The puck is about to drop on the Stanley Cup Playoffs! As is the case every season, the panel is weighing in with predictions for each of the eight playoff series, the Stanley Cup finalists and winner, and Conn Smythe Trophy winner. The panel will also return for more predictions at the start of every round.

The panel’s lifetime record is 124-78 when it comes to postseason predictions.

The 17^th annual DobberHockey Interactive Playoff Draft List is now available for download. Besides running your own scenario, I also include my own picks. You can pick up the (winning) Draft List – here!

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.

Note that the number of games is the average number of games picked by the panel and does not factor in who will win the series.

Strong Favorites

Not surprisingly, the Presidents' Trophy-winning Bruins are expected to take care of the Panthers relatively quickly. Same goes for the defending Stanley Cup champion Avalanche against the Kraken, who are making their first-ever Stanley Cup playoff appearance.

Too Close to Call

According to our panel, the tightest series is the Hurricanes/Islanders series, which was split almost 50/50 in terms of a winner. Could this one be the most prime for an upset? Although the Isles finished 20 points behind the Canes, Carolina was only a .500 team over their last 10 games while nearly losing the Metropolitan Division title to New Jersey. If there is one goalie capable of stealing a series, it might be Ilya Sorokin.

Stanley Cup Winner

Some of our writers would like to take back their Calgary pick before the season, and they will get a chance at a do-over here. The popular pick now seems to shift to the Flames' provincial rivals, the Edmonton Oilers. The same number of writers picked the Oilers and Bruins to win the Stanley Cup (6 each), but the Oilers win out because they are the more frequently-picked team to be a Stanley Cup finalist. There is some buy-in that the Bruins will be able to take the Stanley Cup after their record-setting regular season (135 points), but the playoffs are a different animal altogether. A Presidents' Trophy winner has not won the cup since 2013 (Chicago).

With the Oilers being such a popular choice as a Stanley Cup favorite, Connor McDavid was chosen as the clear Conn Smythe Trophy favorite.

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.

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.

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.

Brad Hayward also picks DFS players twice a week.  

Enjoy the playoffs, folks!