We're finally here at the end of the line for the S52 season. My running tally is now at 5/8 for the match ups, and although I was 1 for 2 last round, I was correct in assuming I would be giving one of the teams I chose bad luck. RIP Detroit. For some reason my round 2 thread generated a lot of interest compared to any other rendition of this I've posted, probably because of eight teams playing. I no longer have personal interest involved in any match up so I will attempt to give an unbiased opinion on who I think will take it all home. Sure Anaheim has a GM duo I'm Chicago teammates with, but sorry guys I'll ignore that for this edition. I totally did not ignore that the previous rounds. Here is our two teams playing for the tenth overall draft pick in S53. Oh, and the Four Star Cup too, I suppose.


The season series between these two was quite close, Anaheim won 4-3 and out scored St.Louis 21-19. Two of the games went to a shootout, and each team took one of these. Besides the further jump in G F/A from sweeping Carolina, Anaheim's absurdly high stats have held through two rounds. One thing to note for their PK, although they stopped 25/25 against Vancouver, they only stopped 4/6 against Carolina, which would give them 66.66% PK in round 3. They did play a clean series only giving up the six attempts in four games. If they can regain their strong PK, continue to limit chances or both it will be an advantage. Although, with St.Louis' very weak PP it may not matter too much. On the other end of things, the Scarecrows will really want to stay out of the box. With what I assume is the 2nd best overall PP in the playoffs, Anaheim will be looking to capitalize on one of the weaker penalty kill groups of the playoffs. I manually checked Detroit as they had 47% through one round and they finished a combined 32.50% PP. I'm too lazy to manually check the rest, and the PKs. Even though we have basically all my listed stats in Anaheim's favour, I will say something about St.Louis, and I mean this as a compliment to any Scarecrows reading. I've said it in an early edition of this, but they were my dark horse team. To be a team playing them in the playoffs it would give me an eerie feeling, like I think something is going to go wrong when I play them but can't put my finger on it. They also have who I have dubbed "destroyer of dreams" Elizabeth Doyle. She silenced the birds, now maybe she'll bring the Outlaws to justice.

For my prediction, it seems pretty obvious where I'm headed with my pulled stats, and even though I claimed no bias for Anaheim I should probably put them down. The series duration I literally pull out of nowhere so we'll do the obvious fun option for a finals. But back to the team choice, I personally feel like there's some weird Simon voodoo in the air. I can't shake this uncomfortable premonition I have. Sorry, Donini and Nyko if you read this.

My Predicted Outcome: St.Louis in Game 7 OT