16 wins is all it takes. After 82 games spanning from October to April, the teams that were good enough to qualify for the playoffs only need 16 wins to achieve their childhood dreams and lift the most iconic trophy in the world over their heads as champions. Easy enough, right?Well once you consider there are 15 other teams determined on reaching those 16 wins before your team does, a task that seems menial to a playoff contender suddenly becomes a grind like none other.
In pursuit of 16 wins, players are ready to skate through brick walls and hell fire to defeat their opponent. They know blood will be shed, their legs will quiver from fatigue but find a way to push off another stride, and broken bones will be ignored like paper cuts.
All of this madness will be done for one shining, three-foot, 34 lbs trophy. It's the Stanley Cup.
The race for 16 wins starts tonight, and all eight first round match-ups have their own unique quirks and storylines ready to play out on the ice. The Hart of Hockey has a breakdown of every series in preparation of the Stanley Cup Playoffs dropping the puck tonight with a little prediction for the outcome of these match-ups.
EASTERN CONFERENCE
Regular season series: DET, 3-1-0
The Boston Bruins won the 2013-14 Presidents Trophy with 117 points and a staggering +84 goal differential. They're the popular pick by most pundits to repeat as champions of the Eastern Conference and capture Lord Stanley's Cup. However, the Bruins will have their hands full with the East's second wild card, the Detroit Red Wings.
The Wings battled through a long list of injuries all season, and are slowly returning to health as the postseason begins. Superstar Pavel Datsyuk is back in the line-up and though he's certainly still missing a step, he's already shown during his short return that his skill hasn't slowed at all. If Detroit can get Henrik Zetterberg back, too, they don't exactly have the look of your typical bottom seed. Not to mention inserting bona fide stars like Zetterberg and Datsyuk into a line up takes more attention away from the Wings' brightest burning star from this season, Gustav Nyquist.
Still, the Bruins are a league-wide favorite for a reason. They're really, really good. Top to bottom, they have few weaknesses. Goaltending is elite, defense is incredible, and while the forwards aren't supremely skilled stars, they have two 30-goal scorers in Patrice Bergeron and Cup-chasing Jarome Iginla, and several third liners averaging over a point every other game. That's really, really, really good.
Detroit, on the other hand, has some question marks on its blue line. If they're not on their game and young D-men like Brendan Smith and Brian Lashoff coughing the puck up like a bad cold, the Bruins' offense will have a field day. That would be where that astronomical goal differential Boston put up in the regular season would come into play. The Wings can't afford to give up free goals. Nyquist can only score so much.
This series also pits two of hockey's greatest minds behind the bench against each other. It will be very interesting to see how Detroit's Mike Babcock and Boston's Claude Julien counter the other's slightest adjustments over the course of a series. These two colleagues from Canada's gold at the Sochi Olympic games are very familiar with each other, and it could create some intriguing subplots during the games.
The Red Wings are good enough to take a few games from the Bruins, but this is still the B's series to lose. Expect the underdogs to put up a mighty fight, but fall short to an ultimately mightier team.
Prediction: BOS wins series 4-2
Regular season series: TB, 3-0-1
Don't let the 3-0-1 season series in favor of Tampa Bay lead you astray. In the four times these two clubs met this season, three had to be settled in overtime or a shootout. That said, the only time Steven Stamkos appeared in a game, it was only game decided by more than one goal (a 3-1 Lightning win on April 1.)
Since that game, Stamkos has had even more time since to reacquaint himself with NHL hockey after returning from the his leg injury that kept him out for nearly four months. He's been openly unsatisfied with his play since coming back, yet the Marksman from Markham is still a dynamo. One of the bigger questions facing the Bolts, though, is if their band of impressive rookies can keep up their dynamic performance from the regular season.
Can Ondrej Palat be expected to continue scoring at his wild pace? Probably not. Can Tyler Johnson continue to grind at both ends of the ice in addition to scoring consistently under playoff pressure? Probably! Can Radko Gudas stand tall in Tampa's own end and throw his weight around without parading to the penalty box? Well, we'll see.
The other question facing the Lightning is the health of starting goalie Ben Bishop. Big Ben Bishop emerged as a Vezina Trophy candidate with him tremendous play in net early in the season and then again in the long absence of Stamkos. If the injury that took him down late in the season keeps him out of the first round, not only will audiences be robbed of a Ben Bishop vs Carey Price goaltending match-up, but the Bolts could be robbed of a real shot at taking the Habs down.
Speaking of the Habs, Thomas Vanek has slowly crept back into true Tomas Vanek form since joining Montréal after the trade deadline, and has anyone in Canadiens history scored 39 goals and 60 points to as little national fanfare as Max Pacioretty did this season? Lacking a true "superstar", Montréal's offense goes criminally underrated.
