No doubt about it--they're hot. Personally I think it's a last hurrah for the current bunch--they need some makeover, particularly on defense. They finished 7th for a reason, and while it was a short season, I'm not sure they make the playoffs at all if they had played the usual 80 games.
The best thing they have going for them is that they're moving to the East. I really think the West is superior in nearly all phases of the game, and it's going to stay that way for at least the short term. I'll put it out there now--whoever wins the West takes the Cup, with one possible exception--Pittsburgh could beat Detroit. They are two similar teams and the Pens have more talent (but less in goal). I think they get worn down by the other three remaining West candidates, but they could and maybe should have enough to beat the Wings.
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Now watch what you say, or they'll be calling you a radical, a liberal, oh, fanatical, criminal
Won't you sign up your name? We'd like to feel you're acceptable, respectable, presentable, a vegetable
If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon's but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and superstition, ambition and ignorance on the other.- Ulysses S. Grant, 18th US President.
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