For as long as I can remember, I’ve been writing wrap-up articles on NHL free agency and trade deadline with my trademark “two sentences” pieces. It’s a useful model when there’s a volume of action, and people don’t have the time to read a "War and Peace"-length breakdown.
Well, 16 teams are set to embark on a two-month battle for the Stanley Cup, and I’ve got thoughts. Let's get through every team’s forecast, just days before the best round of playoffs of the best sport in the world gets under way.
EASTERN CONFERENCE
Carolina Hurricanes
The Eastern Conference champs are perennially disrespected, and this year they’re as fast and deep as they’ve ever been, with a D-corps that can skate and make plays just like the rest of the team. The questions are “Can the goaltending hold up?” and “Are they big enough?” but when your smaller lines drive people crazy like Taylor Hall-Logan Stankoven-Jackson Blake can, you’re gonna be a handful.
Buffalo Sabres
The Sabres have perhaps the best D-corps in the NHL, and in a world where we’ve accepted "defence wins championships," that’s probably a good thing. When Josh Norris is healthy, it feels like they’ve got enough up front too, so if their inexperienced goaltending can hold up (something they share with many teams), they’ll have a shot against anyone.
I’ve been working on my NHL awards ballot, and the Canadiens have viable contenders for the Selke, Norris and Calder, and even Cole Caufield should get slotted in on one of the NHL end-of-year all-star teams at his position (and while I don’t vote for Jack Adams, Martin St. Louis deserves love, too). I think they’re fast and dangerous, with young goalies who can be great, and have as good a chance as any team in the East to go to the Cup Final.
Tampa Bay Lightning
Tampa will provide us the answer to “How much does experience matter?” because with Florida out of the picture, the Lightning seem to represent the greatness of this past decade’s memorable playoff runs. With proven players Andrei Vasilevskiy, Victor Hedman, Brayden Point, Nikita Kucherov, Brandon Hagel, Jake Guentzel, Anthony Cirelli and Ryan McDonagh, it’s just really hard to bet against them.
Pittsburgh Penguins
Can Stuart Skinner be the guy they need after so many playoff runs with the Oilers? The Penguins will still be relying on proven superstar names, but they’re going to need young guns Egor Chinakhov and Ben Kindel to surprise if they want to make any post-season noise.
Philadelphia Flyers
The Flyers are a couple things to me, including being headed in the right direction (which makes them dangerous), and they’re annoying to play. Travis Sanheim and Rasmus Ristolainen have poke-check length on the back end, Travis Konecny is scrappy, Noah Cates is going to get Selke votes, Dan Vladar is solid in net, they’re well-coached ... so, overall, it just feels like they’re not going to go away easy.
Boston Bruins
The Bruins highlight the extreme parity in the NHL, because they’re not awesome, but they’ve got an awesome player on forward (David Pastrnak), on D (Charlie McAvoy) and in net (Jeremy Swayman), which is often enough to beat anyone on any night. Not to mention that they’re tough with Nikita Zadorov, Sean Kuraly and Tanner Jeannot, so they’re going to make life hard on the Sabres in Round 1.
The Sens have been very good all season but have had to fight tooth and nail to get into the post-season (because of bad goaltending), so we’ve got a No. 8 seed that’s as good as any team in the conference, which also has a Vezina-winning goaltender, but again, they’re somehow the No. 8 seed. But all their injuries seem to be clearing up at the right time, which gives them an elite D-corps with which to protect their goalie, and a scrappy, physical group up front.
WESTERN CONFERENCE
Colorado Avalanche
It’s crazy how much of this excellent team has been built via trade up front, from Marty Necas to Brock Nelson, Nazem Kadri and Nick Roy, Artturi Lehkonen and Ross Colton, and Jack Drury and on and on. They’ve got them loaded for another run, so as long as they’re healthy, it’s hard to see anyone taking them down.
Dallas Stars
The Stars are the same team they’ve always been to me, with a few elite talents, as they graduate from their old core to the new, and a good chance to beat 25 teams in the league pretty handily. But we’ll see how they hold up in series against back-to-back elite teams, where Jake Oettinger will be tested and the depth of their D-corp really put to the test.
Minnesota Wild
The Wild are, for the first year in a long time, truly fun to watch. They create offence like crazy, have stars who can score, they’ve got grit and edge throughout the lineup, and all put together, are going to give the Stars all they can handle — they’ve just got a tough make it out of the Central.
The Oilers seem like one of the few teams who genuinely don’t care about the regular season, but that mindset has worked great for the Florida Panthers and the 2012/2014 L.A. Kings. They know it’s about the grind that’s about to start, and they’re as loaded as ever, so if they can get average goaltending, it’s hard for me to believe they won’t find themselves back in a conference final.
Vegas Golden Knights
Vegas is the only team that makes me doubt the “Oilers back in the conference final” prediction, as they seem to be figuring it out at the right time. If Carter Hart takes over and suddenly finds his form in net, there’s too much talent up front to believe they couldn’t put together a deep playoff run of their own.
Anaheim Ducks
The Ducks are a bright-future team with lots of young talent that I love, all of Leo Carlsson, Cutter Gauthier and Beckett Sennecke are legit-legit. I just think they give up way too many goals against to hold up in long playoff series against deeper teams.
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Utah Mammoth
The Mammoth have underlying metrics (expected goals) that have them in a cluster of teams that include the Hurricanes and Lightning. They create a lot and limit chances against, meaning with some goaltending and a little shooting luck, they’re a potential first-round upset candidate.
Los Angeles Kings
The Kings made the playoffs on the back of winning a whopping 22 games in regulation, and for their trouble, they’ve drawn Colorado in Round 1. I don’t think they’re as bad as their record (and they got hot at the end!), but they’re certainly the leading candidate for “mostly likely to be eliminated first,” given their first opponent.
