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As we enter the final month of the NHL season, likely Eastern Conference top seeds Washington will undoubtedly be keeping a keen eye on the bottom end of the playoffs where their first round opponents will be decided.

At the moment, it seems a safe NHL bet that the team they would most likely prefer to avoid is the Boston Bruins, one of the in-form teams in the conference, having won seven of their last 10 games and looking impressive in the main.

The Bruins were expected to be much better than a fourth-placed team this season in the Northeast Division, but Buffalo, Ottawa, and Montreal have all performed above expectations to leave them in a precarious position.

Nine points, though, is the gap between the first-placed Sabres and Boston, with the Bruins having a couple of games in hand on the Senators and Canadiens as they look to push their way up through the seedings from their current eighth.

There are teams queueing up outside the top eight as well, but Boston have used their run of form to move five points clear of the struggling New York Rangers, and if they can continue to improve their scoring they are going to be a dangerous post-season floater, and threat to anyone.

Of course the loss of Marc Savard to a potentially season-ending concussion is a blow, but there is enough talent on this Bruins roster to get the job done without him, despite having one of the lowest goal-scoring records in the conference.

Indeed, one of their most impressive performances of the season came last week when they smashed five goals past Philadelphia on the road, a game in which Patrice Bergeron (three points) and David Krejci (two) stepped forward. They can put out three solid forward lines, and have some bite in the form of Milan Lucic and Shawn Thornton, but it is going to take some defensive improvement from the likes of Zdeno Chara and Dennis Wideman to give them hope if they are to beat the Capitals or potentially Pittsburgh, who they have a point to prove against after Savard’s recent injury in the game between the sides.

Wideman, in particular, has been booed by his own fans in recent weeks after a series of errors, but he is good enough to get over fan reactions and take charge of a second defensive pairing that is going to have to be in form by the time the Stanley Cup playoffs open in April.

Goaltending, with both Tim Thomas and youngster Tuukka Rask proving reliable, is in safe hands, so don’t sleep on these Bruins as you look towards the postseason.

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Game :- Manchester United (1st- 63 points) vs Fulham FC ( 10th- 38 points)

Date :- Sunday, March 14th 2010, 13.30 GMT

Fulham could complete a rare league double over Manchester United if the beat the Red Devils in the Premier League on Sunday. Bet on Man United vs Fulham with our recommended bookmakers after reading this preview (more…)

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Let the madness begin.

As the weekend draws near, the major conference tournaments are taking center stage. But this is just a warm-up to the true march madness. And that will begin on Sunday evening when the selection committee announces the 65 teams that will play in the tournament. And then all this talk about teams being on “the bubble” will finally stop and the real tournament will take center stage.

And that’s really one thing that stops this weekend from being great. Too much discussion and which teams might make it and which teams won’t. It’s fun for about 5 minutes but then it gets old really quick. And since the bubble talk started in December this year, it’s all really old by now. So, let’s get to the actual tournament already.

So, starting Sunday night the madness will begin anew. And we’ll get to see how the brackets shake out and which match-ups are going to be a lot of fun to watch.

And there are a few teams that promise to be so-called bracket busters before the tournament even starts. One such team is the Cornell Big Red. They are coming out of the non-basketball Ivy League. They’re projected to be a 10 or 11 seed right now. But I can promise you that there isn’t a 6 or a 7 seed that wants to see them. In fact, without even knowing which team Cornell will play, I am going to pick Cornell to win that game. And I wouldn’t be surprised to see Cornell advance to the Sweet 16 either.

But Cornell is just one such team that can bust a bracket. And the cool thing is that there’s probably a team out there that nobody expects will do anything, and they’ll win 2 or 3 games.

And that’s what makes this time of year so magical. And it’s why it’s called March madness. Let it begin.