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Predicting the winner of the Masters, or the World Series, or the Super Bowl, can be fun and also risky. But nothing like this spring’s Stanley Cup Playoffs. I mean, who do you like: St. Louis? Montreal? The New York Rangers? Chicago? Anaheim? Or how about the Minnesota Wild?
Of course, we’d love to see the Wild go all the way, and they have a legitimate chance, if they can keep playing the way they’ve played the last four months. Problem is, if you go by the above list, it’s pretty impossible for the Wild and the St. Louis Blues to both make it, because they are facing off right as we speak -- first-round foes.
Therein lies the difficulty of picking a Stanley Cup winner. Other leagues talk about parity, or wish for parity, but the National Hockey League has parity, from top to bottom. If you have any remaining doubts about that, consider that a year ago, the Boston Bruins accumulated the most points in the entire NHL, winning the President’s Trophy. And the Los Angeles Kings won the Stanley Cup with an incredible springtime run. Well, look through this year’s pairings of the 16 teams that reached the playoffs, and you can only shake your head -- neither the Bruins nor the Kings made it to this year’s tournament!
So instead of picking with our heads, we might as well go with our hearts. Here is my personal list of the teams I want to see win in the first round.
Wild over St. Louis:  It will take some special performances throughout the lineup, but particularly, the Wild will need miracle-working goaltender Devan Dubnyk to keep working miracles, and they will need Zach Parise’s tireless effort and dedicated leadership, going to the Blues net, or in the corners, or wherever else it is that more-timid players are reluctant to venture. The Blues are loaded, with Minnesota standouts David Backes and T.J. Oshie fourth and fifth in scoring on the team, and both with more points than the Wild’s No. 2 scorer. Vladimir Tarasenko is the top Blues scorer, and former Colorado College star Jaden Schwartz is second.
Chicago over Nashville: You’ve got to love Nashville’s grit and consistency, but the Blackhawks have Patrick Kane back, to bolster the offensive lead set by Jonathan Toews. After some sputtering, the Blackhawks could go all the way, and beating the Predators is Step 1.
Winnipeg over Anaheim: This would be a shocker, but the Jets are flying high, now that they’ve got Dustin Byfuglien back from his suspension for running over people. The Ducks are mighty, and could also go all the way, but Winnipeg got into the playoffs with a ferocious run through the stretch, and the Jets could surprise.
Vancouver over Calgary:  Amazing, that five Canadian teams make the select 16, and four of them pair off in the first round. Vancouver has overcome some inconsistency, and Calgary has been the picture of inconsistency, so I think the Canucks will extinguish the Flames.
So much for the West. Now, we don’t like to consider the East to be as strong, but this season, the East teams have been sizzling since February, and could easily produce the Cup winner. We aren’t concerned with that right now, just the first round.

Ottawa over Montreal:  This would be a shocker, coast to coast -- Nova Scotia to Vancouver Island. We’ve got the Capitol to Canada against the French Capitol of Canada, and Montreal, with Carey Price in goal, is a big favorite. But not so fast. Ottawa has a defenseman named Erik Karlsson who might be the best in hockey, and they’ve got an undrafted rookie goaltender named Andrew Hammond, who was rescued from the American League when Ottawa was 14 points out of the eighth and final playoff spot. In the process of doing the East’s impersonation of Devan Dubnyk, compare Hammond’s numbers. Dubnyk has gone 27-9-2, and incredible performance; Hammond has gone 20-1-2, and ignited the Senators to a 23-4-4 second-half record that made Ottawa fans forget about hoping to get the No. 1 overall draft choice, and start thinking about the Cup. Montreal is outstanding, but even Price isn’t as hot as Hammond.
Detroit over Tampa Bay:  Tampa Bay, Ottawa, and the New York Islanders are the three top Cinderella stories in the NHL this season, but as long as Pavel Datsyuk is still lacing ’em up, I can’t pick against the Red Wings. But they’d better be ready, or Tampa Bay will make them wish they could return to the Western half of the league.
New York Rangers over Pittsburgh: Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin make the Penguins a potent challenge for anyone, but it hasn’t been smooth sailing for Pittsburgh this season, and the Rangers are loaded and ready to make a legitimate run. Might be good for Sidney to get humbled a little, and Henrik Lundqvist is just the goaltender to do it.
New York Islanders over Washington:  I’ve always been a staunch supporter of Alex Ovechkin, even when it was fashionable to try to make him out to be the evil Russian. But the Islanders have captured the imagination of hockey fans everywhere with a young and inspired team that just happens to be led by a flock of Minnesotans. Anders Lee from Edina, Nick Leddy from Eden Prairie, Kyle Okposo from the Gophers, and my personal favorite, Brock Nelson, from Warroad by way of the University of North Dakota can, as a collective group, lead the Islanders to glory.

You don’t have to go along with my picks, in fact, you probably shouldn’t. But sit down and try to pick the winners, and you’ll see why I say the NHL has the most parity in pro sports.

Remember Pitching and Defense?

