After struggling with its second-round picks (just one of four correct), the panel rebounded to nail both Conference Final picks. In fact, the panel's prediction of the Lightning winning in six games over the Rangers was exactly how the Eastern Conference Final went down. The panel wasn't bold enough to pick Colorado in a sweep, instead picking the Avalanche to win in six games.

The vast majority of writers picked both Tampa Bay and Colorado to win the conference finals, so no special kudos to anyone here (just to the one writer who boldly chose the Rangers and Oilers to win). Eric Daoust and Brad Hayward still lead all participating writers with correct predictions in 12 of 14 playoff series.

Also, a separate shoutout to Hayward and Rick Roos, who both correctly picked Colorado and Tampa Bay as the Stanley Cup finalists at the start of the playoffs. Since Roos picked Tampa Bay over Colorado and Hayward picked Colorado over Tampa Bay, one of these two writers will have made the right call for both finalists and the outcome.

Along with their Stanley Cup winners and the number of games in the series, the writers will also be providing their Conn Smythe Trophy winner predictions.

The panel's lifetime record is 123-78 when it comes to postseason predictions.

For the coin toss, heads was the higher-seeded team. The default is seven games for each coin toss pick, as well as for any writers who replied only with series winners. The coin toss results aren't counted among the aggregate results – they are just there to embarrass any of our writers if needed. 

Although this Stanley Cup Final might be more evenly matched than the previous two cup finals, the Avalanche are still the choice of 16 of the 20 panelists. The Avalanche are also the betting favorite, as they finished with more points during the regular season and have lost only two playoff games in three rounds. Several writers may have also been compelled to stick with Colorado to win the Stanley Cup after picking them to win it all both at the start of the regular season and at the start of the playoffs.

Among players that made it to the Conference Final, only Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl have a higher point-per-game average than Cale Makar. That's why it should come as no surprise that Makar is the favorite to win the Conn Smythe Trophy. As a defenseman, Makar leads the Avalanche in points (22), continuing to wow fans more with each passing game. Nathan MacKinnon, Andrei Vasilevskiy, and Nikita Kucherov also received Conn Smythe votes.

Agree? Disagree? Comments?  

About the panel

Dobber launched this website in 2005 after he was the fantasy hockey columnist for The Hockey News website, The Fantasy Sports Network, and a contributor to The Forecaster. DobberHockey has since grown into the Dobber Sports Network and has work can be found across the Internet, including on Sportsnet.

Ian Gooding is the managing editor of DobberHockey and a regular writer on the daily Ramblings beat. He has also contributed to many other sites, including Sportsnet, Today's Slapshot, Kukla's Korner, and fantasyhockey.com.

Mike Clifford is an associate editor of DobberHockey and contributor for Rotowire and other fantasy hockey ventures.

Alex MacLean is an associate editor and writes the Ramblings once a week. He was previously the author of the Capped column and also contributes salary cap league rankings.

Mario Prata is the manager of special projects and marketing for Dobber Sports. He is also a co-founder of the famous The Sports Forecaster magazine.

Eric Daoust manages our valued Frozen Pool section.

Tom Collins writes the weekly Top 10 column that can be found here every Monday.

Rick Roos authors the weekly Roos Let Loose column every Wednesday. He is the former Cage Match writer for Dobber Hockey.

Michael Amato is the Goalie Post editor who provides the latest starting goalie information and writes the Goalie Ramblings.

Grant Campbell writes the weekly Wild West column every Monday.

Brennan DeSouza does double duty, as he writes the weekly Eastern Edge column every Tuesday and gives us the latest injury information every Wednesday.

Chris Kane writes the Frozen Pool Forensics column on Fridays.

Ben Gehrels pens the weekly prospect column The Journey that can be found here every Saturday. He has also contributed to Dobber Prospects.

Scott Royce gives you the fantasy hockey Geek of the Week every Sunday. 

Andrew Santillo checks out what’s coming down the pipe schedule-wise with the Looking Ahead column every Friday.

Jamie Molloy authors the salary cap column Capped, which can be found here every Thursday.

Peter Ryell provides you with what you need to know about line combinations in Lining Up.

Steve Dotzel provides tons of tips to help you win your daily fantasy leagues on Thursdays and Saturdays.

Brad Hayward also picks DFS players on Tuesdays.

Flip Livingstone is our Saturday game picks author. He is a former NHL writer for theScore with past experience at such outlets as Postmedia, Hockey Night in Canada, and the CBC.

Vlad Zorila also makes game picks on Saturdays.

Will McLean, Shawn Wilken, and Brandon Little recently joined the DobberHockey team as bets/props writers.

Enjoy the Stanley Cup Final, folks!