• The Wild beat down the Stars, unless Turco pulls a career series out of his ass. Without amazing goal-tending, the injuries will defeat the Stars.

Round 3

• The Wild take the Wings to 7 games, but lose in the final 2 minutes.

I don’t like it, but I see the Pens bringing home the big one this year.

Discuss. Now. Please?