The unfathomable turn of events saw some of the last decade's powerhouses checking April tee times, while some of the most wildest stories the league has ever seen led certain squads to the quest for Lord Stanley's Cup. Some teams simply had incredible runs, others got off to an unexpected hot start and never looked back, and others defied the odds in the most literal sense possible to clinch a playoff spot.
However, whatever success or misfortune experienced during the past six months is meaningless now. A whole new season begins as the NHL's 16-best squads begin the hellacious quest for ultimate glory. The field is set, and much like the season that preceded it, the first round looks tantalizingly unpredictable.
WESTERN CONFERENCE
PACIFIC DIVISION
Season series: ANA, 3-0-0.
Why not kick things off with what is perhaps the most interesting match-up of the first round in Winnipeg vs Anaheim? The Ducks originally started as an homage to a kid's movie, but were the first California-based team to hoist the Cup. Winnipeg has a proud hockey tradition, but even the first incarnation of the Jets couldn't come close to winning diddly squat. There's very few shared traits between these cities and their hockey teams, but they do have one thing in common: They are mean.
What promises to be a punishing series, both the Jets and Ducks are poster-children for the "heavy" style of hockey the Western Conference has become associated with. The Ducks mix in a little bit of skill with that snarl, while the Jets pair blinding speed with their hard hits. It's going to be a casual fan's dream series, and it's a match-up that should have the hardcore fans drooling over the remote as they wait for the late, west coast start time.
The 'Peg went all-in at this year's trade deadline, not with headliner acquisitions, but rather stocking up on several complimentary pieces that could pay huge dividends. Lee Stempniak adds a nice bottom six presence. Jiri Tlusty hasn't fit in quite the way they wanted him to, he can provide some nice secondary scoring insurance if someone on the top two lines goes down with an injury. Drew Stafford appears to have regained a bit of his old scoring touch, too, since joining the Jets.
If Winnipeg wants to win this series, though, it's largely going to come from the contributions of the stars that have been there a while. Blake Wheeler, Bryan Little, and Dustin Byfuglien will need to be at their best, especially the latter. The Jets managed to qualify for the playoffs despite losing "Big Buff" to a suspension late in the season, so now is his chance to repay the favor. We know from Byfuglien's past with Chicago that his playing style fits in so well in the playoffs and allows him to be a difference-maker. However, Byfuglien was a power forward back then. He's now the go-to guy on the Jets' defense. While he has proves to be a playoff performer in the past, his mistakes will be all the more magnified now that he's on D, and you know those mistakes are coming. It becomes a matter of how well he can tip the scales in his team's favor with more good plays than bad ones.
The Ducks steamrolled their way to the highest point total in the West even though they boast a rather unimpressive even strength goal differential compared to the league's top teams, but here's what is impressive: that roster. Yes, Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry are fantastic, everyone knows that, but the offseason addition of Ryan Kesler and the emergence of Rickard Rakell gives the Ducks just as much if not more depth down the middle of the ice than they had before with Nick Bonino and Matheiu Perreault. Matt Beleskey is in the midst of a career year, as well, and he was already a solid contributor as a role player in the Duck's two most recent playoff appearances. However, the #FancyStats do not like the Ducks' top D-men, Cam Fowler, Francois Beauchemin, and Hampus Lindholm, and the #FancyStats like the Winnipeg Jets quite a bit.
All season long, the Jets have been leaders in both Corsi% Close and Fenwick% Close, two strong indicators of playoff success. Winnipeg has the NHL's best Fenwick% Close since the trade deadline, controlling a whopping 56.5 percent of the unblocked shot attempts in its games.
There's going to be a lot going on in this series. Two hard-hitting teams going head-to-head, playoff hockey's return to the 'Peg, and the underlying storyline of both teams' goalies being able to hold up long enough to survive (you will notice this become a common theme in this year's preview,) but more than anything, you can bank on it being a fun one. Who's going to win? That answer might change every minute of every day until the series ends, but there's a really good chance the winner of this series will ride the momentum and trounce whoever it meets in round two.
