Wunderdog Sports Picks Blog

by J. Mesa

Our unanimous choice for the 2007-08 NHL season is Pittsburgh Penguins forward Evgeni Malkin.

The 6-3 lefty was the second overall pick by the Pens in 2004 and has been on a steady climb to the top of the NHL’s elite and has reached the pinnacle in his fourth season. This season Malkin ranked No. 2 in the league in points with 106, No. 4 in goals (47) and finished the season ranked No. 6 in assists with 59. In the tradition of Penguins’ teams that have included Jagr and Lemieux it’s now Malkin’s turn to cement his legacy in Pittsburgh.

Malkin has been phenomenal in cementing a team that also boasts the likes of Sidney Crosby and a brick wall of a goalie in Marc-Andre Fleury to help the Penguins to their first trip to the Stanley Cup Finals in 26 years.

Wunderdog Sports Picks NHL MVP

We saw it at the beginning of the NBA season with the Boston Celtics. The Celtics were the perennial bottom dwellers in the Eastern Conference before a blockbuster trade brought in Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen helping the Celtics return to the forefront of the NBA elite. The Celtics have had their problems, but have been money at home if you play them with your NBA picks.
 
We have seen this turnaround phenomenon occur again, this time in the NHL with the Pittsburgh Penguins. This was a franchise that once had the likes of  Jaromir Jagr and Mario Lemieux on the ice at the same time, yet the team seemed to fall off after falling short of the Stanley Cup Finals in 1996. The franchise was struggling to even keep the team in Pittsburgh.
 
And as I wrote at the beginning of the NBA season, I’ll write it again now, at the end of the NHL season. What a difference a year makes!

Do Be Do Be Do – watch out for Penguins!

HOMER ALERT!

Now I usually shy away from my pro-Denver leanings when writing in my own little corner of cyberspace. Whether it is my loathing of the Raiders, the Diamondbacks or the Lakers, I try to lay off expressing my true feelings in an effort to stay neutral. But things have gotten so bad in the Mile High City, that I needed the collective shoulder of the Dog Pound to cry on.

Denver has always been such a great sports town. We have world titles in both football and hockey and it looked like our little brother of a team – the Rockies, was going to mature in front of our eyes and bring home a World Series crown. Alas, it wasn’t to be as our little brother ran into Boston’s big brother and sent us home in four games last year. 

We are used to getting no respect when it comes to baseball. The east-coast, major-market bias has never gotten to us. So we weren’t surprised when early MLB picks for the 2008 season left us out of the pennant conversation. Heck, they even left us out of the NL West conversation, but we took it all with a grain of salt. We were gonna show them! Well, not so much.

A Mile High is really a valley low

OK, I’m not a big hockey guy, but I have to give to the NHL. After an off-the-radar regular season where most of the games were televised on the fledgling VS. network, sandwiched between extreme cagefighting and Hunting for the Big Fish, the NHL had redeemed themselves in this year’s playoffs and my TV thanks them.

There were a few first round series’ that we saw go to seven games and the NHL’s stars really came out to play. We saw phenom Alexander Ovechkin break out of a slump to all but take over the series for Washington. Even though the Capitals dropped game 7 to the Flyers, Ovechkin almost single handedly lifted the Caps to the second round. Not like there’s anything going on in Washington right now anyway.

The NHL has cured my bad TV habits

Eastern Conference

The last three Stanley Cups have come from the Eastern Conference. Can they do it again? We will see. And we will of course have a slew of NHL picks during the playoffs. “Sid the kid,” is the youngest scoring champion in sports history at the young ripe age of 19, will go up against a great team in the Ottawa Senators. This is probably the highest scoring of the four other Eastern Conference series and its going to be a blast to watch. Watch out for the Tampa Bay Lighting taking on New Jersey. Lecavalier can take over a series but Brodeur can shut you down. If Tampa can overcome having a rookie (Johan Holmqvist) start in net they may upset the No. 2 seed in the East. Did somebody say Buffalo? Tied for the most points in the league this season with 113, you had better mention Buffalo. Our pick from the Eastern Conference will come from the high scoring Sabres, watch out they may just sweep this first series. Last but not least the Thrashers go up against the Rangers. Let’s go RANGERS! Ok, ok no picking sides here but who doesn’t love Ranger’s playoff hockey? Come on now! The Rangers have their hands full in Hossa and Kovalchuk. But who knows, maybe Brenda (I’ve always wanted to say that) Shanahan and Jaromir Jagr could pull out a series win.

Western Conference

2007 Stanley Cup Playoffs Preview