Eastern Conference
Atlantic Division
(A1) Montreal Canadiens (103 pts) vs
(EW2) New York Rangers (102 pts)
I for one
am really glad that the Canadiens did end up with one more point than the
Rangers. It would have been a little much if all four Metro Division playoff
teams finished ahead of all four Atlantic division teams. The Rangers were a
very good team for most of the season, essentially equal to the other three
Metro division powerhouses, but tailed off somewhat over the second half to
finish with a +36 goal differential. Of course, that is still a good 10 goals
better than Montreal, as the Rangers offense had a great year (Top 5 in goals).
The Canadiens begin and end with Carey Price period. Nothing is that great
about the team apart form Price. Their supposedly next set of stars all
struggled with Alex Galchenyuk having a middling 44 points in his 61 games and
guys like Gallagher (29 pts), Shaw (29) and Danault (40) all doing the same
despite playing a majority of the season. In the end, the Canadiens are their
goalie – and Carey Price is really good. The Rangers used to be the team as
recently as just two years ago who would enter any playoff series with the edge
in goal. That is no longer.
The Rangers
are a deep offense with quality across all four lines and great team speed
(something that used to be said of Montreal fairly recently as well), but
Henrik Lundqvist struggled in posting his worst season of his career. The .910
save % is not great, but the 2.74 GAA is even worse. Backup Antti Raanta far
outperformed him and it will be interesting to see if Alain Vigneault, a man
not unfamiliar to goalie switching in the playoffs, moves to Raanta if Hank
struggles. The Rangers are the better team on paper with better performance
from their four lines and more depth on defense, and neither team has any real
edge on special teams. In the end, though, it is hard to go against a team with
a large edge in goal.
Pick:
Canadiens in 6
(A2) Ottawa Senators (98 pts) vs
(A3) Boston Bruins (95 pts)
Let’s get
this out of the way early, the Senators are the worst team in the 2017 Stanley
Cup Playoffs. They are the only one with a negative goal differential. They are
the worst offensive team in the playoffs. Their defense depends on Erik
Karlsson keeping the puck for all the minutes he is on ice and Craig Anderson
performing miracles. The Bruins are living a charmed life, as the Maple Leafs
loss on the last day of the season gave Boston this slot, an eminently more
beatable opponent than what Toronto now gets to face (Washington). The Senators
have a few nice spots, including the continued brilliance of Erik Karlsson who
logged another 71 points in 77 games and continues to be underrated for his
actual defensive abilities. Their top three forwards (Hoffman, Turris, Stone)
all had nice years. And of course, Craig Anderson remains great. However, they
have no discernable skills beyond these things, being both below-average on the
PP and PK, and from a possession standpoint not too great 5v5 either.
The Bruins,
on the other hand, parlayed a shockingly great season from Brad Marchand (85
pts – way above anything he’s done in his career), a breakout season from
20-year old David Pastrnak (70 points), and the continued brilliance of Patrice
Bergeron into a really nice bounceback season from a team that missed the
playoffs each of the past two years and fired their coach midseason. Tuukka
Rask showed signs of slippage, but the Bruins did a good enough job limiting
shots that it didn’t really matter as he ended up with a perfectly acceptable
2.23 GAA despite being below average in both general save percentage and
quality save percentage (.493 – anything below .5 is considered bad). The
Bruins were both above average in the PP and PK as well. Basically, they are
way better top to bottom aside from goalie and the difference here is nowhere
near as large as it was between Montreal and New York. Despite all of this, the
only reason I am skeptical in the Bruins is the fact that they underperformed
all these peripheral stats and performances and ended up with just 95 points.
Still, gotta use my head when every indicator points to Boston.
Pick:
Bruins in 6
Metropolitan Division
(M1) Washington Capitals (118 pts) vs
(EW2) Toronto Maple Leafs (95 pts)
The
Capitals were a juggernaut last year. They scored 252 goals and allowed just
193, for a league-leading goal differential of +59. If we are being honest, the
Capitals were better this year. They scored 11 more goals, allowed 11 fewer,
for a goal differential of +81. They were #3 in goals, and #1 in goals allowed.
