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 130-86 when it comes to postseason predictions.

Eastern Conference

Western Conference

Stanley Cup

The 18^th annual DobberHockey Interactive Playoff Draft List is now available for download. Besides running your own scenario, we also include our 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

The Presidents' Trophy winning Rangers might not be an overwhelming favorite to win the Stanley Cup, but the entire panel picked them to win their series over Washington. The fact that the Capitals were a minus-37 goal differential team (sixth-worst in the NHL) might have factored into the Rangers being an overwhelming favorite here.

Along with the Rangers, the Hurricanes were the only other team projected to need only five games to win their series. Only one writer picked Carolina to lose to the Islanders, while the same writer (Brad Hayward) was the only one to pick Los Angeles over Edmonton. Aside from Hayward playing the contrarian, Carolina and Edmonton are unanimous favorites among our writers.  

The first round usually has at least one underdog team upsetting a favorite, so it will be interesting to see whether that upset happens with one of these teams.

Too Close to Call

There isn't really a series that falls under that category. The closest one according to the writers is the Florida cross-state series between Florida and Tampa Bay, where the panel gave the Panthers a slight edge. The Lightning might be the underdogs in the series, but they also have the Stanley Cup pedigree. Tampa has also knocked Florida out of the playoffs in both 2021 and 2022.

The writer's personal opinion is that the Colorado/Winnipeg series is the toughest to call. Colorado was the clear favorite among the writers, but Winnipeg finished three points ahead of the Avalanche in the standings. The Jets also dismantled the Avalanche 7-0 on April 13, so Colorado will have something to prove in this series.

Stanley Cup Winner

Results were varied, but the most popular choices were Dallas and Carolina meeting in the final with the Stars winning the Stanley Cup.

Jake Oettinger received the most votes for the Conn Smythe. Multiple votes were also cast for Miro Heiskanen, Sebastian Aho, and Jake Guentzel.

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.

Ian Gooding is the managing editor of DobberHockey and a regular writer on the daily Ramblings beat, also providing monthly Top 100 Roto Rankings. 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, writing the Ramblings multiple times per week. He also covers DFS for Stokastic and writes for EP Rinkside.

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.

Brennan DeSouza is the latest writer to earn a spot on the editing team, as he now also writes the Ramblings once a week. He had previously covered Injury Ward, Eastern Edge, and Lining Up.

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.

Rick Roos authors the weekly Roos Let Loose column every Wednesday, covering a variety of topics. He is the former Cage Match writer for Dobber Hockey.

Flip Livingstone started as the Saturday game picks writer and is now also taking on Eastern Edge and the Top 10 list as well. He is a former NHL writer for theScore with past experience at such outlets as Postmedia, Hockey Night in Canada, and the CBC.

Michael Amato is the Goalie Post editor who provides the latest starting goalie information and writes the Goalie Ramblings. He also covers fantasy hockey for Sportsnet and is the co-host of the Sleepers & Keepers podcast for The Hockey News. 

Grant Campbell keeps an eye on everything Western Conference in the Wild West column every Monday.

Chris Kane writes the Frozen Tools Forensics column on Fridays, emphasizing what he finds on Frozen Tools.

Ben Gehrels pens the weekly prospect column The Journey that can be found here every Saturday. He is also an associate editor at Dobber Prospects.

Andrew Santillo checks out what’s coming down the pipe schedule-wise with the Looking Ahead column every Friday, as well as salary cap column Capped on Thursdays. He has also contributed to Goalie Post.

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

Brad Hayward provides tons of tips to help you win your daily fantasy leagues on Saturdays.

Ryan Brudner shares his expertise of multicategory leagues in the Geek of the Week column every Sunday. He has also contributed to GoaliePost.

Blake Creamer brings his medical knowledge and sense of humor to Injury Ward every Wednesday. He also hosts the Apples & Ginos Fantasy Hockey Podcast.

Stas Pupkov dives deep into advanced stats with Analytics Advantage, a new column for the 2023-24 season.

Enjoy the playoffs, folks!