2013 NHL Pick-em's Contest

Welcome to the 2013 NHL Pick-em’ Playoffs!
Any poster that wishes to participate in this contest can place their picks throughout the entire NHL Playoffs. The goal is to accumulate the most points by the end of the playoffs.
Here is how it works:
Each player will submit their picks for the series winner, how many games the series will go, and then their picks for each individual game. I will keep tally of all the picks, and post updates along the way. Obviously, if you want to win the contest, then you should start in the 1st round if you wish to have the best odds at winning, but I will tally even the late comers to the contest, and keep a full point tally along the way.
If a poster were to start in the 2nd round of the playoffs, they still might have a shot at winning, but only if a lot of people bomb their picks in the opening round. 

As everyone should already know, an NHL playoff round lasts roughly 2 weeks, if the series were to go 7 games. So this contest will last approximately 2 months. 


Here is how the point tally system will work: 


1. Pick the series winner before the first game of that series
2. Pick the amount of games the series will go. Time will be short, so get your picks in as soon as each series is set. Once the puck is dropped in the first game between the two clubs, you will lose the chance to win these points. If you pick the correct winner for a series, 5 points will be rewarded for the 1st round, 7 for the 2nd round, 10 for the Conference Championships round, and 15 for the Stanely Cup Finals. If you correctly pick the winner of the series, and you have correctly picked how many games the series will go, you will be rewarded an extra 5 points..


3. Pick the winner of all individual playoff games. This is the area, where a poster can re-deem themselves if their pre-series picks look hopeless from the beginning. The poster must pick the winner of a game, before the puck is dropped. You can either pick the entire schedule once it is posted, or wait between games, and post your picks for all games played that night... However, once your pick is posted, you can not edit your picks, otherwise they won't count as wins. There are a potential of 105 total games in the playoffs, so a lot of points can be picked up in this area. So, for some posters with time on their hands, they may wish to post their picks daily before the games are played, and for other posters with less time on their hands, you may post either weekly, a few days at a time, or all games in the series at once. I'll keep a daily tally of the daily picks, and accumulate the scores and post the tallies every Friday of that week. Obviously, picking game by game provides better odds, since you can better guestimate the momentum of a series. 1 point is awarded for each game picked correctly.


Points and Tiebreakers:
At the completion of the cup finals, the player with the most points will be determined the winner. In the case that 2 or more posters tie in total points at the completion of the Stanley Cup Finals, than a tie-breaker system will be used. The person with the highest single game wins receives 1st place. If more than 2 posters have the same amount of wins, then the next tie-breaker would be used, which is the total number of series winners that were picked correctly, and if there is still a tie, then the final tie-breaker would be the accumulative total for the amount of games in a series that were picked correctly.
Good luck to all of those that participate. I will post the schedules and match-ups in this thread when they are ready. If anyone has any suggestions for improving the contest, let me know.