The Stanley Cup Final starts on Saturday. One finalist was the top seed in its conference. The other finalist is an 8-seed giant killer that has knocked off three of the top four teams (by points) in its conference. Easy pick for the panel to make, right? Well, you'll soon find out.

The writers didn't exactly rebound from a disastrous second round, although there's a catch to one of the series results. The Carolina/Florida series pick was a tie that had to be broken by a coin toss win for Carolina, so we won't count that one as either a win or a loss. However, the panel preferred Dallas, yet Vegas eventually won the West series. The 0-1 conference final record updates the panel's lifetime record to 130-85 when it comes to postseason predictions.

In terms of personal picks in the conference finals, Dobber, Alex MacLean, and Grant Campbell were the only writers that picked both Florida and Vegas in the previous round.

Below are the panel's picks.

Dobber explains why he believes the underdog will prevail.

The Vegas answer to Matt Tkachuk is… well, nobody.
So Florida in 5

— Dobber (@DobberHockey) May 30, 2023

Another reason might be the 10-day rest period that the Panthers will have before the final. Will that help them recover from some bumps and bruises, or will it kill their rhythm and momentum from the first three rounds? This will be an important factor for Sergei Bobrovsky, whose play has been a major reason that the Panthers are where they are.

Among our panel, Bobrovsky and the aforementioned Matthew Tkachuk received the same number of Conn Smythe votes to lead all players. At this point it's probably a coin toss between the two as to who would be favored to win. Jack Eichel, Jonathan Marchessault, and Adin Hill were the Golden Knights that received votes.

For the coin toss, heads was the higher-seeded team. The default is seven games for each coin toss pick. The coin toss results aren’t counted among the aggregate results – they are just there to embarrass any of our writers if needed.

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. He will also be taking over Capped next season.

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. 

Ryan Brudner will be our new Geek of the Week writer next season.

Enjoy the playoffs, folks!