Taking a crack at what could happen in the first round
Now that we’ve gotten the West out of the way, let’s turn back to the Eastern Conference and preview and try to predict the first round of the NHL playoffs.
Washington Capitals (Metro 1) vs. Montreal Canadiens (Wild Card 2)
It’s shades of 2010 — the Capitals are the first seed in the East, Alex Ovechkin is scoring unlimited goals and a plucky Montreal team that barely scraped into the playoffs is looking to complete the parallels with another first round upset like they did 15 years ago.
But hold your horses, Jaroslav Halak ain’t walkin’ through that door.
Montreal is one of the youngest playoff teams ever. They’ll be in “just happy to be here mode” whether it’s intended or not. The Caps are better than them across the board in every spot.
There’s got to be a little trepidation for the Caps since starting goalie Logan Thompson has been out since April 2nd with a “day-to-day” injury and doesn’t have runway to get back into form. The Montreal atmosphere will be off the charts with excitement and energy. That won’t extend to helping on the ice.
Prediction: Capitals in 6
Carolina Hurricanes (Metro 2) vs. New Jersey Devils (Metro 3)
The Devils were giving off Penguins 2011 vibes by having Jack Hughes lost for the season and Dougie Hamilton gone for the stretch run. Hamilton is back now, but NJ still seems like the team that will be missing a star piece too critical to enable the possibility of a big run. That might be overly-dismissive since Jesper Bratt has raised his game to a very high level and between Nico Hischier, Timo Meier and Luke Hughes the Devils still have a lot of talent going in their favor, which is worth mentioning too that NJ isn’t exactly like a truly dead-in-the-water Pens team. Still, NJ’s 11-13-1 record since 4 Nations stands out as the worst among playoff qualifiers and seems to foreshadow this squad they have might not have what it takes.
On the other side of the ledger, Carolina hasn’t lost a normal first round series in the salary cap era (omitting the 2020 bubble). They might have a limited ceiling about how deep they keep playing, but they have been a sure bet to get out of the first round every single year. The Hurricanes are well-coached, deep and look as hungry as ever to make a run at it. That starts with the first step, and we’ll call it for them.
Prediction: Hurricanes in 5
Toronto Maple Leafs (Atlantic 1) vs. Ottawa Senators (Wild Card 1)
The Battle of Ontario should have no shortage of fun to watch from afar. The Maple Leafs enter in their annual Sisyphean challenge to push that boulder up the hill in the playoffs one more time with their current core looking to fulfill the promise and hope of one of the top teams in recent years stymied by postseason flame out after flame out.
Anthony Stolarz has been awesome for Toronto this year, but do we really live in a world where “Stolie the Goalie” is out there winning NHL playoff series? That’s one question I keep coming back to. It’s not unheard of for mid-level goalies to go on a heater at the right time but counting on that feels a little creaky from the outset. On the other hand, it’s not like Ottawa starting goalie Linus Ullmark has been a playoff tower of power either (3-6 career record, .887 save%). Ullmark is 13-5-1 since 4 Nations and one of the reasons that the Senators made it into the playoffs, but his stats in this stretch (3.02 GAA and .902 save%) don’t stand out as a reason to feel incredibly confident in him either.
The results could be mayhem. Intensity and hard-fought games are a guarantee, which team steps up in the critical moments is likely to make or break the outcome. All that said, for best results when you see Toronto in the playoffs, pick the other team to win in seven games. By God, we’re going to do it.
Prediction: Senators in 7
Tampa Bay Lightning (Atlantic 2) vs. Florida Panthers (Atlantic 3)
The Battle for Florida features two teams that are arguably the most dangerous ones in the East. If they’re not the exact top-two, they are certainly have to be right up there. It’s not difficult to imagine the winner of this series will be position to win at least one and possibly two more rounds.
Recent form tells an interesting story, the Lightning are 16-7-4 since 4 Nations. Florida is a more pedestrian 13-11-1, losing seven of their last 10. The Panthers have been without Matthew Tkachuk that whole time, and the star forward is approaching a return from injury, which it sounds like might be for Game 1 or soon after. The defending champs could be ready to switch their performance into gear, and they will definitely need to be better than what they’ve shown lately.
Tampa has four players in the Top 25 of the league in Dom Luszczszyn’s Net Rating. Florida has two. That one data point isn’t going to shift a series but it’s indicative of just how many impact players the Lightning have. Their good is very good and getting back Yanni Gourde (1G+13A in 21 games) has been a perfect fit. Gourde was a key figure in Tampa’s two Cups earlier this decade and should be a big boost.
We’ll say Tampa gets some revenge from getting knocked out by Florida last spring, and the Panthers’ impressive run as back-to-back Eastern Conference champions has to run out of steam at some point, doesn’t it? Well if they find a way to dispatch Tampa and get out of this round, maybe it doesn’t, but..
Prediction: Lightning in 6
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Going out on a limb to call Ottawa’s shot is a bold move. Upsets, particularly featuring low seeds knocking off division winners in the first, tend to happen in the NHL playoffs with frequency. We liked the matchups too much of the other division winners around the league (Winnipeg, Vegas, Washington), so if there is a high early seed to topple Toronto seems like as good of a shot as any to go out and predict.