Being a transplant to the beautiful state of hawaii, I love being able to come home from work from third shift and start watching the games, finish them before noon and go sleep at the North Shore Beach or near Waimea Falls Park and count the tourists passing by.  Anyway, I was watching some stuff I had Tivo'd from a while back regarding the NHL predictions by ESPN.  Of course, you have Barry "the Motown Hater" Melrose that will always go against tthe Wings.  He said, they are too old, too slow, not physical enough and teams like Edmonton, Anaheim and Nashville should blow by them.  Funny, I was trying to see how they were doing now and couldn't find them at all.  However, I could have swore Matthieu Schneider and Todd Bertuzzi just surfed by!!!  He also said that Anaheim was too powerful for the Western Conference and should go on as the champs and thought that with the Eastern Conference is still better than last year, the New Jersey Devils and Brodeur should face the Ducks in the finals and the Ducks prevailing.  Two words on that prediction; Sean Avery...

Flash forward to his SC matchups and also said Forsberg would be a force as long as he stayed healthy and understood why he didn't want to play with Detroit.  He felt Chelios was too old but still a warrior and the younger guys would pass him by and Detroit couldn't compete any longer.  Of course, what do I know since I am not an expert.  All I know from watching the #### box is the Red Wings won the President's Trophy; Chelios is playing and Forsberg isn't; Anaheim - New Jersey and Nashville are nowhere to be found.

On NHL Center Ice, Nashville's announcers were talking about how their Predators were going to be physical, make the Wings cough up the puck and should win in 5 games.  Another stellar prediction.  Suddenly there are players like Fillpula, Franzen and some goalie named Osgood showing up to play.  Another guy named Lidstrom and some guy named Rafalski are on the blue line.  And one more thing Zetterberg and Datsyuk are visible this year and haven't disappeared.  Finally, I heard Scott Stevens on a sports talk radio saying the person that has impressed him the most was Kronwall.  "He is beginning to hit people on the open ice like I did when he was younger and could be a faster Vladimir Konstantinov, whom he felt was the hardest hitter when he played."  All I can say is that I think the Red Wings will beat Colorado and face Dallas in the finals and face Montreal in the SC finals.  But what do I know, it is not yet 6AM in Hawaii and 74* with a gentle breeze from the west.  Sounds like a day to go to the beach and watch the NBC broadcast in about 4 hours.