With baseball season just around the corner, many sports fans are turning their attentions away from the pucks and rinks to America’s past time, baseball. After the winter Scituate residents experienced, who would blame them? However, some of the best hockey is yet to be played. The hometown Boston Bruins are just barely clinging to their playoff hopes, as a late season effort propelled them into the last wild card position, but a resurgent Ottawa Senators are threatening the Black and Gold’s playoff chances. The Bruins will match up with the Tampa Bay Lightning, arguably the most complete team in the Eastern Conference, on Saturday, April 11^th at 7:30 p.m. in Tampa, Florida. Tampa Bay is a faster and more dynamic team than the Bruins, but they have less defensive depth. Outside of Boston, there are teams that previously suffered from a lack of consistency, such as the New York Islanders, and the former annual contenders, the Pittsburgh Penguins, were at risk of missing the playoffs for the first time in nine years.

In the Western Conference, the race is equally tight. The level of talent-filled teams in the West is simply incomparable to the more physical and grinding oriented East. In the West, the mighty Anaheim Ducks of the Pacific Division are leading the conference with 107 points. Following close behind in the Central, are the St. Louis Blues, with 105 points. With the level of talent on these teams, it’s not out of the realm of possibility for Lord Stanley to return to Anaheim, or to finally grace St. Louis with its first championship. Additionally, despite a late season slump, the Chicago Blackhawks led by Jonathan Toews currently occupies the 3^rd seed in the Central Division, and while marred by injury, still has the potential to make a deep push this season. Still in the hunt are the Los Angeles Kings, the Minnesota Wild, the Winnipeg Jets, and the San Jose Sharks.

Overall, this is going to be an excellent playoff matchup, with stacked teams on both conferences. Despite the West’s seeming superiority in terms of talent and depth, nothing is certain in the NHL. After all, it was only four years ago that the Bruins were the underdogs, fighting the goliath of the Vancouver Canucks, and came back from down two games to win the Stanley Cup. Anything is possible this year. Hockey fans should buckle in: This is going to be a wild ride.