Prediction: ANA wins the series, 4-3.
Season Series: CGY, 2-1-1.
Vancouver stumbled so hard last season, that many thought that the Canucks' corps of aging veterans had fallen and can't get up. Yet one calendar year later, here we are, and Johnny Canuck will see postseason action once again.
Despite their bounce-back season, Vancouver is still a flawed team. Their blue line is very deep and well-rounded, but it lacks a true No. 1 anchor that is so valuable for a deep playoff run. Nick Bonino has come as advertised to the 'Nucks (if not better,) but he's not an ideal second line centerman. And what would a Vancouver playoff run be like without at least a minor goaltending controversy? These are all points of concern, but at least this team can say that it's not as questionable as it's opponent.
Calgary has been the mind-bending outlier following the advent of analytics being accepted around the NHL. The Flames possession statistics are incredibly poor, so poor, in fact, that their Corsi% Close (45.1 percent) was worse than Arizona, Edmonton, and Toronto. Those are three teams that were essentially actively trying to lose for the better part of the season. Even though Calgary rarely has the puck and lost their best player, Mark Giordano, for the season, the wins kept on coming in. The team's wild season was largely buoyed by the league's second-best third period goal differential (+31) and doing stuff like this.
Pundits can debate whether or not what Calgary did and is still doing is sustainable, but the Flames made it this far, so who's to say they can't take it at least a little farther? Well, allow me to be the buzzkill, but I will say that they can't take it a round father. Even though they don't have that true elite defenseman, Vancouver's defense far outmatches Calgary's which has only been kept afloat by the stellar play of T.J. Brodie without Giordano by his side. Couple that with the game-breaking talent Vancouver boasts up front in the form of the Sedin twins and the shrewd free agency find in sniper Radim Vrbata, and the 'Nucks are likely to have enough to douse these logic-defying Flames.
Prediction: VAN wins series, 4-1.
CENTRAL DIVISION
Season series: MIN, 2-1-1.
The St. Louis Blues came into this season as a strong favorite to challenge for the Stanley Cup. By the All-Star Break, not much had changed. The Minnesota Wild came into the season with comparable expectations, but come the All-Star Break, it was code red in the State of Hockey.
Everyone thought the season was sunk as the Wild were outside of the playoff picture by a double-digit margin and participating in a loaded Central Division. Their possession numbers were among the league's best, but a low shooting percentage and just stupid bad goaltending nearly ruined everything. Nearly. That was until it all turned around with the acquisition of Devan Dubnyk.
With Dubnyk providing average netminding at the very least, things quickly came together for the Minnesota's talented group. While the Blues slouched a bit in the second half, the Wild have been world-beaters ever since. In it's 36 games since the All-Star Break, Minnesota has gone 26-8-2, posted the league's top goal differential (+38,) and by far and away the best goals against per game (1.75). Oh, and by the way, Dubnyk started in all but one of those 36 games.
So everything is grand for the Yeo's bros coming into the playoffs right? Maybe not. Despite their awesome record, the Wild's possession numbers have slowly slipped since they began their winning ways and reached a season-low in their last 10 contests coming into the postseason. Furthermore, Minnesota, a team known for limiting scoring chances in the early going of the year, dipped into the red with a -6 scoring chance differential its last 10. Dubnyk has weathered that storm so far, but one has to wonder how long he can keep that up if the team in front of him continues to trend downwards and fatigue starts to set in. This is Devan Dubnyk we're talking about, after all. We've never seen him do anything like this before.
St. Louis may have dropped more games than it would have liked in the past two months, but unlike Minnesota, its underlying numbers have stayed relatively the same. In fact, when you consider the Blues caught a bit of the injury bug and now with Kevin Shattenkirk and breakthrough star Vladimir Tarasenko among others getting back into the line-up just in time for the postseason, it's not hard to imagine that St. Louis' tough stretch could end soon.
