Now that there is downtime before the postseason starts, the predictions start to fly. Here’s my breakdown for the eight series that start on Wednesday and Thursday.

The 2007-2008 regular season has officially ended. There are just three days until the playoffs begin. The matchups have been set and the schedules are posted. Now, the only thing hockey fans can do is bide their time, speculate, and predict.

“I’m a fantastic looking guy! This is going to be horrible for my image!” - Sydney Crosby, Pittsburgh Penguins

With all that the NHL got wrong with their post-lockout schedule matrix, the all-divisional playoff push at the end of the season is genius. Right now we’re seeing incredible match ups and nail-biting points races to round out the season. It’s like a mini-playoffs! Here’s the teams you need to watch for the next couple weeks.

We’ve all seen what hockey skates can do. They are razor sharp, and arguably the deadliest thing on the ice. So, why would any right thinking player think that driving that blade into another player is a good idea? I’d say this was an anomaly, but Chris Simon had his own stomping incident earlier this year and received a 30 game suspension.

However, teams like Detroit and Pittsburgh have shown little ill effect from their numerous injuries to marquee players. The Penguins’ success rate without Crosby is actually a novel stat that shows how their team can deal with such a big loss. While watching from the press box, Sid has seen his team skate to a 12-6-4 record. Detroit, besides that anomaly of a losing streak in February, haven’t really missed their injured players, skating to an eighth straight 100 point season.

Commissioner Gary Bettman has some team owners drooling with the possibility of an outdoor game in their city. If this year’s Winter Classic in Buffalo is any indication, any team that hosts the event next season will have nothing but good coming their way.

It was an easy win over Vancouver and it extended the Avs’ win streak to 4. Even John-Michael Liles, a struggling defenseman who hasn’t scored in 4 months, won the game with a rare power play goal. This is a must win time of the year, but all of a sudden, the Avalanche seem up to it.