With expansion comes strange and intriguing matchups. It’s looking like Hamilton and Calgary would be teams to beat since they are 1st in their conferences, but let’s play it out and see what each matchup might look like this season.

All division winners get a bye, so Hamilton and Manhattan are most likely going to be those teams in the East and Calgary and while Texas is behind right now, their remaining schedule is a piece of cake so I think they win the Southwest and get a bye as well. The rest of the playoff matchups are the 5th seed in the entire league vs the 12th seed, 6th seed vs 11th seed and so on. So likely Chicago will play Winnipeg, Edmonton will play Los Angeles, New England will play Buffalo, and New Orleans would play Atlanta. I really don’t see Winnipeg or New England doing anything vs the Great Lakes powerhouses, but after New Orleans shipped out Jimmy Slothface to Los Angeles, Atlanta may sneak by the Specters. While the Panthers did improve, I don’t think it will be enough to get by the Blizzard. So I think Chicago, Edmonton, and Buffalo all advance with ease and Atlanta squeaks by in a lengthy series.

For the next round, that would put the Inferno up against the top seeded Steelhawks, the defending SHL champions Stampede vs the Dragons, the Blizzard against the Rage, and the Syndicate vs the Renegades. I expect Hamilton and Chicago to get through this round with ease and Edmonton and Buffalo to get by their opponents with much more difficulty.

From here it’s tough to see where we go. Hamilton would play Buffalo in this scenario and Edmonton as the last team from the west would play Chicago. It really shouldn’t surprise anyone that 3 teams from the Great Lakes could make the semi-finals and it could really play out that Hamilton and Chicago play each other for the cup. I expect both series to be lengthy and that we will have the first ever division opponents facing each other for the Challenge Cup with the Hamilton Steelhawks winning it all once again. The most interesting thing is that Calgary in this scenario wouldn't even make it to the semi-finals because of seeding, but in any season other than this one, they probably plow right through the Western Conference just as they have done all season.