The Blues' defense may be the best in the league, and with a seemingly perfect balance of skill and size up front, this could finally be the year they bud into the true contenders everyone thought they could be for years. That is, if their goaltending holds up. An 82-game season hasn't shed much light on where the Blues should turn to between the pipes to lead them to glory. Brian Elliot might be the most "product of his system" goalie in a long time, and he hasn't even been able to take advantage of the great, defensive team playing in front of him lately, anyway. Jake Allen has potential and had a lot of people inside the organization excited back in October, but inconsistency plagued his first full-NHL season and has quelled most of the enthusiasm.
These are two of the best teams in the playoffs, and this is bound to be a tightly contested series. With well-rounded rosters but question marks in net, the goalies are likely to become the narrative. Will one of Allen or Elliot step up in a big way, or will Dubnyk continue his stellar play from his team's and his own personal turnaround from the season? It's certainly going to be a fun one, but I don't see this series getting too... Wild.
Prediction: STL wins the series, 4-2.
Season series: CHI, 3-1-0.
Many pegged Nashville as a bounce-back season contender back in October. Nobody foresaw them coming out of the gate like a bat out of hell, though. The newly Peter Laviolette-led Preds took the league by storm thanks in large part to its offensive make over and having a healthy Pekka Rinne between the pipes. The Preds faltered at season's end and coughed up the division lead, and as a result for their misdeeds, they now get to face the Chicago Blackhawks. Congratulations.
The 'Hawks have had a somewhat turbulent year for their standards, but have loaded up for yet another deep playoff run. Patrick Kane, who was on pace to win the scoring title before getting his collarbone smashed in, made a "miraculous" recovery in time to play in game one of this series in Nashville. Is Kane 100 percent? No chance. But his very presence will attract attention from the opposition and give more space to whatever linemates Joel Quenneville decides to throw him out there with on a given shift.
The most interesting thing to keep an eye on for Chicago will be the health of its marquee trade deadline acquisitions: Antoine Vermette and Kimmo Timonen. On his own, Vermette is no game-changer, but he gives the already loaded 'Hawks with even more depth and can diversify his position. Timonen, on the other hand, can be a high-impact player. A healthy Timonen might give Chicago the best defensive group in the league, but he's been in and out of the line-up since returning from a run in with blood clots. Timonen is set to dress game one, Vermette is not.
Chicago won't get any sympathy from the Preds, though. Their big trade deadline addition, Cody Franson, has been day-to-day with an upper body injury, and defensive-minded forward Mike Fisher could miss playoff time with a lower body injury. Losing Fisher hurts a bit more than Franson, since the Preds will just go with the defense they were running before the former Maple Leaf got to town, and it hasn't exactly been roses for Franson in Nashville anyway. However, his presence presents more upside than Fisher's.
Pekka Rinne was the best goalie not named Carey Price this season, so that always presents the possibility of being Nashville's ace in the hole. However, Corey Crawford, the polarizing subject that he is, quietly had one of his best regular seasons of his career, posting a .938 adjusted save percentage in his 57 appearances (.955 adjusted sv% since the trade deadline,) and nabbed the Jennings Trophy in the process. Not sure how many people are taking this angle, but this series could quickly turn into a low-scoring goaltending duel, given the way Rinne and Crowford have performed, how Nashville's top scorers have dried up recently, and how abnormally roller coastery this season has gone for Blackhawks skaters.
Prediction: CHI wins series, 4-3.
EASTERN CONFERENCE
ATLANTIC DIVISION
Season series: OTT, 3-1-0.
This is only the second time in history that the Montréal Canadiens has faced off against this incarnation of the Ottawa Senators. The first time was two years ago, when the seven-seeded Senators smashed the second-seeded Habs in six games. The playoff format is a little different now, but based on point totals in the Eastern Conference, this is another No. 7 Sens squad going up against the No. 2 Canadiens. This time around though, the series will include the most dominant goalie in the NHL this season... against Carey Price.
