2016 Stanley Cup Final Preview

I lost track of the second round playoff series in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, so I forgot to get a post in for the conference finals. Fortunately, I have plenty of time to get the Cup Final prediction in.

After the first round, we lost our last four Cup winners, as well as five of the last six, with a guarantee that we'll have a team that hasn't won a Cup since as far back as 2009. It's an interesting new matchup that, even if may not be a sexy ratings pick, is a compelling storyline and will be a series between two very, very good teams that deserve to be here.

Stanley Cup Final

San Jose Sharks (46-30-6, Beat Kings in five, beat Predators in seven, beat Blues in six) vs Pittsburgh Penguins (48-26-8, Beat Rangers in five, beat Capitals in six, beat Lightning in seven)
Teams each won 1 of 2 regular season meetings

Photo by Rocky W. Widner (NHL/Getty Images)

The Penguins have been a league darling for a decade straight now, but haven't made much postseason noise, making just their third Cup Final in that stretch and their first since they won the Cup in 2009. They take on a Sharks team that is making its first ever trip to the final round after years of missed opportunities. Pittsburgh has been fairly balanced in its scoring, with eight players recording at least 10 points through three rounds. Phil Kessel leads the team in goals (nine) and points (18), while media darling Sidney Crosby has played very well to the tune of six goals and nine assists, though he is a -2. They're getting a little thin on defense, with Trevor Daley out now, but young goaltender Matt Murray has been phenomenal with a .924 save percentage and a 2.22 goals against average. On the other end, Martin Jones has played incredibly well as well, with a slightly worse save percentage (.919) but a better goals against average (2.12). San Jose's offense has been more potent, with Logan Couture (eight goals, 16 assists) and Joe Pavelski (13 goals, nine assists) leading the charge, and an excellent defensive group with only two skaters logging a negative plus/minus. Brent Burns is +8 so far, while Marc-Edouard Vlasic is a team-high +13. They're going to need to be on their game all the more against a star studded Pittsburgh attack.

My heart wants to take the Sharks here, because I can't stand the lovefest for Sidney Crosby who has done nothing in the Kane-Toews-Keith-Q Dynasty and also because they saved the black cat that scrambled onto the ice during Game 1 against Nashville and found her a forever home. My head is initially leaning Pittsburgh because Crosby and company seem to have finally figured things out after six years of playoff disappointment that had featured only one trip to the Eastern Conference Finals. With their issues of defensive depth against a ferocious attack though, I'm thinking I should switch sides. It's going to be a long, hard-fought series, but at the end of the day, give me the newcomers and the debate of who Pavelski hands the Cup to first: Patrick Marleau or Joe Thornton. Sharks in seven.

Conn Smythe Trophy Winner: Joe Pavelski, Sharks

2016 NBA/ABA Tournament of Champions: ABA Seeding Tournament

It's time to get the 2016 Tournament of Champions underway!

If you read my intro post, you know I'm going bigger this year. I didn't feel that it was enough to just bring in the 2016 NBA Champion. This time, since I had the resources, I wanted to include the nine ABA champions in the mix as well.

I have no idea how good these teams are in relation to the NBA champions that have participated in the last two tournaments, and I wasn't sure at first how I wanted to integrate the ABA teams into this. Originally, I was going to have seven groups of nine teams from the NBA for pool play and have the ABA be its own group. However, that guarantees four ABA teams advancing to the Elimination Round, and I'm not convinced those teams deserve four guaranteed spots.

Thus, the fairest way to do this is to pre-rank the ABA champions, and to do that, I am having those nine teams spend the early part of the month of May playing a round robin tournament. This one is only a single round robin to minimize the mileage on these players, though they'll have a month after this to rest up and prepare for the big time. In the grand scheme of things, these games don't really mean anything other than pride and the best ABA champion getting to avoid the '96 Bulls until the Elimination Round.

So, here's ultimately how this is going to work. The placing by each ABA team in this portion of the tournament will correspond to which pool that ABA team will join for the filling of the eight groups for Group Play. My simulator doesn't do neutral courts in the NBA, and normally given the schedule this would be a problem, as I usually play with the left team on the road at the right team. However, my scheduler decided to put the '73 Pacers on the left hand side of every round, which would have them playing eight road games while four teams get five home games. I went through and remedied this issue on the schedule page, with the Pacers' home games getting a special note to signify it. With this in place, every team will play four games at home and four games on the road, all determined randomly (including the case of the changed games, where I just switched home teams for the '73 Pacers).

In the event of a tie in the standings, head to head record will take care of any two-way tie. In the event of a three or more-team tie, head to head record will remain the top tiebreaker, but in case there's a rock-paper-scissors tie, I will go down to record against teams above the tie, then record against teams below the tie, then point differential. All simulations are once again provided by WhatIfSports.com.

Good luck to these ABA teams, and welcome to the Tournament of Champions!