Maggie the Monkey has officially made her NHL Playoff picks for the first round.   The monkey is an actual monkey that spins a wheel to choose which teams will win their respective match.

Her picks this year are the Detroit Red Wings, Minnesota Wild, Nashville Predators, Buffalo Sabres, New Jersey Devils, Atlanta Thrashers and Pittsburgh Penguins and the Vancouver Canucks.

SO are you smarter then a monkey?   or know more about hockey then a monkey?    Then make your first round picks and see who does better.       Or just sit back and watch how the ‘experts’ lose to the monkey.

Oh I know, you hardly took notice that the NHL regular season came to an end yesterday, but there’s no need for you to be ashamed or anything. With NBC’s spotty coverage and Versus being the cable equivalent of a low-powered community-college UHF station, it’s easy to overlook hockey sometimes, even though it is one of the four major pro sports on this continent. But the Stanley Cup playoffs are finally here so just think of it like baseball: You don’t watch those regular season games either, but you still tune in for the post-season.

The chase for the Cup gets underway on Wednesday when the Penguins of Pittsburgh face off against the Ottawa Senators. The Pens, of course, have that young phenom Sidney Crosby, who led the league with 120 points, including 36 goals. The Sens, meanwhile, have a bunch of players not named Sidney Crosby, but they do have Dany Heatley and goalie Ray Emery. Still, they don’t have anyone named Crosby or Jordan Staal or Evgeni Malkin, so I’m pretty sure Ottawa is going down in the first round (sorry Canada), but this could be the best series of the whole post-season.

Also on Wednesday, the Dallas Stars get their series underway against Vancouver. Now you might be thinking you heard once that Dallas is pretty good, but that was in 1999 when they won the Cup; this Stars team is the one that sorta just gets into the playoffs and then gets booted in the first round. The Canucks, with the Sedin twins and goalie Roberto Luongo will be tough to beat this year.

You’ve also got the Minnesota Wild kicking off their series against Anaheim. This should be a pretty good series, too, since this is Minnesota’s first trip to the playoffs since the first Bush was president and they had a team called the North Stars, so those fans in Minneapolis should be plenty fired up. It might even be enough for them to steal this one away from The Team Formerly Known as The Mighty Ducks.

Lastly, the San Jose Sharks take on the Nashville Predators. The Preds look pretty good on paper, but they play in a division with Chicago, Columbus, and St. Louis, so looks can be deceiving. Still, I’m picking Music City over Silicon Valley because Sharks fans cursed themselves last year by booing the Canadian national anthem.

On to Thursday night and more Eastern Conference action, the Buffalo Sabres start their run for the Cup with a little practice time against the Islanders, while the New Jersey Devils go through the motions against Tampa Bay. The Isles have no hope of making it past the first round, but it’s nice to see them back in the hunt, I guess. The only hope for Tampa is . . . well, there really is no hope for them either.

The last series in the East is the Rangers vs. the Thrashers. The who? That’s right, the Atlanta Thrashers are not only in the playoffs but they are in as a division champion. Of course, saying Atlanta had the best team in the Southeast is like saying you’re the smartest one on the short bus. Still, the mighty NY Rangers aren’t much better and will probably get booted in the first round.

That leaves us with Calgary and Detroit. Yes, Detroit is one of the best in the league and the top seed in the West, but how can you possibly root for the Red Wings? That’s like rooting for the Yankees, yawn. Plus, they’re owned by a pizza empire, a bad pizza empire at that. No, everyone out there should be rooting on the plucky Flames to score an upset here, and they just might, though it’ll mean they have to win at least one on the road, which they haven’t been able to do often this year. But this is the playoffs and everything changes now.

So America, are you ready for some hockey?

The final weekend of the NHL regular season is upon us, and what a doozie it will be. There are a couple division races still to be decided and two playoff spots are up for grabs.

Montreal and Toronto battle it out tonight for the eighth seed in the East with a one-point margin separating the two teams. Les Habitants have lost eight of their last 10 games on the road, while the mighty Maple Leafs are looking to match a franchise record nine straight wins at home.

But don’t forget about the New York Islanders. The Isles are just two points behind the Canadiens with two games left to play, so a loss by Montreal could open the door for the team from the suburbs. New York squares off against the awful, retched Flyers this afternoon but they’ll need to get past the division champion Devils if they want a shot at post-season glory.

Speaking of division champions, the top spot in the Northwest division is still up for grabs with Vancouver enjoying a one-point margin over the Minnesota Wild. The Canucks could clinch the title if they can beat the red-hot Sharks tonight, but San Jose is playing for their own division title, needing a win and a loss by Anaheim to best the Ducks in the Pacific. Minnesota, meanwhile, gets a break as they play the not as bad as last year but still not very good St. Louis Blues.

There’s more excitement in the West, though, as Calgary tries to fend off Colorado for the eighth seed in the playoff. Three points is the margin, but both teams have two games to play. The Flames host the provincial rival Oilers tonight and could clinch with a win, but a loss would open the door for the Avs, who play Nashville at home. The two teams square off tomorrow in what could be a do-or-die showdown.

