If the NHL isn’t going to change the current playoff format it may want to consider a new name for the Atlantic Division.
May we suggest the Highway of Broken Dreams?
There are pot holes everywhere on the road ahead for the Boston Bruins and Toronto Maple Leafs, each contemplating the jump from very good to world class that’s going to be needed just to play in the third round one of these next few years.
It’s tougher still if you’re Montreal, Ottawa, Detroit or Buffalo and trying to chart a course out of the ditch. Florida falls somewhere in the no-man’s land in between and even the current kingpin, Tampa, can’t count on getting a better chance to win the Stanley Cup than the one in its grasp right now.
There’s going to be heartbreak. Simple math and the format guarantee it. We already saw a small hint of what’s to come these last few weeks with Toronto losing in Round 1 after finishing seventh overall and Boston going down in Round 2 after being the NHL’s fourth best in the regular season.
“I think for the future we’re going to be a team to be reckoned with,” Nazem Kadri predicted on April 25, the night the Leafs lost a third-period lead – and Game 7 – in Boston. “We’ll be back in this situation.”
“A lot of people didn’t expect us to be a playoff team, a lot of people didn’t expect us to be a 50-win team and we were fighting for the first position in our conference,” Bruins captain Zdeno Chara said Sunday after Boston’s Game 5 ouster in Tampa. “We went through some challenges and obstacles this season and we handled it really well.
“I think there’s a lot to be proud of and a lot be looking forward to.”
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That’s where things get tricky. The expectations are skyrocketing. Toronto’s young core won’t get anymore free passes and they won’t be counting on any in Boston, either, following a season where veteran goalie Tuukka Rask said “we realized that we can play with anyone in this league.”
The hopes are fuelled by a budding generation of young stars.
David Pastrnak amassed 20 points in just two rounds while playing on Boston’s top line at age 21 and 20-year-old teammate Charlie McAvoy logged huge minutes on the right side of the No. 1 defence pair.
Toronto’s best three offensive players are still just kids – Auston Matthews is 20, Mitch Marner is 21 and William Nylander is 22 – and Lightning coach Jon Cooper called 22-year-old centre Brayden Point “the best player in this series” following Sunday’s win over Boston.
You have to believe that Buffalo could eventually join the mix, especially with the addition of a potential generational defenceman in Rasmus Dahlin to a core that already includes dynamic centre Jack Eichel.
There are no guarantees in sports, of course, but none of these teams is an obvious candidate to drop off dramatically anytime soon. The earliest cap issues could next force huge decisions in Tampa and Toronto, for example, is ahead of the 2019-20 season.
It certainly wouldn’t be a surprise to see the Lightning, Bruins and Leafs right at the top of the NHL standings again next year. Should that happen, there won’t be enough playoff dates to go around.
“The team is on its way up and competing with the top teams,” veteran Leafs defenceman Ron Hainsey said the night his team was eliminated. “I think there’s still a level we can get to here, this group can get to. A little bit better. There’s a little bit higher notch you’ve got to [hit] – up and down the roster – in order to win a series like this.
“This is a top, whatever, three, four or five team, right? I mean we’re on the edge of that. But [Boston] was up there. From Nov. 1 on, their record is incredible.”
And they were still out of games to play by May 7 – more than a month shy of the planned destination.
There was an earnestness to the way Cooper summed up the five-game series win over the Bruins. Sure, his team played great and was full-value for advancing after not allowing an even-strength goal against beyond Game 2. But the respect was evident when he referred to the Bruins as an “exceptional team.”
“I mean that was a nail-biter right down to the very end,” said Cooper. “Two nights before, they had the lead with seven minutes left and [Steven Stamkos] bailed us out. That’s how close these games are. It ends four games to one but walking out of the hockey rink you’re not saying, ‘That was a 4-1 series.’”
The Bruins walked out of Amalie Arena wondering what could have been. Patrice Bergeron had a dominant spring – arguably his best since lifting the Cup in 2011 – and yet summer arrived far too soon.
“It’s very disappointing with the team that we have and the way that we’ve played all year,” said Bergeron. “We believed that we had a great team. Disappointing. We could have done a lot more, obviously.
“We believed that we had a better team.”
Next year someone in the Atlantic will be saying the exact same thing. It’s unavoidable with so many top teams on a crash course for each other in the first two rounds.
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