They had an above average power-play (4th in %) and penalty-kill (7th
in %). Nicklas Backstrom had his usual great year (quietly 4th in
points). Evgeny Kuznetsov an Marcus Johansson had very nice years. The defense
is deep. Kevin Shattenkirk came in and had 14 points in 19 games. Alex
Ovechkin’s ‘down’ year consisted for 33 goals. Oh, and they may have the best
goalie in the league, as Holtby finished with a tidy .925 save% and 2.07 GAA.
The Capitals are really good.
The Maple
Leafs are not. With the young talent they have, maybe they become the Capitals
5 years from now – but right now they just are not there. Now, they can
probably match Washington’s offensive firepower. Auston Matthews had the most
goals by any rookie since Ovie (40). Their other two precocious youngsters
(20-year old Wille Nylander and 19-year old Mitch Marner) had matching 61 point
seasons. And they have coach extraordinaire Mike Babcock living up to all his
billing. Even if they were to get swept in embarrassing fashion, this season
was a rousing success. But there is a chance they do get swept in embarrassing
fashion. The goaltending, and defense as a whole, is brutal even if Frederik
Andersen were not somewhat gimpy. Their special teams are good, but their 5v5
numbers are below average – and their opponent can easily attest to how
important 5v5 is in the playoffs. Finally, Babcock himself has had really good
teams flame out in the playoffs. This should not be a close series, and if the
Capitals do struggle to put Toronto away, that is a major warning sign going
forward.
Pick:
Capitals in 5
(M2) Pittsburgh Penguins (111 pts) vs
(M3) Columbus Blue Jackets (108 pts)
To me, this
is easily the most exciting of the four Eastern Conference playoff series. Not
only are these two so close to each other geographically, and not only is there
some bad blood between the two teams, but add into it myriad interesting
characters from John Tortorella’s triumphant return to the playoffs, to Sidney
Crosby, to Crosby nag Brandon Dubinsky, and you may get something special. The
Blue Jackets had such a bizarre season. They started off on a pace that was on
track to make them one of the greatest teams of all time. Everyone decried this
because no one expected it, and their early-season possession numbers were
middling, and their depended too much on the power play. Then, the team
struggled mightily for six weeks or so, getting passed by Washington for good
and then trading spots with the rest of the Metro powerhouses, and then, like
magic, they became good again. At the end, the Blue Jackets were fairly good in
possession, were 6th in goals scored, 2nd in goals
allowed, had their power-play drop to all the way to just above average, and
became a team whose performance belied a really good team. And that is what
they are. 19-year old Zach Werenski is a future star on the blue-line, and
their young forwards all had nice seasons, from Cam Atkinson (62 points),
Alexander Wennberg (59), Brandon Saad (53) and Sam Gagner (50). But the team
ill go far if Sergei Bobrovsky can continue to be the beautiful star he used to
be in 2013-14, and was again this year. Bob’s season was ridiculous, with a
.931 sv% and a .651 quality-chance save percentage. The Blue Jackets are a good
team with a great goalie.
The Pens
are a great team with an ‘eh’ goalie, as Matt Murray had a nice year for a
rookie (yup, technically he’s a rookie) but not a great year overall. Never
mind, though, as the Penguins raced with 282 goals, the most scored by an NHL
team in 7 years, since the Capitals scored 313 in 2009-10 (the year they got
Halak-ed in the 1st round). The Penguins did it in more ways than
they used to as well. Crosby was great (44 goals and 89 points in 75 games),
and Malkin was as good but he missed 20 games. So did Conor Sheary (53 points
in 61 games). The slack was more than picked up elsewhere. The powerplay is
great, and their continued ability to split their lines up keeps them as deep
as the team that dominated last year. My biggest issue with the Penguins, and
ultimately why I am picking them to lose, is the injuries. There’s no Carl
Hagelin and no Chris Kunitz, two key Top-9 forwards for them. But worst is the
lack of Kris Letang, who was dominant in the playoffs last year in possession.