That's right, Andrew Hammond, the NHL's answer to Tebow Time or Linsanity with one hundredth of the media coverage, has been more dominant between the pipes this season than the odds on favorite to win MVP, Price. "The Hamburglar" Hammond was the catalyst for the Senators inconceivable run to the postseason, going 20-1-3 in his first 24 NHL starts. Likewise, Price has been the spark for success to a Montréal team that is routinely out-shot and out-shot. Price was the league's best in all standard goaltending statistical categories, wins (44,) save percentage (.933,) and goals against average (1.96.) He's more than deserving of his recognition as the best goalie in the world, BUT the Hamburglar actually the only goalie to have a better even strength save percentage than Price. Of goalies to start at least 20 games, Price's EVsv% is .942, Hammond's is- wait for it- .934.
You get the picture. The goaltending storyline will be one repeated ad nauseum during the course of this series, so we'll move past it for a while and look at the other players that will partake in this best-of-seven series.
P.K. Subban leads a hodge podge gang of Canadiens into the playoffs once again after getting trounced in the Conference Finals last year. By design, Montréal is composed of a mix of young, budding stars, established performers, and seasoned vets, and that recipe has been one for success so far this year. The Habs added rental Jeff Petry on the back end which has been, well, you'll get varying answers based on who you ask. He's been a pleasant surprise point-production wise, especially for a player deployed almost exclusively in defensive situations, but his relative Corsi measures are brutal (even for a player deployed almost exclusively in defensive situations.
Max Pacioretty has the ability to take over a game with his skill and scoring touch, which is why he will be missed so greatly for les Habitants. Pacioretty has been skating with the team since being injured on, but bench boss Michel Therrien has been very secretive about when "Patches" will be ready to play or not. One game without Pacioretty won't be a death sentence to Montréal, but one can't help but wonder how much of an advantage the advantageous Sens can build the longer he stays out.
Speaking of those pesky Sens, the Hamburglar has been stealing most of the attention, but credit must be given where credit is due. Just about everyone on the team has been responsible for Ottawa's insane turnaround, erasing a 20+ point deficit in less than two months to qualify for the playoffs. Kyle Turris came into his own in his new role as No. 1 center, posting a career-high 64 points. Mark Stone's second half was just as vital as Hammond's, as he went on to score 64 points of his own and score more goals than any other rookie. Since Ottawa fired former Jack Adams-winning coach Paul MacLean, Dave Cameron started allocating more ice time to players who deserved it like Erik Condra, rookie workhorse Curtis Lazar, and human Energizer bunny Jean-Gabriel Pageau, and the Sens saw a major uptick in possession as a result. Oh yeah, and there's no reason to think those individual players can't find the same success in the playoffs, either.
Hammond vs Price will be fun for the writers. Erik Karlsson vs Subban will be fun for your viewing pleasure. This series won't be decided by either of those sub plots, though. This one will come down to depth vs depth. Whoever's grindstones can grind it out the hardest and chip in on the scoresheet as well, that will be the team who moves on.
Prediction: OTT wins the series, 4-3.
Season series: TB, 3-2-0.
Coming into the series, not many people are giving the Detroit Red Wings a chance. Like so many other of these playoff teams, Detroit was absolutely awful to end the year. Many have tried to pinpoint exactly what went wrong since the trade deadline, and the conclusion seems to be simply a run of mediocre luck and atrocious penalty killing. If that truly is the issue, then the Wings got a gift of a first round match-up, because, for whatever reason, the Lightning's special teams are doo-doo. So why does it feel like Detroit has no chance?
One reason would be Tampa Bay's depth. The Lightning have a home grown forward group that is one of the most intimidating in the league. Not only do they trot out a man who is maybe the most lethal sniper in the game in Steven Stamkos, but Steve Yzerman's Lightning also have the best second line in hockey. When healthy, Ondrej Palat, Tyler Johnson, and Nikita Kucherov can be more effective than Tampa's top line with Stamkos.
