Thursday’s NHL Picks
Our team of writers and handicappers hand out their hockey playoffs picks and predictions for Thursday, April 16.
Montreal Canadiens at Boston Bruins, 7:05PM ET
Tim Thomas played in the NCAA Frozen Four, the world hockey championships and the finals of European pro leagues.
He thought he was ready.
Now he knows he wasn’t.
“I thought, ‘It can’t be that much different.’ I was wrong,” the Boston Bruins goalie said this week as he recalled his NHL playoff debut against the Montreal Canadiens last year. “It was even more than what people were trying to tell me. It’s funner, more emotional, more of an adrenaline rush than I could ever imagine.”
The Bruins and Canadiens are at it again, hooking up for a first-round playoff series that begins Thursday night in Boston. It will be the 32nd postseason meeting – the most of any NHL matchup – between the Original Six and Northeast Division foes, including last year’s series that Montreal won in seven games.
NHL Free Pick: Boston – View Game Matchup | Best Line: -230 SBG Global
Calgary Flames at Chicago Blackhawks, 8:35PM ET
A parking lot now sits where the “Madhouse on Madison” once rested, the venerable Chicago Stadium and it’s earsplitting confines. It’s where Mike Keenan once roamed behind the Blackhawks’ bench.
His stint as coach from 1988-92 produced 60 playoff games, 33 postseason victories and a trip to the Stanley Cup finals in 1992.
“We had a pretty good run there, 60 playoff games in four years. You couldn’t get a seat in the building and I think they’ve brought that back to life,” Keenan said this week.
A man who has seemingly toured the NHL filling vacancies, Keenan comes back to Chicago for Thursday night’s Game 1 of the opening-round playoff series as coach of the Calgary Flames.
And hockey has also returned in Chicago. Two years ago the United Center could be half-empty, but now after a complete makeover by owner Rocky Wirtz and the infusion of young players, the Blackhawks are a big draw again. And they’re back in the playoffs for the first time in seven years.
NHL Free Pick: Calgary – View Game Matchup | Best Line: +140 SBG Global
Anaheim Ducks at San Jose Sharks, 10:35PM ET
California’s hockey fans – yes, they exist, and yes, they know which end of a Zamboni is up – haven’t seen a playoff series between two native teams since 1969.
The San Jose Sharks’ upcoming meeting with the Anaheim Ducks just might turn out to be worth the wait.
This long-simmering rivalry finally should reach a full boil when the NHL’s best regular-season team from Silicon Valley takes on the still-vital core of Orange County’s 2007 Stanley Cup champions in Game 1 Thursday night at the Shark Tank.
Except for its pedestrian first-round setting, every element seems in place to produce a series that could become a landmark in the history of two relatively young franchises.
“It’s great to get to play for California, NorCal versus SoCal,” Sharks All-Star Joe Thornton said. “Now that’s fun. That’s a rivalry there.”
From Montreal-Boston to Colorado-Detroit and several stops in between, Claude Lemieux has been in the thick of the NHL’s stormiest rivalries since several players on both teams were toddlers – and the 43-year-old San Jose forward sees a beauty brewing off the West Coast.
NHL Free Pick: San Jose – View Game Matchup | Best Line: -230 SBG Global
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Posted: 4/16/01:45 AM ET