Round Two: FIGHT!

The dust has settled and now only eight teams remain in the hunt for the greatest trophy in professional sports — the Stanley Cup. Plenty of great match-ups can be found across the board, but only one will receive that extra special level of media attention. It’s been four years in the making, but Gary Bettman finally gets his ultimate dream match-up — Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins versus Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals.

And I suppose some jerk named Malkin will be involved, too. Last I heard he won a race of some sorts. Not exactly sure what kind of an impact a runner or a sprinter will have on a hockey series, but we shall see, right? After all, the playoffs are all about one thing — unpredictability!

That being said, here are my predictions as to what’ll go down during the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs:

• 

  Gary really, really likes this match-up. Unless the Kentucky Derby is on.

  In a bold move, Gary Bettman forces the NHL Board of Governors to introduce a radical new rule change, effective immediately: “In the event of a playoff series involving Washington and Pittsburgh, the two teams shall be forced to play a best-of-fifteen series as opposed to the traditional best-of-seven. No other series shall be affected.”

• NBC will cut away from Game One before it even begins to show footage of the Kentucky Derby horses eating. No commentary, no interviews, no pre-race analysis, no betting odds … just horses eating.

• Jose Theodore is all smiles on the bench, content that he doesn’t have to face Crosby and Malkin every other day.

• The rink crew at the Verizon Center still won’t know how to replace a broken pane of glass in less than 10 minutes.

• Donald Brashear returns from his suspension and score a hat trick to win the Game Six for the Caps. That, or he gets suspended again for doing something retarded because he’s too slow and untalented to actually make a difference on the ice. Flip a coin, really.

The very definition of a complete, two-way player.

• During a TV timeout, Bruce Boudreau orders a hot dog from a vendor and proceeds to eat it while behind the bench, simply because he looks like the type of guy who would do that sort of thing. He did spend a hell of a lot of time in the minors, if you recall, and if Slap Shot taught me anything, it’s that the minor leagues are full of crazy antics and goofball shenanigans.

• Intrepid reporters will finally reveal the truth that, yes, Evgeni Malkin is indeed the result of human-troll relations.

• Alex Ovechkin starts at centre so that he can engage in fisticuffs with Sidney Crosby immediately after the opening faceoff of every game. Crosby eventually gets shifted to the wing to avoid being utterly destroyed before the start of each game.

Stop hiding behind the ref, Sid! Take your beating like a man!

• In a marketing stunt gone wrong, staff at the Verizon Center place bullseye markers all along the end boards. Whenever Ovechkin misses a shot and hits one of the targets, one lucky fan wins a free beer. In the end, numerous people will be escorted out of the building due to public drunkenness.

• During the final and deciding game of this series, Simeon Varlamov lets in an uncharacteristically soft goal when he allows Malkin score on him from centre ice. Amidst the shock and confusion, Varlamov then goes all “nWo” on his teammates by pulling off his Capitals sweater to reveal a Penguins sweater underneath. He then uses the referee’s microphone to state, in perfect English, that he had been in cahoots with Comrade Malkin the entire time and had actually poisoned the Gatorade of Jose Theodore in order to get him off his game so that he could take his place and ultimately sabotage the Capitals in their most crucial moment.

• Some other teams will win some games (or not) in some other series. The NHL doesn’t care about Boston or Carolina, so why should I? Ovechkin! Crosby! Ovechkin! Crosby! Match of the Century! BE THERE!