Devils vs. Flyers

I'm going to throw up eight almost content free posts  (the Pension Plan Puppets Playoff Prognostication Party) wherein I ask you guys who will win this series. It's like a playoff pool except we can win and lose as a community (and doesn't require me to do much work so it's the clear choice).

Up first is the #2 New Jersey Devils vs. the #7 Flyers. The Flyers get it started on Twitter:

@NHLFlyers: We are. RT @NHLDevils: There's nothing better than playoff hockey. Who's coming Wednesday night as we begin our quest for the Stanley Cup?

Our hatred of the Flyers aside that rules pretty hard. It's nice to see a team doing some official trash talk on Twitter instead of endlessly retweeting itself.

Our Devils blogger has offered us the following reasons to cheer for New Jersey and against the Flyers:

Reason to Support New Jersey: As some of you may know, Brian Burke was mentored in college by Lou Lamoriello.  If you really want to see the best possible outcome of what Burke can do, why not support the team Lou put together?  You can imagine a Lamoriello-esque approach to success for the Leafs by seeing what the Devils do on a regular basis, season after season.

Reason to Hate on the Flyers: A Flyers victory would only stand to provide further justification for their ways of "toughness" culture that they've been trying to ride upon since the mid-70s.  It would also give further evidence for the Leafs to focus more on "truculence" - which has taken the Leafs nowhere this past season - rather than more appropriate re-building maneuvers given the talent the Leafs do have.  To that end, the Flyers must be stopped in the first round and I implore you to cheer upon their demise.

These reasons aren't very flattering to the Leafs so let's see what SBNation's Flyers blog has to say:

They're either illiterate or haven't gotten back to us but on the other hand they didn't insult the Leafs and so this feels like a compelling argument in this series.

Update: Travis sent us his entry late because he was climbing lamp posts and getting bottles thrown at him after Brian Boucher 'saved' the season:

The task from PPP: tell us why Leafs fans should root for the Flyers. Eek. Well, honestly, it's simple. You love making fun of us, right? But how much fun are we when we aren't playing? I mean, honestly. Ninety-five percent of the stuff you all use for bait happens on the ice -- whether it's Dan Carcillo doing something dumb, or Scott Hartnell doing something dumb, or Flyers fans doing something dumb, or... well, you get the point. There's no chance for us to be dumb if the team isn't playing hockey, guys. So when Hartnell goes to lift the Cup and drops it on his head, you can always say you saw every period of Flyers playoff hockey that year. And you can make fun of us, even in our glory.

Oh, and why would you want to root for the Devils, anyway? They employ that bum Marty Brodeur, who you may recall almost blew that whole gold medal thing for y'all quite recently. And that Parise kid, who played for the Americans? AND JAMIE LANGENBRUNNER, THE AMERICAN CAPTAIN. I mean, come on now. The choice here is obvious. The Devils are booooooring anyway.

Despite not liking the Flyers very much watching the Devils makes me wish I was watching daytime television.

So what'll it be PPPers? Vote in the poll and then tell us in the comments why you hate both of these teams. Who is the lesser evil?