Western Conference Predictions for the NHL Playoffs

The Toronto Maple Leafs will open the playoffs tonight against the Boston Bruins.

For the Toronto Maple Leafs, there is a lot riding on this series. The corporation that owns the team has an incoming new President who may just fire everyone invovled if things don't go well this spring, since it's been seven years and absolutely zero success.

In addition to that pressure, the Leafs will be looking to beat a team that has had their number in both the playoffs and regular season for years now.

While we did predict the Leafs to win, the series promises to be quite the battle, and likely is the best matchup of the first round.

We made our other predictions for the East earlier this week, but it wasn't until Thursday night when the final matchups out west were settled.

Now that we know who is going to play who, it's time to throw down on the rest of our predictions. If you're a better and looking for advice, please look elsewhere as my pre-season predictions turned out to be terrible!

Turns out that Auston Mattews didn't score 77 times, and the Leafs didn't win the President's Trophy and Mitch Marner didn't win the Art Ross. There were some good guesses, but no accuate ones!

Hopefully I do a bit better on my playoff picks.

Western Conference Playoff Predictions

LA Kings vs Edmonton Oilers

The Oilers have the easiest path to the Conference Finals, maybe ever, but unfortuanately they've played and beaten LA two years in a row. This year I predict that LA wins and Edmonton has to face the fact that their GM is one of the worst in the NHL. I predict seven games.

Vancouver Canucks vs Nashville Predators

The Predators are on fire and have the best goalie in the series and so they will win. Six games for the Predators.

Colorado Avalanche vs Winnipeg Jets

Once again, you have to go with the goalie. Only in the the Leafs Bruins series do you see this kind of goaltending mismatch. The Jets have the best goalie in the NHL and will win this series in six.

Vegas Golden Knights vs Dallas Stars

The Golden Knights are the defending champs and have stacked their roster with ill-gotten gains. This is a great matchup worthy of the final, and it could go either way. I'll say Vegas in seven.