Garry Galley

Are they not going to start the series?

Like, these are all questions that we really don't have answers to and that are very key questions for a series like this.

You know, I think that the playoffs are about X factors.

You know, everyone has guys that have, you know, the big star of the horses, right?

And everyone says, well, your horses have to run in order for you to win.

So, yes, I think there are some game breakers Ottawa has.

I think Timmy Stutzla is one of those guys that's certainly a game breaker.

Bathurston can be a game breaker.

But with this series, when you have so many things that are similar between two teams, and the more I delve into these two teams, the more I find similarities.

The one thing I would give the size certainly to Ottawa, the goaltending because of the unknown in Carolina, you know, that's a hard one to pick right now because Ottawa's goaltending was so unknown.

And they've got the lowest save percentage of any team to make it into the playoffs.

So it certainly hasn't been great all year, but it's peaking at the right time.

This series will come down to X factors.

It will come down to the players that maybe you don't count on second and third line guys, a defenseman that has a series that chips in with a couple of big goals.

You know, it's going to come down to one of those things.

I believe that's going to really, you know, flip this series in one direction or another.

My gut feeling is this is a six, seven gamer for sure.

Yeah.

But as the playoffs go, and as you guys know, when you start thinking like that, sometimes it doesn't quite go.

One team gets a head on another and things start to fall apart and the foundation cracks.