2010 NHL Playoffs: This Is What Parity Looks Like

There is no comparison to the NHL Playoffs. If the seven and eight seeds made it to the NBA's Eastern Conference Finals, then we would be watching a Charlotte Bobcats-versus-Chicago Bulls East Finals.

Like that would ever happen.

The more apt comparison, but I still stand by the statement that there is no comparison, would be to the baseball playoffs. Orel Hershiser, in a sense, stood on his head in the 1988 MLB Playoffs as he led the L.A. Dodgers to the World Series win over the heavily-favored Oakland A's. That was after the Dodgers upset the favored New York Mets in the NLCS.

A hot goalie in the NHL plays every game, though. A hot starting pitcher in baseball cannot.

Staying in the time machine back to 1988, Danny Manning led the Kansas Jayhawks to an improbable NCAA Tournament win, but he only had to win six games.

Nope, there is no way that the NHL Playoffs can be compared to anything else in sports. If the league had a better TV deal then maybe America would find out what a great spectacle the Stanley Cup Playoffs are every year.

When the NHL playoffs started, it looked like Alex Ovechkin was going to lead Washington to the title. Montreal has a rich history but they were the eight seed and they fell down 3-1 in the series.

On the other side, it looked like the top-seeded Sharks were going to lose in the first round yet again. They even lost a game to the eighth-seeded Colorado Avalanche when they scored on their own goal for crying in the bucket.

The Canadians rode their hot goalie Jaroslav Halak and the Sharks pulled themselves away from their disappointing past all at once it seemed.

In fact, the top-three seeds in the East (Washington, New Jersey, and Buffalo) didn't even make it to the second round. The defending champ Pittsburgh Penguins, led by superstar Sydney Crosby, fell to the Montreal Canadian buzz-saw in the second round.

The East Finals had the seventh-seeded Flyers hosting the eighth-seeded Canadians. Unlike the Caps and Pens, the Flyers, led by their captain Mike Richards and backup goalie Michael Leighton, saw the Stanley Cup Finals ahead and took out Montreal.

The West went all chalk on us, as the first-seeded Sharks faced the second-seeded Chicago Blackhawks in the Western Conference Finals.

After rising above their history of falling short to make it to the third round of the playoffs, the Sharks fell short of the Stanley Cup. It wasn't in an epic series either, as the Blackhawks swept them out.

So the Stanley Cup Finals have an old school feel with Chicago hosting Philly for Game One on Saturday. Both of these franchises have had long droughts since their last titles. Chicago last won it all in 1961 and Philly last won it all in 1975, when they were the Broad Street Bullies.

It sure feels like Chicago will end their drought, but these are the NHL playoffs, where parity abounds.

Excuse me for not making a pick here. I picked the Caps to beat the Sharks at the start of these parity-driven playoffs so it seems that I have disqualified myself from any further picks on the NHL Playoffs.

My rooting interest is in the Philly Flyers, if that means anything.