Defensively, the Canadiens take a lot of flack because of the occasional break down and an habitual inability to clear the front of the net in front of Price, but Montréal likes to block shots (first in the NHL with 1491,) and the Lightning like to take shots.
Anyway you look at this series, it appears very evenly matched. It seems like it is destined to reach seven games (especially if Bishop is healthy,) and even though these two squads don't have much competitive history, you can bet on it becoming a very emotionally charged series by the time it ends.
Prediction: MTL wins series 4-3
METROPOLITAN DIVISION
Regular season series: PIT 5-0-0
Pittsburgh enters this series with arguably its weakest roster since capturing the Cup in 2009. The bottom six has been questionable at best over 82 games, though the addition of Lee Stempniak at the deadline is already paying dividends, and Marcel Goc never got the chance to make an impact with the Penguins before being injured. Pittsburgh may be top heavy, but that top end of the roster is so heavy it would put sumo wrestlers to shame. Three forwards average over a point per game, and Chris Kunitz set career highs in goals (35) and points (68).
Columbus, on the other hand, is Bizarro Pittsburgh. They lack any superstar forwards or defensemen, but the Blue Jackets embody what the Penguins too often fail to be: A true to form, honest, bust-your-butt-off hard working team. That formula was good enough to earn the club its second ever Stanley Cup Playoff berth. At face value, this series is simply grit and hard work vs precision and skill.
The Jackets were the 10th most penalized team in the league this past season, and the Penguins happen to have the league's best power play. We've seen great special teams fizzle out in the playoffs plenty of times before, but that is still a far from desirable combination for Columbus.
Despite single-handedly leading the Penguins through the 2008 playoffs and then winning the Cup in '09, Marc-Andre Fleury has come under fire for his results in recent playoff series and is labeled by many as "a choker". Pittsburgh's fans were reassured the Flower's play would be top notch for the playoffs again after a marvelous regular season played behind an inconsistent team defense, that was until this happened in his final start of the regular season. Uh-oh.
With that in mind, Columbus' netminder, Sergei Bobrovsky, doesn't have a very pretty playoff track record either. Once a part of Philadelphia's circus between the pipes before joining the Jackets in 2013, Bobs posted a lovely .848 save percentage and 4.04 goals against average in seven playoff appearances. While one could argue Bobrovsky hasn't had enough time to prove himself in the playoffs, you can say with certainty he hasn't experienced the playoff highs that Fleury has.
Goaltending could be a free-for-all this series. Maybe Fleury returns to form and silences his detractors, or maybe he tanks worse than ever. Maybe Bobrovsky plays like the Vezina-winning goalie he is in the postseason, or maybe his atrocious trend continues.
The Penguins won out the season series 5-0, but the Jackets were able to establish traffic in front and gave the Penguins a harder time with every passing game. It's hard to imagine any team beating another playoff teams nine times in a row in a series. After this year, the Columbus Blue Jackets will no longer be able to say the franchise has never won a playoff game. A playoff series, on the other hand, well...
Prediction: PIT wins series 4-2
Regular season series: Tied 2-2-0
Both of these teams started the season so slow, describing their starts as "sluggish" would be offensive to the slug community. Yet, both teams battled their way back from the abyss and find themselves going head-to-head in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
The Flyers have inexplicably struggled in Madison Square Garden the past few seasons, but they are rolling coming into these playoffs. They've beaten down many opponents, or at the very least pushed contenders to the brink. On the other hand, the Rangers sealed their spot in the playoffs and then cruised into the postseason.
Maybe the Rangers lackadaisical play in their last eight games will come back to bite them, but one thing is for sure, they're going to want their even strength play to be notch if they want to win. The Flyers have the worst five-on-five goals for/against radio of any playoff team, but a reliable penalty kill and an intimidating power play. The Rangers play on the man advantage this season was average (15 out of 30 teams. It doesn't get much more average than that,) so if they want the upper hand, they'll want to get it done at even strength.
The Flyers' historic goaltending woes since Ron Hextall retired may have another chapter written this spring. Steve Mason, who had a bit of a resurgent season in his first in orange and black, was bowled over in his last start in Pittsburgh and left the game. Coach Craig Berube says Mason will be okay for Game 1, but if he's not in tip top shape or he gets run into again early in the series, Philly's plan B options aren't too pretty. If it's Ray Emery or Cal Heeter between the pipes for the Flyers, the scales tip much more in favor of King Henrik Lundqvist, don't they?
These long time division opponents really don't like each other, which just makes it all the more fun for everyone else watching at home. It's going to get ugly, mean, and nasty, and you can bet that this one is going to be fun.
