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Draft Coverage (LIVE)

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 With the draft, I will be doing updates after every couple of picks as they come in, as well as periodically throughout Day 2! I'm busy tomorrow so things will be spread out. Pre-Draft Notes: Check out my mock!  Bedard a lock at 1, obviously Ducks rumored not to take Fantilli at 2? CBJ heavily considering Will Smith over Leo Carlsson? CBJ now favored to take Smith over Carlsson or Fantilli. Trades: Reilly Smith traded to Pittsburgh for a 3rd Round Pick. Really solid acquisition for the Penguins, and the VGK get this cap space to sign Barbashev to an extension, which he just did.  Josh Bailey headed to Chicago in a cap dump Kailer Yamamoto and Klim Kostin headed to Detroit from Edmonton Draft: 1. Chicago Blackhawks  - Connor Bedard (C) The obvious #1 Pick, who will turn this franchise around. No surprise.  2. Anaheim Ducks - Leo Carlsson (C) The Ducks take Carlsson instead of Fantilli. This imo is a good pick, as I personally love Carlsson. This is very intriguing for future picks
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Stanley Cup Final Preview

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 This is the most southern Cup Final in NHL History!  Vegas and Florida... who would've thought when the playoffs started? In this post, I am not going to make everything about advanced stats. You guys know what each team does, you guys know who's good and who's not. Let's just take a look at how we got here. Florida started these playoffs out as a massive underdog. They went down 3-1 to Boston, as I'm sure you know, and they came back. Boston had 3 chances to bury them, and should've knocked the Cats out in every single game. But they didn't. Then, this spiraled Florida as a superpower. The Leafs couldn't stop them, and the Canes, despite outplaying Florida in each game, couldn't beat Bob. Sergei Bobrovsky has been unstoppable since he came in to these playoffs, and Vegas needs to learn how to stop him. Or, Florida is lifting the cup.  Vegas started this playoffs out with a dominating series win in 5 games against an underdog that many thought could
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BCI's First Round Mock Draft

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Welcome to my first round mock draft ahead of tomorrow! I will be doing draft coverage here so keep an eye out!  The 2023 Draft Class is extremely deep. This could genuinely turn out as one of the greatest draft classes in a long time, and that's partly because of who's at the top, but it just doesn't get worse from 2 to around 20, and even that dropoff is very minimal. Every player taken in the first round could seriously become NHL impact players soon. Now, without further ado, take this journey with us as we do our 7 round May Mock Draft: 1. Chicago Blackhawks - Connor Bedard (C) from Regina Pats (WHL) Yeah there's not much debate about this one. Connor Bedard is by far the best player in this draft, and that's with absolutely no disrespect to the rest of the class. It's just that Bedard is the best prospect since McDavid. Pretty hard to top that. He tallied 71 goals and 143 points in 57 WHL games, which is just absurd. I'm sure you guys reading this all
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Playoff Preview: Golden Knights vs Dallas

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 It's a rematch of the 2020 West Finals! In that series, the Stars took it. Who takes it now... Once again, this playoff continues to surprise as each of these two teams were widely expected to be out in the 2nd round, but they prevailed. For Dallas, they had to fight a really tough to beat Kraken team that saw really good goaltending from Philip Grubauer. For the Knights, they had to face McDavid and Draisaitl, but they managed to absolutely break Stuart Skinner and outscore the Oilers, advancing here. As I said, this is a rematch of 2020's Bubble Conference Finals, and the Stars took it. The Golden Knights haven't been to the cup finals since their inaugural 2018 season, so these two teams are certainly used to the pressure. The two who aren't used to these big stages are the goalies. Adin Hill has had to take over the job after Brossoit went down in the middle of the Oilers series, and he has done fantastic. The timeline on Logan Thompson is still muddy, so it looks
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Playoff Preview: Hurricanes vs Panthers

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 The East Finals Are HERE! And I got both of my predictions for the semi-finals wrong! Who predicted this? The Florida Panthers beat not only the best regular season team in NHL history, but then they dominate a Toronto Maple Leafs team that was expected to win the cup after Round One! They absolutely rolled over the Leafs, and they deserve their spot here in the east finals. For Carolina, many (including me) doubted their ability, but they have gotten over whatever scoring issues they had down the stretch, as they have absolutely killed it on offense in both Round One and Round Two. For these two teams, it's looking like they're going to be impossible to stop... but one of them will stop the other. Who? For Florida, everything has gone right for them since Game 5 vs Boston. Matthew Tkachuk has been great, and though he didn't score against Toronto, he put up a lot of assists and currently has the 2nd most points among playoff players still in the playoffs. He single-handed
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Playoff Preview: Devils vs Hurricanes

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 It's the final preview of the 2nd round! With it, we look at the two best in the Metro, the Hurricanes in the Devils, who each handled their New York opponents in round one.  This series is going to be fun. The Canes played 6 extremely hard fought games where they came out on top versus an Islanders team that many (including me) expected to make an upset happen. They relatively outplayed the Isles at their game, and managed to get the amount of goals they needed on Sorokin to propel them through. Their PK was fantastic, but part of that had to also do with the terrible-ness that was the Islander Power Play. As for the Devils, they had a tough series as well. The Rangers put up a great fight, including winning the first two games and making the Devils look extremely inexperienced. But, they rebounded, starting rookie tendy Akira Schmid in game 3, and then went on to win the next 3 games, including 2 at MSG. They lost game 6 but came out strong and dominated play in game 7, picking
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Playoff Preview: Florida Panthers vs Toronto Maple Leafs

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 The Panthers completed one of the most shocking upsets in NHL History, not matched since 2019 when another record breaking team was eliminated. But, their story is not done. They have a chance to shock the world again with another upset victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs, who finally made it out of the first round for the first time since 2004.  After the Panthers defeated the Bruins, I, like many others, was at a loss for words. They were down 3-1, but they played with fire, with a desperation I haven't seen any other elimination facing team play with. They fought hard in each and every moment, buried their chances in game 5 and especially game 6, and then stunned the world in the OT of Game 7. But, with all of this, they weren't even being outplayed in this series. They were the better team on xG%, and the margin was even higher on G%. They deserved to move on, the Bruins did not. Matthew Tkachuk was the hero of the series, with 11 points in the 7 games, and being a force
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