2023 NHL Stanley Cup play-off forecast

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That probably tells the whole story…

Western Conference

Quarters

  1. Colorado Avalanche – Seattle Kraken: This will not even be a surprise. Besides, Seattle is quickly becoming my favorite team, albeit pit head-to-head against my other favorite team. And they have a cool-ass name. Clean sweep.
  2. Dallas – Minnesota: A boring match-up. Jason Robertson will be the decisive factor. Stars in six.
  3. Vegas – Jets: Jets simply do not have the manpower what with Blake Wheeler past his zenith and all to even challenge Golden Knights under the mighty leadership of Jack Eichel, who shall prevail in four.
  4. Edmonton Oilers – Los Angeles Kings: Really? You really think Edmonton has what it takes this year to inch further into the play-offs?

Semis

  1. Seattle – Dallas: Kraken will repeat Vegas’ maiden fairy-tale run into the Stanley Cup finals and no Mr Robertson is stopping them, however much I like him (and his team).
  2. Vegas – Kings: Vegas have historically punched above their weight in play-offs and this year will be no different. A tough match-up with Golden Knights’ teamwork taking them further a stage in six.

Finals

  1. Kraken – Knights: In the tough battle of the rookies it shall be the rookier of the 2K who, after going all the way, advances.

Eastern Conference

Quarters

  1. Boston – Florida: Again a battle of my two favorite teams. Boston has been too much of a hot shot to encounter significant problems. With a single hitch, i.e. in five.
  2. Toronto – Tampa: Maple Leafs, my perennial favorite for Stanley Cup champions, advanced to the next round last time 20 years ago, even before the 2004/05 NHL lockout. Yet I will foolishly continue to believe in them; they shall make it to the second round this time around, but the seven-match marathon will tire them out of their wits.
  3. Hurricanes – Islanders: An unremarkable match that will last an unremarkable amount of games with a wholly unremarkable competitor advancing further. Islanders’ fans will salivate at the prospect of encountering their city rival, but alas!
  4. Devils – Rangers: Devils had a too much of a good season to squander it at the hands of the first round. Jack Hughes has finally awoken!

Semis

  1. Bruins – Maple Leafs: Toronto will have made the job so much easier for the Bruins. A battle with Tampa Bay could very much go all the way to the unpredictable seventh match. Maple Leafs are not meant to advance beyond the 2nd round, at least in my calculations, that is.
  2. New Jersey – New York: Islanders will have gotten a slightly different derby than they originally imagined, one where it will not be so unpredictable to tell the winner. Islanders are an under-performer when it comes to play-offs and it will certainly remain that way.

Finals

  1. Bruins – Devils: New Jersey is not star-studded enough to make it past perhaps out-of-form, but still excellent Boston.

Stanley Cup finals

  1. Boston Bruins – Seattle Kraken: Bruins have waited for the Cup unacceptably long, despite their unarguably talented bunch. With their line-up and regular season history-breaking record, only another top contender of the likes of Tampa with sufficient play-off experience could possibly stop them, not a rookie of Kraken weight class. They will be anough to put up a scare or two, but I don’t expect it to extend beyond 6 matches.

Even more ‘Little known facts’ on tennis

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The “Drama Queen” of tennis

Not sure if you noticed, but Bianca (Vanessa) Andreescu has lost only a single (singles) match (she hasn’t really played any doubles) since… the Australian Open! That’s pretty unheard of, especially in the competitiveness of today’s women’s tennis:

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Whatever happened to Simona Halep?

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Cincinnati, Sunday, August 19th, 2018. Final of the WTA Premier 5 Western & Southern Open (a.k.a. Cincinnati Masters) pitted the Romanian Simona Halep, the World no. 1 everything had been going great for in the past year, and the Dutch Kiki Bertens.

Halep was leading 6-2 and had a matchpoint in the tie-break of the next set at 6-5. She did not convert and quickly lost the tie-break. With it, the second set. And then the subsequent third set in a fairly straightforward manner, losing her first three serves.

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2017 NHL Stanley Cup play-off forecast, Part I

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It’s that time of the year again… Now, the regular season is not over yet, but I feel so strongly about this year’s play-off that I have to share my impressions ere it is too late!

Of course I will be rooting – as usual – for my perennial favorite San José Sharks. But this year I feel like it (The Stanley Cup) is going to be snatched by one of the very young teams. Three competitors that come to my mind are Toronto, Tampa Bay, and Edmonton, of which about the Maple Leafs I feel most strongly.

Now I know that it is highly unlikely both Toronto and Tampa would advance into the play-offs and since I don’t know the exact pairings for the play-off bracket, I will only provide my preliminary assessment.

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More ‘Little known facts’ on tennis

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Enter men’s singles of the 2014 Kremlin Cup. The final was between Marin Čilić of Croatia and Spaniard Roberto Bautista Agut. The result? 6-4 6-4 in favor of the Croat. A year later is when the coincidences start. 2015 Kremlin Cup again, men’s singles, and the final is… you guessed it, Marin Čilić vs. Roberto Bautista Agut. The winner is – Marin Čilić, and the score is vaguely familiar 6-4 6-4. A perfectly orchestrated performance.

Take this one, now, quite a recent one: 2016 Dubai WTA tournament. In the women’s singles’ draw, every single seeded player has lost her first match. That means, every single seed left the tournament as early as possible (be it a 1st round or a 2nd round, since some higher seeds received bye to start in the 2nd round). That’s quite a feat! One of these seeds, Belinda Bencic, became the antiwinner. Now, the antiwinner is the player that loses to the player that loses, in the next round, to the player that, then, goes on to lose to the player… and so on. You get the picture. There can be only one antiwinner per tournament and I will write a bit more on that topic in one of the next posts.

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On golden sets

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Julien Bennetau (FRA) is considered one of the best tennis players… that has never won an ATP tournament. Thus says Wikipedia. Well I don’t know about that but he certainly is one of the unluckiest. To lose ten finals in a row you’d think you’re jinxed or what…

Speaking of unlikely records, there is one very interesting tennis set of note. Yaroslava Shvedova (KAZ) led Amy Frazier (USA) 5-0, 40-0 in the first set and she was on serve. Up until that point she had won every single ball in that set. She had won impossible 23 out of 23 points played by that fateful moment. In other words, she had won every single game 40-0.

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Little known facts about Australian Open in Open Era

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In 1976 the quarter-final stage featured exclusively Australians. That’s eight Australians in the final stages, and no-one else! It also marks the last time the Australian Open has been won by an… Australian!

Incidentally (as of 2015) this very same guy remains the lowest-ranked player ever (he was, like, 212th in the world at the time) to win a Grand Slam!

Continue reading “Little known facts about Australian Open in Open Era” →