The Blue Jackets can somewhat match the depth of the Penguins now, and I can
see a break-out series for Bobrovsky on the big stage.
Pick: Blue
Jackets in 7
Western Conference
Central Division
(C1) Chicago Blackhawks (109 pts) vs
(WW2) Nashville Predators (94 pts)
For years,
the Blackhawks relatively underperformed in the regular season despite great
peripheral numbers and then generally went really deep in the playoffs. For the
first time in a while, they decided to outperform in the regular season. By no
numbers are the Blackhawks a great team that should have had the best point
total in the Western Conference. Yes, this was a down year in the West (109 pts
wouldn’t have led the West in any recent year), but the Blackhawks are a team
that finished 3rd in the Central three straight years, not a team
that cruised to 1st place. The usual suspects all had great years
(save for Toews), with Kane pouring in 89 points, Panarin having a nice encore
performance, and Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook remaining great. The team is
not deep however, and a team that can roll lines consistently has a really good
shot of knocking them off. There’s no real explanation for the Blackhawks
ending up with 109 points being merely good 5v5, and below average both on the
PP and PK, and with both Crawford and Scott Darling having average seasons. Of
course, the fact that this team normally plays better in the playoffs and is
already the top seed in the West is quite scary.
The
Predators are the anti-Blackhawks. They should have been better. They were
everyone’s trendy Stanley Cup pick in the preseason after they added PK Subban
to an already great blue-line, and had a deep set of forwards that can roll
with anyone. Injuries and slow starts by Filip Forsberg and Ryan Johansen set
them off course early but they rebounded to grab the final playoff spot
(something everyone else’s preseason pick – Tampa Bay – just missed out on
doing), but there’s no real indication that this is a team ready to flip the
switch. Their top forwards are all young, but maybe a year away from truly
breaking out (their top three point getters are 23, 24 and 22). Their defense
is deep, and Subban seems to be healthy, but even their blueline can’t cover
for a goalie who’s best days are years behind him. Pekka Rinne is just not a
top flight goalie anymore, and while Juuse Saros is intriguing as his backup,
that too is a long-term option. The Predators should have been better, and they
should be better next year, but I don’t think there is some great team hiding
in the 2016-17 vintage.
Pick:
Blackhawks in 6
(C2) Minnesota Wild (106 pts) vs
(C3) St. Louis Blues (99 pts)
In many
ways, the fact that this matchup seems uninspiring speaks volumes about how sad
the Central was this year. The Blues, Predators and Stars all seriously
underperformed, and even the Wild dropped off from their ridiculous
early-season pace to have a nice season. The Blues enter this series injured,
on an already top-heavy roster, and still with questions in goal. They
certainly improved once Ken Hitchcock was shown the door, but something still
seems off on the team. Only Tarasenko (who’s really criminally underrated at
this point), Jaden Schwartz and Alex Peitrangelo had anything resembling nice
seasons. The largest red flag was the stagnation of Jake Allen. For years we
were told he needed to be fully handed the reigns to succeed and now we see why
the Blues were so hesitant to give him them. He was perfectly average, which
behind a perfectly average team (12th in both goals scored and
allowed), the Blues don’t pose too much of a threat.
The Wild on
the other hand will really test the theory of momentum. Their beginning of the
season was absolutely phenomenal. At one point, the top four players in the NHL
in +/- were Wild players. In the end, still three of the top four were (Zucker
and Suter at +34 and Jared Spureon at +33). The team had a goal differential on
pace to break +100. Even though they noticeably slowed down in the second half
to the point they gave away what was once a huge division lead, the Wil remain
a very deep, very good team. Eric Staal had a crazy bounceback year, all their
young talent broke out together (24 year olds Granlund, Niederreiter and Coyle
all had very good years). They don’t even have the red-flag hallmarks of the
usual Boudreau teams like an unsustainably good powerplay (the Wild were just
good on the PP). The biggest reason for their fall-off remains the only reason
for skepticism (other than Boudreau’s past history), in that Devan Dubnyk
regressed quite clearly in the 2nd half of the season. He ended the
year really well, but he was Bobrovsky level good in the 1st half,
and merely Tuuka Rask good in the 2nd. Now, in this matchup they
still have the goalie edge, but this could doom them later on.