 The best thing about the college hockey season is that the NCAA tournament ended and allows us to turn our attention to the NHL playoffs. Proud as we are of the NCHC being the best league in college hockey, the lads from Hockey East dealt a harsh lesson to the West.
Providence, which had the luxury of playing at home in the regionals, was a one-team wrecking crew for the NCHC, first taking out Miami of Ohio, then eliminating Denver to win the regional, at the same time Boston University knocked out UMD. So right there in Boston, Providence came from behind to knock off BU and win the Friars their first NCAA title ever.
Meanwhile, baseball season started, at the Major League level in some cities, and in colleges throughout the land. We would like to think the Minnesota Twins, under new coach Paul Molitor, might show serious signs of becoming a contender, but we also have to realize it might not happen. Pitching has been scarce, hitting has been just as spotty, and defense has been only a rumor for the Twins - so far.
 It’s an affliction that also spreads down to the Division II and III levels of baseball in college. Last weekend, I thought I’d stop out and check the new artificial turf at Wade Stadium, knowing that St. Scholastica was playing Crown College in a Saturday doubleheader. I figured I’d catch the second game, and watch a little of Denfeld’s season-opening softball game, against Cambridge-Isanti, just outside Wade’s left-field wall.
When I entered Wade, St. Scholastica was wearing ceremonial orange uniform tops, as a fund-raising effort for cancer awareness, and specifically for Merissa Edwards, an administrative assistant in athletics at the college, who has been diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia.
The new turf at Wade looks good, and seems to play good too. But it played better for the Saints than for Crown. I thought the new scoreboard lights had failed, because the runs by inning didn’t add up to the 21-3 total. Turns out, the Saints had pounded out 10 runs in one inning, and the single-inning tally wouldn’t go that high. The Saints purred along and won the second game 15-0, after having also routed Crown 13-2 on Friday.
For a dose of sanity, the softball game was 7-2, as Denfeld, with a young and rebuilding team, whipped Cambridge-Isanti.
In looking at other scores, I found that the St. Scholastica-Crown series was not the only mismatch. In Division II, Bemidji State went to Mankato to face the powerful Mavericks in a Northern Sun series.
The first game saw Mankato take a 7-0 lead, but Bemidji State roared back to erase it and go on ahead 9-7. Amazing comeback. But Max Waletich hit a 3-run homer for Mankato in the seventh inning to give the Mavs a 10-9 victory. The second game was another story.
The Mavericks jumped off to a 9-0 lead, but again the Beavers came back, cutting the deficit to 9-7. Then, however, it was lights out for Bemidji State. Mankato scored 10 in the third inning, and kept on scoring until the seventh, when they added 14 more.
The final score was 41-20. Pause and think about that for a second. Bemidji State scored 20 runs -- and lost by 21. Waletich had four home runs for the day, and while the 41 runs set a school record, the 56 hits the two teams collected in the nightcap broke a national Division II record.
Waletich and the Mavericks weren’t done yet. They played Bemidji State in another doubleheader on Sunday, and MSU won 14-4 and 23-1. Waletich went 4-for-6 in the second game, with three more home runs. Makes you wonder how the scoreboard is holding up in Mankato.
So the Twins aren’t the only ones who seem to have a few soft spots in their pitching rotation.

SHANNON MILLER TRIBUTE

We had a chance to attend a special party at the Holiday Inn Saturday night. It was a tribute to Shannon Miller, the deposed coach of the UMD women’s hockey team. There were an amazing number of fans, who turned out to fill the ballroom downstairs, and a lot of former players. Mayor Don Ness was there as well, and it was a very emotionally charged situation.
Former players like Mario Rooth from Sweden, Hanne Sikio from Finland, and Caroline Ouellette from Canada all sent heartfelt messages, and they all said pretty much the same thing -- about how much it meant to them to play for UMD and how much it meant to their development as young women to be coached by Shannon Miller.
Julianne Vasichek was there, too. Known far and wide as Montana, she was an All-America defenseman on Miller’s first three NCAA championship teams. More recently, she has been serving as trainer and equipment manager for the Bulldogs women’s team, right up until her liver gave out two months ago. She has since been at Mayo Clinic in Rochester recovering from a liver transplant, and while she had to hurry right back there, she felt good enough to attend the gathering. She spoke about losing 40 pounds, and about how much it has meant to her to be part of the Bulldog family under Miller.
With no disrespect for new women’s coach Maura Crowell, if you sat there listening to all the speeches and tributes, about how Miller was lured to UMD 16 years ago, and about how she established a place for UMD in national and world college athletics, you could only wonder how UMD could ever think of cutting her adrift.
Time marches onward, of course, and the item a few days later caught me by surprise. Remember Jenny Potter? The former Jenny Schmidgall, from Edina, left the University of Minnesota after one season to transfer to UMD, and she became an All-America for the Bulldogs, helping Rooth, Sikio, Erica Holst, Vasichek and all the rest to their first NCAA championships.
After marrying Rob Potter and having a couple of kids, Jenny kept on playing for Team USA in three Olympics and countless World Championships. Then she went into coaching, at the high school level, and then at a small Division III college, leading it to its first league championship.
On Monday, Jenny Potter was named the new head coach of The Ohio State University women’s hockey team. Yes, one of UMD’s biggest women’s hockey stars will be coming home to Duluth next season -- as coach of the Buckeyes.