Alright Florida Panthers fans, the time has come to make your picks for the Litter Box Cats playoff predictions contest.
The contest is done round-by-round and there is an overall winner at the end of the playoffs, so make sure to get in at the beginning if you want to have a chance at ending up top Cat come July.
We will again use a confidence pool set-up.
If you didn’t play last year or you’re unfamiliar with confidence pools, you will select each team to win the series as per usual. There will be point values (8-1) for how confident you are that each team will win. For example, the team you’re most confident in (i.e. Colorado over Nashville) will get 8 points if they win the series, then the team you think has the second-best chance of winning (i.e. Florida over Washington) will get 7 points if it wins its series, and so on and so on. The series you think is the toughest to pick (like Minnesota-St. Louis) should be your 1-point series. So, a total of 36 points is up for grabs during the first round. Capeesh?
I am going to keep the bonus point in place for picking the series-winner in the correct amount of games to add a little more variance to the scoring.
Here are the eight series (in case you’ve somehow missed it) for the opening round of the 2022 Stanley Cup playoffs:
Atlantic Division
Florida Panthers vs. Washington Capitals
Toronto Maple Leafs vs. Tampa Bay Lightning
Metropolitan Division
Carolina Hurricanes vs. Boston Bruins
New York Rangers vs. Pittsburgh Penguins
Central Division
Colorado Avalanche vs. Nashville Predators
Minnesota Wild vs. St. Louis Blues
Pacific Division
Calgary Flames vs. Dallas Stars
Edmonton Oilers vs. Los Angeles Kings
Please enter your picks in the comment section mirroring the example below. The tiebreaker will be the total goals scored in the Panthers-Capitals series. Remember, there is a round-by-round winner and an overall winner at the end, so even if you don’t enter or do too hot in the first round, get or stay in the game. Good luck!
Example Picks (these are not my picks)
8-point series: Rangers (6)
7-point series: Hurricanes (4)
6-point series: Panthers (5) total goals: 33
5-point series: Oilers (6)
4-point series: Lightning (7)
3-point series: Avalanche (5)
2-point series: Flames (5)
1-point series; Wild (7)
Please get your picks in by the 7 p.m. start time of the Bruins-Hurricanes game on Monday.