It’s Gonna Get Itchy….

Tonight is the start of the 2010 Stanley Cup Playoffs. With the playoffs beginning comes the start of the annual “playoff beard.” If you are not familiar with the playoff beard, here’s a bit of history. The playoff beard started back in the 1980’s with the New York Islanders. They grew the beard at the start of their playoff run and didn’t shave it until they were either eliminated from the Stanley Cup Playoffs or won the Stanley Cup. Especially since 1995, the playoff beard has been grown by not all, but most NHL players.

It’s simple: the longer your team plays, the bigger, better, itchier, and cooler the beard gets. The Detroit Red Wings had the slogan “The Beard is Back” last season for their playoff run, which as we all know, ended in heart-breaking fashion we never want to relive.

The Detroit Red Wings open up the 2010 playoff race…on the road for the first time in 1991. I was three years old the last time the Red Wings opened the playoffs away from the Joe. Anyways, it’s great to see the Red Wings at the 5th seed this season, especially after all the injuries that the team seen throughout the year. Coach Mike Babcock should get some votes for coach of the year; I don’t know of another team- or coach- who could have made the playoffs with the amount of injuries that the Red Wings have. This just shows you how good this team- and the organization is as a whole.

Now onto the real business- the Phoenix Coyotes, who are the surprising #4 seed in the Western Conference. Make no mistake- the Coyotes are a very legitimate threat to the Red Wings. Phoenix is stacked with veteran leaders and young, promising superstars. Ed Jovanovski heads the Coyote defense with former Red Wing Mathieu Schneider. Wojtek Wolski, and Lee Stempniak, and Shane Doan head the Coyote offense that the Wings will need to shut down.

Phoenix is most dangerous in between the pipes- Ilya Bryzgalov. Bryzgalov has been solid in goal for the Coyotes all season long. He finished the season with 42 wins and eight shutouts, which is why Bryzgalov is a finalist for the Vezina trophy, which goes to the best goaltender of the 2009-2010 season.
We all know about the Red Wings; the likes of Lidstrom, Zetterberg, and Datsyuk must carry the Red Wings once again this playoff season. The big question mark for the Red Wings is in goaltending- Jimmy Howard- the rookie who has carried the Red Wings the entire season. If he can come up just as big in the playoffs as he did all season long, the Red Wings can do some damage this postseason.

Prediction time- this is going to be the best series in all of the NHL’s first round series’. The Red Wings are experienced in playoff games from head to toe. The Coyotes have home ice advantage and are hungry to make their mark on the NHL by sending the Red Wings home. I think this is going to be a low scoring series; both goalies have the potential to keep the other team off of the board. I believe the advantage is the special teams- the Red Wings power play and penalty kill have been as best as they’ve been towards the end of the year, which I think makes the difference in the series. Plus the Red Wings are totally healthy, motivated, and ready to go. They’ve been in playoff mode since the Olympic break just to make sure they made it into the playoffs. Oh yeah, plus they have Nick Lidstrom. That’s all I need to hear. Red Wings win in the series in six games. Let the playoff beard growing commence- and hopefully for the Red Wings, they will have some grizzly looking beards come June when they are (hopefully) still playing.