Bets on the winner, however, aren't quite as easy to make. There's a good chance this one takes all seven games to determine a winner, and when that happens, Claude Giroux is going to do something special to make sure the Flyers will be calling airlines for tickets to Pittsburgh instead of calling golf clubs for tee time reservations.
Predictions: PHI wins series 4-3
WESTERN CONFERENCE
CENTRAL DIVISION
Regular season series: COL, 4-0-1
The Colorado Avalanche finished dead last in the Western Conference last year, and were bad enough to win the draft lottery and make the first overall selection at the 2013 NHL Entry Draft. A year later, the Avs completed the season atop the Central Division, arguably the strongest division in the league.
The postseason is a brand new season though, so everything the Avs did to impress in the regular season means nothing now. Now Colorado is relying on a inexperienced team in the postseason, and their leading scorer, Matt Duchene, will likely miss the entirety of the first round.
Yet in Duchene's absence, the Avalanche continued to steamroll through the regular season and worked their breezers off to earn the top seed in the division. Their hard working approach has been fostered by rookie head coach, Patrick Roy, and you can bet he'll have his team ready to continue to work during what was always his favorite time of year.
Minnesota had their peaks and valley's this season accented by goaltending uncertainty. With Niklas Backstrom hurt and Josh Harding battling with multiple sclerosis, the Wild ended up finding a suitable replacement in everyone's favorite cartoon character- er, I mean, goaltender, Ilya Bryzgalov. Since being dealt from Edmonton to Minnesota, Bryz has lost in regulation just once and played a significant role in the Wild securing a playoff bid.
The last time these two teams faced off in the regular season, Minnesota's Ryan Suter saw a lot of ice time against Duchene, Paul Stastny, and Nate MacKinnon. With Duchene gone for the series and Stastny and MacKinnon on the same line now, it will allow one of the best defensemen in the world to focus his time and energy against the line of Gabriel Landeskog, Stastny, MacKinnon.
No matter how well Suter defends the Avalanche's top unit, there's a mismatch in goal between the two teams. As good as Mr. Universe has been since he traded to the team that wears his greatest fear on his chest, he's has well-documented playoff woes. Semyon Varlamov has found playoff magic before, and happens to be coming off a Vezina-worthy season after making several slight adjustments to his technique this past summer.
Prediction: COL wins series 4-1
Regular season series: Tied in points; STL, 3-2-0 / CHI, 2-1-2
These division rivals played each other three times in the regular season. Each time they played each other, it was tightly contested battle of juggernaut rosters. The Blues squeaked out three wins early in the season, then Chicago took the last two meetings in regulation outscoring St. Louis 8-2.
Injuries have plagued the Blues in the latter stages of the season and have wiped out their crops and dried up their wells. The team that led the entire NHL in points for a good chunk of the season suddenly finds itself in dire straits with injuries to skillster Vladimir Tarasenko, veteran grinder Brenden Morrow, all-purpose players Vladimir Sobotka and Patrik Berglund, defensive defenseman Barret Jackman, Norris-caliber blue liner Alex Pietrangelo, team captain and Selke-worthy David Backes, and, of course, Olympic legend T.J. Oshie. In these players' absence, St. Louis dropped their last six contests and went 3-7-0 in their last 10.
Defensive-minded head coach Ken Hitchcock expects to get some of these players back over the course of the series, but it's still unknown who will actually be available for Game 1. In an opening series against the defending Stanley Cup Champions, these injuries could prove crippling to the Blues' title hopes.
The 'Hawks didn't exactly breeze into the postseason either, though. Chicago was merely .500 in their last 10 games, and was struggling to string together strong performances even before the injuries suffered by superstars Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews that kept them out for the final weeks of the season. Toews and Kane will be back for Game 1, and an injection of leadership and scoring like that combined with the 'Hawks' playoff prowess may provide the inspiration necessary for them to return to dominance.
This series will come down to a man named Ryan Miller. Acquired by St. Louis at the trade deadline and heralded as the missing piece that would lead the Blues to the promised land for the first time in franchise history. Since swapping his Sabres sweater for the note on his chest, Miller has shown flashes of brilliance, and several moments of leaky goals that have Blues fans questioning if he really was the answer to their problems.
The fact of the matter is, Miller is a good enough goalie to steal a game for his team, but he can't just be good enough to steal one. He WILL have to steal a game, because with his team's current injury situation, he'll have to keep the series as close as possible until the Blues can return to full force.
Prediction: STL wins series 4-3
PACIFIC DIVISION
Regular season series: DAL, 2-1-0
It's Teemu Selanne's final hurrah in the NHL, and the Ducks have done all they can to make it one of the club's best regular seasons in history. Dominant two-way play has them with the most points in the West and just one point shy of the Presidents Trophy.
