Both sides are almost comparable. Both teams, Edmonton and Philadelphia, have been really close to making it to the finals in the last few seasons, but always had one team beat them. In the west it was Winnipeg making it to the finals for the last 5 seasons (and finally winning) and in the east it was different teams that kicked Philadelphia out. Still, Edmonton is the first different team in the west not called Winnipeg to make it there in 5 seasons so that's a little more impressive for me.

(91 words)
+1 TPE


I pick Edmonton to win this season because I originally had them as winners in my predictions and why? Because I would get TPE then But more seriously, they had a very strong regular season and they kicked out last season's champions Winnipeg out of the playoffs too. Isn't that reason enough?

(52 words)
+1 TPE




There are always different strategies for teams to become good. A lot has to do with the actual users (players) on the team, whether they buy in so to say, earn well, stay active and whether you can build a roster that's not too far apart in age. If everything works out you don't even need to stay in that said window, but replace aging players with new ones. Since so much depends on the people you draft and also on the team's management, you can't just go to a team and tell them "hey, here's a strategy that works for you too". Trying to win within a certain window might be easier, but once that window has closed and you're starting a rebuild it's more difficult to get out of it. So keeping that window open longer and perhaps no longer calling it a window is the real difficulty. What do you learn? Find users that can work together and hope for the best.

(165 words)
+3 TPE





I pick the team I originally predicted to win the cup and that's Edmonton. If I remember correctly I even had them win last season already, but perhaps they weren't quite good enough yet. Philadelphia making it to the final is almost a bit of a surprise to me because I had NEW there in the east. Edmonton is simply a very strong team this season, yes, with a strong goalie too (say what you want, goalies are useless etc, but Justin Time had a strong regular season). A goalie's performance - on paper - simply reflects the overall team's strength and that just tells me that Edmonton is probably the best or one of the best teams this season. FHM isn't that unpredictable unfortunately. If we look at the regular season EDM was better in goals for per game and goals against per game at least in direct comparison with PHI. If Philadelphia is going to win this it's likely because of some tactics, but anything is possible here.

(168 words)
+3 TPE