Now with all that going on in the world of hockey, you’d think that the NHL’s national broadcast partner would be pleased as punch and scrambling to get some of these great games on the air. You’d think. But, alas, NBC reached into the grab-bag of games months ago when they scheduled their Sunday afternoon games and pulled out a blockbuster match-up between the Dallas Stars and the Chicago Blackhawks. Wow!

NBC, if you are going to be the hockey network, and we all think you should, you need to show a little passion for this new sport you’ve aligned yourselves with. How about you put a call into whoever you put these calls into and put on the Montreal-Toronto game tonight. Even better, how about a double header with the Flames and Sharks on late. Seriously, you can bump that three-hour block of Let’s Make A Deal or No Deal or reruns of Law & Order for some hockey, no one will care. But hockey fans will love you and richly reward you with ratings for it.

With exactly one month to the NHL playoffs I thought it’d be nice to make a prediction of who will make and will not make the playoffs. Today, I’ll start with the Western Conference mainly because it’s a way easier…

The west has some crazy competition going on and for the past 2 months or so when one team wins or a team loses they can go from 3rd to 8th. This is all due to the structure of the conference and the whole Northwestern Division.

Anyway, here’s my list.

1. Detroit (Quietly menacing teams with good offense & defense)
2. Anaheim (Best defense when healthy with load of potential offense)
3. Vancouver (Can Luongo stand on his head during the playoffs?)
4. Nashville (Forsberg & Kariya no need to say anymore)
5. San Jose (Consistently good all year)
6. Dallas (Always a force when Turco’s game is on)
7. Calgary (Kiprusoff and Iginla must lead the team here)
8. Minnesota (Gaborik must be ‘lighting the lamp’ in the playoffs otherwise they’ll be losing one goal games)

No real surprises here. The only thing that will make it interesting is the exact order. The Colorado Avalanche could make a big push at the playoffs since they’ve won their last 5 games. However, having Swiss Cheese goalies makes for a tough playoff push.

Side Note: I find it funny the way Nashville and Detroit are two of the top teams in the league for points. They’re division is weaker then watered down light beer. When playing 8 games against each of the 3 weak teams (St. Louis, Chicago and Columbus) it makes their record look fairly skewed. So are they really the best in the Conference?
Anyway, to hype the playoffs a bit more a Keifer Sutherland Commercial from last years playoffs.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOBhmfCevrQ&mode=related&search=[/youtube]

As I mentioned in my last post I received free Flames Tickets, the hottest ticket in town. This post I’ll give a blow-by-blow recap of the game.

A friend of mine and I show up 2 minutes into the game. Still 0-0, phewf, we didn’t miss anything.

10:02 (1st period) – still 0-0. Crowd and players aren’t into it. Wednesday hump-day blah’s I guess.

8:00 (1st period) – beer guy comes to our section! very nice!
7:00 (1st period) – beer guy tries to leave without serving us beer.

period over

10:00 (2nd period) – Still 0-0 and now I’m out of beer.

5:00 (2nd period) – I notice the kid in front of me is wearing a blocker. Yes, a blocker. We’re not in the cheap seats but I can guarantee this kid isn’t using the blocker tonight.
period over

18:00 (3rd period) – Minnesota Wild have 2-man advantage.

17:50 (3rd period) – Minnesota Scores

11:00 (3rd period) – Beer guy is back in the section. nice! But only has one beer, not so nice.
8:00 (3rd period) – The game is getting exciting now

5:00 (3rd period) – Flames score! Crowd livens up.
4:58 (3rd period) – Two guys to our right take their jackets and leave. What? How can you leave? They just tied it up with 5 minutes left in the game.

Period Over

Overtime – More semi-exciting hockey, no one scores
Shootout – Flames are brutal in Shootouts. Jerome Iginla finally scores everyone is happy. Kiprusoff makes a save on a weak chance by some Wild player. Flames win!
After the game Brian Rolston said, “We played a good hockey team tonight. It was a playoff-style hockey game and it’s something we’ll need to get used to in the last 18 games that we have. They’re going to be a lot of one-goal games.”

Not really sure if Brian Rolston and I were at the same game. Playoff-style hockey game? Maybe in the last 8 minutes of the game, sure. Otherwise, maybe the quote would sound better as “It was an exhibition-style first two periods and a playoff-style third period”

Either way, I had free tickets, flames won and the kid didn’t really need the blocker.

Last night was the retirement of the Edmonton Oilers number 11 for Mark Messier. Which officially means that I will never play for the Oilers or Rangers (being a number 11 myself). The last two-three days have been Messier days in Edmonton with a Road being renamed after him and now his jersey being retired.

I find it a bit ironic that the same day the Oilers dealt the heart-and-soul. Just happens to be the same day they retired the greatest leader to ever play for the Oilers.

In other news my boss gave me Free tickets to the Calgary Flames hockey game tonight. That’s right. Free Flames tickets. The hottest ticket in town. Although, tonight they are playing the Minnesota Wild. So let’s just say it’s not going to be the most exciting game ever. I could be wrong though and I’ll post a Flames game recap tomorrow.