With the exciting hockey regular season over, all that’s left to see this year is which team will be celebrating, hoisting the Stanley Cup over their heads in early June. This season’s play-offs feature veteran teams and players but also spotlight some new teams that we don’t see succeed every year, such as the Ottawa Senators.

Nine teams are returning from the 2014 play-offs including the 2014 Eastern Conference Champion New York Rangers. Last year’s Stanley Cup champion, the L.A. Kings, surprisingly missed out on the play-offs and were eliminated from postseason play a few nights before game 82. This season will only be the seventh time that the defending Stanley Cup champion will not be defending their title the following year. The last time this happened was when the New Jersey Devils won the cup in 1995 and missed the play-offs the following year.

According to VegasInsider.com the New York Rangers and Chicago Blackhawks are favorites to win either conferences and meet in the Stanley Cup finals. Despite finishing third in their division the Blackhawks are 7/2 odds to win the Western Conference, and the Rangers are 5/2 odds to win the Eastern Conference and 6/1 odds to win the cup, better than any other team.

The hometown team, Washington Capitals, open up the play-offs against the New York Islanders. The Caps and Isles faced each other four times in the regular season and split the season series, including two overtime games and a shoot-out game, so get ready for tight and down-to-the-wire games and a deep and physical series. The Capitals are banking on league-leading scorer Alex Ovechkin to lead them on and off the rink. Goaltender Braden Holtby’s 2.22 goals averaged against (GAA) is the fifth-best among all other goalies in the regular season. Even though the Caps are my team and who I’ll be rooting for, I think they will make it past the Islanders but won’t make it any farther than that.

The team I’m picking to hoist the Cup at the end of it all is the Montreal Canadiens. Led by all-star goaltender and Olympic Gold Medalist for the Canadian national team Carey Price, the Canadiens finished with the second-most points in the whole league. Montreal is strong offensively with Max Pacioretty who had 37 goals and 67 points and Tomas Plekanec with 34 assist and 60 points on the season. Defensively, the Canadians are led by defenseman P.K. Subban and Price. The Canadians have lots of team chemistry and are an experienced play-off team, and that’s the perfect formula for a championship.