I've been so impressed during the playoffs with the defensemen that the Blackhawks have. Duncan Keith is their best, but Brent Seabrook, Cam Barker and Brian Campbell are also terrific. When you combine it with all their outstanding young forwards like Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews and Martin Havlat, you can see why Chicago is one of the four semi-finalists. They really need to get the goaltending that Nikolai Khabibulin has provided for them all season. The Blackhawks are the youngest team in the NHL and it is becoming very apparent that they can contend for the Stanley Cup barring injuries, for the next five years.

Whereas the Blackhawks have only three players in their thirties (Khabibulin, Campbell and Samuel Pahlsson), their opponents, the Detroit Red Wings, have 13 players over 30 and another one (Chris Chelios) who is 47. The veteran
Stanley Cup champions seem to have enough to beat the young Blackhawks, but Chicago will gain valuable experience for the future in this series. I see the Red Wings winning in five or seven games, but all the games will be tight.

The other series should be very interesting. Both Carolina and Pittsburgh won their Conference semi-finals on the road in Game 7. The Penguins have a lot of firepower down the middle with Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Jordan Staal and that carried them to their win over Washington. Crosby has re-established himself as possibly the best player in the game as he has been outstanding in the playoffs. The Penguins went with seven defensemen and only 11 forwards in Game 7, due to their concern that Sergei Gonchar would not be able to play a full game, but that will change in the Carolina series. The Penguins need goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury to come up big in this series if they are to play for the Cup.

The upstart Hurricanes have been led by Eric Staal. He, along with goaltender Cam Ward have carried the 'Canes into the semi-finals and they obviously got a big overtime goal from Scott Walker in Game 7 to win it. Walker's wife was just diagnosed with cervical cancer and while the prognosis looks very promising, it has to be taking its toll on both. The Hurricanes have been getting scoring from unlikely sources as Jussi Jokinen and Chad LaRose are second and third in scoring during the playoffs. Anton Babchuk has been a disappointment as he has only one assist in 12 post-season games after getting 16 goals and 35 points in 72 regular season games. Look for the Penguins to win in six games.

It will be very interesting with Jordan Staal facing his brother Eric in the series. We wonder if they will be invited to the Jarret Stoll-Rachel Hunter wedding in the summer. If they are, we hope that they do not have anything to do with planning Stoll's stag.