Washington Clinches!

I can't help it. Watching AO jump around and celebrate automatically makes me smile. I don't care about traditionalist notions of hockey and how its players should be stoic and all that in victory. Jump into the boards, pile onto the goal scorer, show your emotion...I love it. I love seeing just how excited this sport makes him. And I absolutely cannot wait to see what he does in the playoffs.

As for my desired match-ups, Montreal indeed beat Toronto and Washington beat Florida, but Buffalo beat Boston. This means that Ottawa cannot finish 8th and thus, I need to alter my match ups.

(1) Pittsburgh vs. (8) Philadelphia
(2) Montreal vs. (7) Boston
(3) Washington vs. (6) Ottawa
(4) New Jersey vs. (5) New York

This means that Pittsburgh needs to beat Philly (an outcome I vastly prefer cheering for than my previous hope). The Rangers and Devils can do whatever they want; I really don't care who gets home ice in the series.

In the West, Colorado can still overtake Calgary (boo). If Colorado wins and Dallas loses, they finish with the exact same record, and I'm not entirely certain who takes it (tied in wins, tied in season series, so it goes to goal differential? Is this right? Dallas is +33, Colorado +9. So by my understanding, Dallas wins a tie breaker?)

Anyways, match ups as I would like to see them (essentially, as the standings are now. I'm cheering for Calgary, and I think their best match up is Minnesota):

(1) Detroit vs. (8) Nashville
(2) San Jose vs. (7) Colorado
(3) Minnesota vs. (6) Calgary
(4) Anaheim vs. (5) Dallas

This means:
* Colorado loses to Minnesota

And the rest of the teams can pretty much do whatever they want.

I'm also very torn right now. I was going to purchase a Jarome Iginla jersey online, as Calgary is my Western team. This would run me about $175 (since I missed the free shipping window and coolhockey.com :() and it takes about 7-10 business days to ship. Potentially, the Flames could be out of the playoffs by the time I received said jersey. Or, I could pick up the Ovechkin jersey that I saw at S+R in my travels through Kingston this week-end, for $169.99+tax ($192 with taxes...man, I'm not used to having to pay GST anymore!). Of course, I could also take the third option, not purchasing a jersey at all, but that one is a little less appealing. I need to decide whether the benefits of having a jersey in my hands for the playoffs is worth the added expense...decisions, decisions.