Somewhat surprisingly, two Conference Finals that were supposed to be epic wound up being mismatches, in terms of games at least.  Boston’s shocking sweep over Pittsburgh – outscoring the Penguins 12-3 in the series – after all of Ray Shero‘s eye-catching deadline moves makes you wonder about the future of coach Dan Bylsma, and displaced goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury (clearly outplayed in the playoffs by vet Tomas Vokoun).  Not to mention the inquest over what happened to Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, as the Pens’ vaunted offense was a total no-show against the Bruins with Pittsburgh scoring a mere two goals as a team in the four-game series.

Chicago’s five-game win over LA was at least competitive most of the way through, with four of the five games being nail-biters, including the dramatic double-OT finale last night with Patrick Kane getting the winner in a 4-3 final.  Kane awakened from a playoff-long malaise just in time for a decisive hat trick in the game which finally eliminated a gritty champion.  Perhaps the biggest surprise of that series was much-maligned Corey Crawford clearly outplaying Conn Smythe winning Johnathan Quick in net, with Quick giving up a series of questionable goals against the Hawks (including Duncan Keith‘s opening salvo last night) after being every bit as dominant in the first two rounds as he was during last year’s historic playoff run.

Despite not having the defending champs in the Final, or the best player in the game, or the biggest US market in NY, the NHL in the end got itself a pretty good final with its fourth Original Six matchup of the playoffs – this time between Boston and Chicago, two big US markets with plenty of star power and big-name players on both sides.  Especially given the fact both teams are recent Cup winners (three years ago for the Blackhawks, two years ago for the Bruins).  Interestingly, both teams have different goalies than they did in their Cup-winning years, but Crawford and the Bruins’ Tuukka Rask have been equal to the task in the first three rounds, posting nearly identical numbers – Rask with a 1.75 GAA and .943 save percentage in sixteen games, Crawford with a 1.74 GAA and .937 save percentage in seventeen postseason games.

Incredibly, the last matchup between these two teams was in early October 2011, as the teams only met that one time in the United Center (a Bruins shootout win) during the ’11-12 season and not at all in ’12-13 due to the conference-dominated schedule in the 48-game season.  Part of each team’s strength is its relative lack of turnover though, as each team’s roster has remained relatively stable over the last couple of seasons, aside from the goalie changes.  And with all of the coaching turnover happening in the league – the Oilers’ Ralph Kruger being the latest to go just yesterday – a much-maligned Claude Julien and the Hawks’ Joel Quenneville are among the longest-tenured coaches in the league.

Without going into a big preview, this seems to be a fairly even series, with Chicago having a slight advantage offensively and Boston a slight advantage defensively.  Then again, both Conference Finals seemed to be tight matchups on paper and wound up not being that way.  And the last time the NHL had a Final where neither team had met during the season, the Devils pulled a surprising sweep of the President’s Trophy-winning Red Wings in 1995.  I doubt this year’s President’s Trophy winners (the Hawks) suffer a similar fate but the Bruins have looked like a different team since nearly imploding against Toronto in the first round.  Commissioner Gary Bettman can only hope this series turns out like the two prior Original Six seven-game classics in the playoffs where the Bruins and Hawks each faced crisis moments against Toronto and Detroit, respectively – as opposed to the five-game dud that was Bruins-Rangers.

If you’re looking to handicap Conn Smythe candidates, Crawford’s the clear favorite if Chicago wins to this point with nobody else having standout offensive numbers yet.  Rask is a favorite for the Bruins, but so are offensive standouts David Krejci (9-12-21, +14) and Nathan Horton (7-10-17, +21).  Not to mention you can’t ever count defensive stalwart Zdeno Chara out of the running (2-9-11, +12) after the Bruins’ defense put on a clinic against some of the best offensive players in the sport in the Conference Finals, and will need to be at their best again in the Stanley Cup Finals with threats like Kane, Johnathan Toews and Patrick Sharp to worry about, along with playoff surprise Bryan Bickell.  Of course, the Bruins have their own playoff surprise that the Hawks need to account for in defenseman Torrey Krug (4-2-6, +5 in nine games since getting into the lineup).  I’d probably pick the Bruins in six – only because I’m sticking with my preseason prediction of the Bruins winning the Cup – but neither team winning would surprise me really, unless it was in fewer than six games.

Although other teams don’t want to make news during the playoffs, there’ll be plenty of decisions to be made soon enough with the draft in three weeks and free agency starting less than a month from today.  God knows the Devils have enough free agents – again – to fill a lot of column space over speculation and intrigue.  Many coaching vacancies still need to be filled (including the Rangers, Canucks, Stars and Oilers…though most expect them to hire Dallas Eakins), and at least one more may join the ranks if Dave Tippett decides not to return to Phoenix.  Dallas did make some news over the weekend, dealing a sixth-rounder to Ottawa for defenseman Sergei Gonchar, then signing him to a two-year, $10 million deal.  Ironically their new GM did something Joe Nieuwendyk was heavily criticized for…bringing in over-the-hill players on multi-year deals.  It’s been a while since the Avs hired one-time goaltending legend Patrick Roy to be their coach, but boy that’ll be interesting to watch.  Especially with the apparent power struggle going on there, and Roy being a de facto GM as well (perhaps even auctioning off the top pick).

Not to mention one more announcement can finally be made during the Stanley Cup Finals which many local hockey fans have been waiting for – will Martin Brodeur make the cover of the NHL14 videogame or not?  That ‘campaign’ took on a life of its own during the offseason, especially with some of the internet jabs back and forth between the Devils’ and Blue Jackets’ twitter accounts during the last round of voting (since the Jackets’ Sergei Bobrovsky was the other finalist).  Many Devil fans even had voted for Bobrovsky in the previous round, fearing the Isles’ John Tavares would be a tougher foe in the finals – much like real-life politics where sometimes in tight primaries the opposite party will attempt to vote for whoever they have a better chance of beating.

While you never know sometimes with fan voting, especially in the days of internet power ballots, I do expect Marty to win and ironically it seems as if the Devils are getting more outside publicity now than they were when they were winning three Cups in nine years.  Having the draft, an outdoor game and potentially getting on the cover of a popular hockey video game all inside the same off-season is astounding really.  All that’s left is an All-Star game and usually that comes a couple years after the draft, though there isn’t going to be an All-Star game next year in all likelihood with the Olympics in Sochi.

Not that any of that will help us get on national TV anymore, but hey with all of Steve and Chico’s idiosyncrascies, I still prefer them and our pregame/postgame/intermission to what NBC does and most of who they employ anyway.  At least I’ll be able to watch the Finals without cringing, ironically having all the teams I have an axe to grind with for one reason for another out of the playoffs will make me more likely to watch, as I’d rather not get too emotionally invested in the postseason with the Devils not involved.  I have still watched the highlights of every game on NHL.com though.

Oh and one other thing, if anyone even cares at this point, the full and unabridged CBA has finally been written and released to the public in the last few days (it’s over 500 pages):

http://cdn.agilitycms.com/nhlpacom/PDF/NHL_NHLPA_2013_CBA.pdf