As the regular season wraps up today, I have to feel pretty good about my preseason predictions. After all, how many people had the San Jose Sharks winning the Stanley Cup over the Montreal Canadiens?

Of course, there's one small problem. That was my prediction last season.

This year, I picked the Canadiens and the Pittsburgh Penguins to miss the playoffs. There's not much difference between that and finishing 1-2 in the conference.

I have come to regret my assessment of the Canadiens, although there was sound logic behind it at the time. After watching the Habs in the first round of the 2006 playoffs, I thought they were on the verge of competing for a Cup. (They were, just not yet.)

Not only did they miss the playoffs last season, but I had a hard time making the argument that they had gotten any better in the offseason with Sheldon Souray departing. And to be honest, I was a little piqued by the way they betrayed my faith the season before.

So I picked against a team about whose speed, skill and management acumen I had absolutely nothing but good things to say. Not smart.

As for the Penguins, I don't regret that pick a bit. My negative assessment of the Penguins was based almost entirely on their goaltending, and on my low opinion of Marc-Andre Fleury, who has the potential to be a good goalie in the NHL someday but is nowhere close yet.

When Fleury went down and the Penguins turned to Ty Conklin, they were 14-12-2 -- still better than their low point of 8-11-2, but nothing compared to the run Conklin carried them through, winning his first nine starts.

Now, if you had told me Conklin was the answer, I would have scoffed anyway. But he did fix the Penguins' biggest problem area, giving them the last line of defense to back up their many lines of offense. Now, if Michel Therrien insists on going with Fleury in the playoffs, all bets are off.

The addition of Kris Letang, who started the season in the minors, brought a little life to Pittsburgh's defense and Evgeni Malkin took his game to a new level when Sidney Crosby was injured.

I have explained all this ad nauseam to Penguins fans who feel compelled to send I-told-you-so e-mails, but I can't complain about that after I wrote a told-you-so column in November -- even if the point of that column was that the Penguins' core remains strong if they can find a goalie.

It was a better year for me in the Western Conference, where if the Vancouver Canucks had beaten out the Nashville Predators for the eighth spot, I would have picked all eight playoff teams on that side of the bracket.

On the other hand, I have picked the San Jose Sharks to win the Stanley Cup three straight years, even before the Joe Thornton trade.

And gosh darn it, I still think the Sharks are capable of doing it -- perhaps more so this year than ever.

I may have to pick against them to make sure it happens.