FanHouse NHL08playoffpreviews

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There's nothing like renewing acquaintances in the playoffs.

Pittsburgh and Ottawa butted heads last season in the first round, but that was a different ballgame, a 4-versus-5 matchup where the then-powerful Senators held home-ice advantage and romped all the way to the Stanley Cup finals.

That doesn't seem likely this time around, and public sentiment certainly isn't on Ottawa's side.

Let's face it, this season has been a disaster for the Senators. Favoured to win the conference heading into the year, they kicked things off with a red-hot 15-2-0 start, but have played at just an 80-point pace since then, sinking all the way down between rebuilding Philadelphia and Boston as one of the final playoff seeds.

Ottawa may be the league's highest-scoring team, but no one's picking them to win this series against Crosby and Co.

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The New Jersey Devils' 4-3 shootout win in the regular season finale gave them home ice in this series ... but what did it really mean? Did the victory give the Devils a little confidence that they could, in fact, hand the Rangers a loss after going 0-7 against the Blueshirts during the rest of the regular season? Or did the loss actually keep the Rangers from believing they had an unshakable hex on the Diablos, which could have potentially fueled overconfidence in the postseason?

If this sounds like a little too much psychology for two teams that are probably just going to bash each others' brains in for six or seven games, think again. This is a series that hinges on the Devils not allowing Henrik Lundqvist to get into their heads; or Jaromir Jagr not allowing players like Dainius Zubrus and Jay Pandolfo to frustrate him into ineffectiveness (luckily, the player that Jagr injured himself trying to punch two years ago is now his teammate); or anyone wearing red and black not overreacting when Sean Avery goes into pest overdrive.

It's a chess match between two smart coaches, and a psychological battle between and within players. It's also a series that could easily become the most brutal and tightly-played in the Eastern Conference's first round. So who has the advantage?

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(Author's note: I'm a Ducks fan, deal with it.)

It has been five years since the NHL had a playoff game featuring two teams from the Pacific Division, when the top-seeded Stars lost in six games to the 7th-seeded Mighty Ducks in the second round of the 2003 playoffs. It was an amazing series from my perspective, at least. In all six games of the series Dallas was either tied or ahead with two minutes left in regulation, but the miracle Ducks managed to score four game-winners, each on their final shot of the game.

Fast forward ahead to 2008. The Ducks, no longer "Mighty", have won seven playoff series since that meeting, including the most recent Stanley Cup. The Stars, over the same stretch, have won none. It seems like this would be an opportunity for the Stars to get their playoff mojo back, but the blueline-heavy Ducks certainly have other ideas. This series will feature three of the last four winners of the Conn Smythe Trophy for playoff MVP; whose heroics will win this Pacific battle this time around? Let's take a look: