Dimitri Filipovic

I mean, you know what?

This just feels right.

You and I sitting beside each other like this.

Yeah, it feels like it.

I mean, they were the best teams in their respective conferences.

The two head-to-heads they played this year in the regular season were both really competitive and really fun.

And so that would be an unbelievable kind of showcase for the NHL in terms of the Stanley Cup final with the pace those games will be played at.

It's going to be fascinating.

We'll see, obviously, Minnesota and Colorado have had a long break in their series here.

They pick it back up on Saturday, but...

it feels like Colorado is going to make pretty quick work of them.

And if they do so, both of these teams are probably going to have, like, 10 days or so off until they play in their conference finals.

So they're both set up really nicely, but Carolina especially.

I mean, they really should be viewed as the very heavy favorite to come out of the East.

Yeah, they'll have a pushback at home for sure.

Well, it'd be very NBA coded, right?

Like I feel like that's been a complaint about the NBA for a long time where, you know, the final is usually amazing, but the lead up to it is generally the favorites in each conference just kind of sleepwalking their way through it, taking care of business.

And ultimately the game's only mattering at the end, which if we get a great Stanley Cup final, I don't think anyone's going to wind up complaining about it.

But yeah, particularly, I mean, we knew this Metro division,

was relatively weak in the East, and it's really showing that the Carolinas just head and shoulders above all the competition.