I'm in pretty good shape in my 3 hockey pools. My first pool was a live draft, and 12 of my 15 players made it through to round 2 (Jagr, Gomez, Dubinsky, Prucha, Prospal, Upshall, Riberio, Miettenin, Kronwall, Marleau, Stastny, Wolski...i only lost Pronger, Arnott and Erat).
The second pool i went in was simply pick any 12 players, i took 3 Rangers, 3 Penguins, 3 Red Wings and 3 Sharks. And my final pool was 1 player from each team, then 10 additional players (which i again took a combination of Rangers, Pens, Wings & Ducks), a goalie (Nabokov) and the Cup Champs (Sharks).
I think i was 7/8 in round 1 (can't be bothered looking back), i was only wrong on the Ducks/Stars matchup. I thought the Ducks defense would likely in the end get it done, but i was more than a little skeptical of the Ducks, which shows with my hockey pool picks.
Round 2 is a little harder to predict IMO...
Montreal/Philadelphia...i think the Flyers will really test the Habs, but in the end i gotta go with
Montreal, just barely though.
Pittsburgh/NY Rangers...as a
Rangers fan, there is no way i can go against them
Detroit/Colorado...should be a fun series to watch, and i love the offensive depth the Avs have going (Forsberg, Sakic, Stastny, Wolski, Smyth, Brunette, etc.)...but in the games i watched in round 1, the Avs relied way too much on Jose Theodore, and if they played like they did in round 1 with the Wild, i think
Detroit will be too much for Theodore & the Avs to contain.
San Jose/Dallas...another series i'm looking forward to watching, i love the way the Stars are playing right now. The Sharks are going to have to be better than they were in round 1 if they have a shot. The Stars have lots of confidence right now, and should get a big boost with the expected return of Sergei Zubov. I'll go with
San Jose in a tough, 7 game series.