Pick: Wild
in 5
Pacific Division
(P1) Anaheim Ducks (105 pts) vs
(WW1) Calgary Flames (94 pts)
The Ducks won the Pacific Division the first
three years it existed in its current state. Because of playoff failures they
fired Bruce Boudreau, hired old-school Randy Carlyle, and ended up winning the
Pacific again. They maybe had the quietest 105 point season I have ever seen.
The Carlyle hiring was much derided, but the Ducks continued to be what they
are. They have one great forward (Getzlaf – another quiet 73 points in 74
games), a few great defenseman (though Cam Fowler’s injury hurts them, and will
become more significant if they advance and he is still out), and an overall
deep, large team that can tighten up when they need to. The Ducks started slow
but ended great, and John Gibson put a hammer-lock on the starting job. The
biggest red flag is how the players that normally wither away in the playoffs
fare this time around. The pickup of Patrick Eaves has been a great under-the-radar
move to add even more depth to an already deep forward group. If they can
continue to roll lines the Ducks should be fine – especially in this matchup.
I was wrong when I said the Blues were the most
average playoff team – the Flames are. The ywere 15th in Goals
Scored, and 16th in Goals Allowed, with a differential of +5. The
Flames are an average team. Like Nashville, they will likely be very good in a
couple years as Gaedreau and Monahan continue to develop, and as Dougie
Hamilton grows into the Norris-level player he can be (50 points and a +12 was
a good start this year). But their depth is a serious issue – exacerbated by
the disappearance of Sam Bennett this season. They have the team speed to give
Anaheim problems, but outside of that it is hard to see where they have any
edges. They’ve relied on PP and PK excellence to mask serious deficiencies 5v5,
and that gets exposed like nothing else in the playoffs (as the Ducks can
attest to from previous seasons), and finally their goaltending is unlikely to
steal anything. The Western Conference may end up giving us great drama, but
nothing is pointing to that at this point.
Pick: Ducks in 5
(P2) Edmonton Oilers (103 pts) vs
(P3) San Jose Sharks (98 pts)
The Oilers
may seem to be on paper to the Western Conference’s answer to the Maple Leafs,
the team that crashed the playoff party way before anyone was ready for them
to, but the Oilers are in reality a fairly good team. Their offense may be
top-heavy, but when that top is the NHL’s scoring leader and likely MVP in
Connor McDavid, another precocious young center with 77 more points (Leon
Draisaitl), and a few other really nice pieces playing in front of the
surprisingly-good Cam Talbot, that can add up to a 103-point season where the
team probably should have won the admittedly soft Pacific. What’s more is that
they are fully healthy, and have been for essentially the full year. There is
only two areas to poke and prod at: their lack of depth beyond the top two
lines (RNH did not have a very good year) and their reliance on the PP which
usually spells doom in the playoffs.
The Sharks
are the anti-Oilers, the team that has, outside of Chicago, more playoff
experience with this core than any other. I’m going to assume Thornton plays,
but even if he does, his play finally started showing some signs of slippage
this year (he is 37 after all). The future can’t be too bright on a team with
so many key cogs being 32 or older, and it’s never a good sign when a
defenseman leads your team in goals and assists (admittedly, Brent Burns is
fantastic), but experience should matter, right? Really, that’s the only reason
I am picking the Sharks here. This team is a worse version of the one that made
the Stanley Cup Final last year, but their relative depth (compared to
Edmonton), and better 5v5 performance are advantages. Finally, I don’t like
when a team plays its starting goalie so many games, and the 73 that Talbot
played are glaringly high.
Pick:
Sharks in 6
