The panel whiffed on both Conference Final picks, with the majority of writers picking the Rangers and Stars. Even the coin toss managed to pick one series winner (Florida) correctly.

The Rangers and Stars will be watching the Stanley Cup Final on TV, as the Oilers and Panthers battle it out for the Stanley Cup. With the two L's, the panel's lifetime record is now 140-90 when it comes to postseason predictions.

Congratulations to Chris Kane, Grant Campbell, and Ryan Brudner, who correctly picked both Conference Final winners. They were also the only three writers to pick Edmonton to defeat Dallas.

Here are the picks for the Stanley Cup winner and the Conn Smythe winner:

For the coin toss, heads was the higher-seeded team. 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.

Edmonton remains an underdog for the Stanley Cup Final, although there are a few more writers on board with them this time. Florida is the slight betting favorite for this series, so it shouldn't be a huge surprise that the majority of writers here favor the Panthers to win their first-ever Stanley Cup. The Oilers will try to beat those odds to win the first Stanley Cup for a Canadian-based team in over 30 years.

Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov is now the favorite among the panel to win the Conn Smythe Trophy, with Connor McDavid a close second.

Comment from one writer about Blake's choice of Gustav Forsling: "In a perfect world, I’d say it probably should go to Forsling, but they’d never pick him." Is the Conn Smythe awarded by default to one of the winning team's major stars, regardless of a lesser player's overall playoff performance? That's certainly open for debate.

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 join 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 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!