I disagree. I think Tampa, New York, or potentially even the Islanders have a shot. I just think team weaknesses are exposed more against the West. The Habs have a much more glaring weakness than the other teams I mentioned in that they rely on Price to bail out poor play.
Yeah, we've been really, really good against the West this season. 14-3-5...only Detroit has been better out of the East. And 4 of those 8 losses came against Dallas, Colorado, and Edmonton. Our only losses against quality teams in the West are: Winnipeg in a shootout, St. Louis in a shootout, Vancouver in a shootout (are you noticing a pattern here yet?), and one regulation loss to Nashville. Honestly, I'm more worried about our ability to get out of the East than I am about how we would fare in a potential Final.
I think (some of) the top teams in the East can take on the top teams in the West. Lightning, Rangers, Islanders, Red Wings all match up pretty well, I think.
The West is deeper than the East in the sense that there are more teams that can realistically squeak into a playoff spot, whereas the East is more firmly divided into the have and have-nots this season. That is to say the East has a pretty even balance of really good teams and really bad teams with not a whole lot in the middle (pretty much just Boston, Florida, and maaaaaybe Ottawa and Philly if they can keep pushing), whereas the West has a handful of elite teams (Anaheim, Nashville, St. Louis, Chicago), a couple of really terrible teams, and then a whole lot of pretty solid teams in the middle.