The Stars had a much more trying time capturing their first playoff berth since 2008, but here they are, Big D is back in the hunt for the Stanley Cup.
In his first season with the Stars, Lindy Ruff instilled his traditionally aggressive forechecking system to a decent amount of success, and really allowed some of the Stars' fringe players like Antoine Roussel to blossom into impact players at the NHL level. However, Dallas has been prone to untimely giveaways all season. With a great puck-moving D-corps and sure fire shooters up front, those turnovers will quickly prove to be too costly for the Stars to have a shot at winning four games before the Ducks do.
Ryan Getzlaf had an MVP-worthy season, crushing his career high for goals, and Corey Perry was the league's second highest goal scorer. This team's offense is so good, Jakob Silfverberg couldn't even crack the line-up on a regular basis before the trade deadline deal that sent Dustin Penner to Washington. Dallas boasts two of the NHL's most dominant young (no pun intended) stars in Tyler Seguin and captain Jamie Benn, but after that, the list of names grows less and less intimidating.
The Ducks are just as deep on defense as they are on offense, if that's even possible, and then adding Stephane Robidas at the deadline gave them just what they needed. Remember how they required Robidas, though? Yeah, fearing they wouldn't be able to re-sign the pending UFA in the offseason, Dallas shipped him to Anaheim while they barely clung on to the West's final playoff spot at the time. This summer they won't be able to say they lost him for nothing, but the Stars still might have lost their former stalwart to the team that spank them in a Stanley Cup Playoff series. Oh well.
In goal is where the Ducks suddenly have trouble. Once loaded with organizational goaltending depth, a trade that sent Viktor Fasth to Edmonton and the late season collapse of Jonas Hiller has Anaheim turning to rookie Frederik Andersen for Game 1 of this series. Hiller's poor play as of late have some in Orange County suggesting rookie John Gibson (3-0-0 in three NHL starts) could be Bruce Boudreau's back-up plan if Andersen doesn't hold up.
Even if things don't go nuclear in Anaheim's goal, this series gives Kari Lehtonen the opportunity to show the world just how good he really is. Lacking a nationally audience for most of his career, the playoffs are the perfect stage for fans to see this acrobat steal a game or two.
Prediction: ANA wins series 4-2
This will be a man's series.
These are two teams who play heavy hockey, as Dan Bylsma and Brian Burke would say. The Kings finished the regular season tied for the most hits in the NHL. The Sharks finished in the top three of blocked shots this season. Oh, and they just so happen to hate each other's guts.
Early in the season, many wrote off San Jose as "too old" and said that "their window had closed". The team responded by dominating the majority of the regular season and having a perfect mix of young and old. Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau showed they still have a lot left in the tank, while Logan Couture and Joe Pavelski having incredible seasons. Pavelski scored 41 goals, and it was somehow put on the back burner by most media outlets.
Between the Olympics and the NHL's regular season, Marc-Edouard Vlasic emerged as a top tier defender, complemented in San Jose by cagey veterans Dan Boyle and Scott Hannan and up-and-comers Justin Braun and Matt Irwin.
With electrifying rookie Tomaš Hertl expected to return from injury before the end of the series, he could provide a great youthful injection to the Sharks' roster.
L.A. doesn't have any big number scorers other than Anže Kopitar, which is all the more impressive when you consider he often draws top defense pairings and is responsible for keeping the opponent's elite offensive talents in check, as well. What the Kings do boast, however, is a balanced offense with names like Jeff Carter and Justin Williams, and a surplus of bottom six type forwards who play their role to a tee. Their defense, led by big game performer Drew Doughty, isn't half bad either. In fact, it's one of the strongest in the league. When the Kings are having trouble scoring (which they often do,) their defense always keeps them in the game. If they fail, then their last line of defense, Jonathan Quick, is good enough to, well... you know.
In addition to a loaded roster, Darryl Sutter's Kings play with one of the most unique attitudes in the league that sets them apart from their competition. Los Angeles was the only team in the NHL this past season to record a positive corsi difference when leading by two or more goals. Second place wasn't even close. The Kings are the only team that when they look to have the game wrapped up and have their skate pressed against your throat, they don't ease up, they push down harder.
Of course, the Kings can't lead every game by two or more goals. That's not an easy task to pull off, especially in the playoffs, but it's that attitude and culture that exists in their locker room that makes them so threatening.
Last season saw these two teams engage in a thrilling seven-game series, and luckily for us, this series looks like it will be very similar. We just get it a round earlier this time around.
Prediction: LA wins series 4-2
I now leave you with a little YouTube video to allow yourselves to be properly pumped up for the start of the playoffs. From the good people at the NHL's YouTube channel, here's a compilation of some of the regular season's greatest moments.
Happy hockey, everyone.