The defense, on the other hand, is composed a lot of outside talent, but Tampa draft pick Victor Hedman has developed into a true No. 1 blue liner that can be relied on as a do-it-all presence night-in and night-out. The Anton Stralman contract may look ugly in its later years, but he's been excellent this season. Stralman posted the team's best Relative Fenwick percentage while getting near-equivalent starts in the offensive and defensive zone. In fact, Tampa Bay's whole team has been consistently one of the most dominant at five-on-five this season. The Lightning's Fenwick% Close was fourth-best all year, the third-highest third period Corsi% Close, and the top third period goal differential.
As impressive as Tampa Bay's #FancyStats are, the Red Wings don't trail very far behind in any of those categories. Gustav Nyquist was last year's young juggernaut for Detroit, but he may have been surpassed this season by Tomas Tatar as the top young stud in the red and white. Gifted goal scorer Teemu Pulkkinen has had breakout star potential all season, he's just never stuck with the big club long enough to really settle in. The Wings seem ready to give him a real shot in the playoffs. Furthermore, it's hard to count out any team that has Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk at its disposal.
What it comes down to, though, is that the Lightning seem to have the edge in just about every category. Forwards: slight edge TB. Defense: major edge TB. Goaltending: probably TB. Detroit has decided to turn to wunderkind Czech neminder Petr Mrazek as its game one starter, who has had more ups and downs this season (though those downs have been mighty plummets.) Ben Bishop is untested in the postseason, so we have no reason to believe his play will taper off in anyway when the puck drops for this season.
The Red Wings aren't nearly as bad as their record down the stretch suggests, and they're probably better than the number of games this series will play out, but everything is coming up Tampa Bay from where I stand. This is a team poised to make a deep, deep run.
Prediction: TB wins the series, 4-0.
Season series: NYR, 3-0-1.
The Pittsburgh Penguins, an annual favorite to capture the Cup, limped their way into the playoffs. The New York Rangers, on the other hand, set a franchise record for points in a season en route to capture the President's Trophy. It was a tale of two different regular seasons, and to make matters worse for the ailing Penguins, the Rangers managed to stomp them in their season series, posting a +9 goal differential in four games. However, some underlying numbers have Pittsburgh fans thinking this series may not be as lopsided as it appears at first glance.
During the Penguins' awful stretch down the season, they were marred by a comically low team shooting percentage while still recording- not just good- excellent possession stats. In its last 10 games, Pittsburgh had a league-best 58.1percent Fenwick Close. In that time, the Penguins averaged two goals per game, earned the league's third-worst shooting percentage (5.4 percent,) won three games, and lost seven.
Sidney Crosby, in what was probably his worst regular season in the NHL, still ended up with the most points per game in the show, and really turned up the heat performance-wise while the Pens were in dire straits. Marc-Andre Fleury might be the only reason the Penguins made the playoffs, having his best regular season of his career and holding the league lead in shutouts with 10.
Analytics and logic would suggest a turnaround is coming soon, but, boy, Pittsburgh has a hard time exiting their own zone without defenseman Kris Letang and Christian Ehrhoff, and this Rangers team looks good.
Rick Nash returned to Rick Nash form this season, triumphantly leading the way offensively for his team and was even getting some MVP love for most of the season. The emergence of college free agent signing Kevin Hayes has given the Blueshirts center depth that no one could have expected back in October. Hayes' 43 points is the most by a Rangers rookie since fellow centerman Derek Stepan put up 45 in 2010-11. The Dan Boyle experiment was a disaster to start the year, but he's settled in nicely, as has Keith Yandle, acquired in a big splash trade with tank-bound Arizona. Of course, the Rangers will have handsome heartthrob Henrik Lundqvist in net. His reputation as a world-class tender is well-known at this point in his career, but "the King" and his subjects may quickly find out that looks aren't everything.
Even though they look like a dominant team every night, the advanced metrics imply that the Rangers are not the powerhouse the appear to be. Alain Vigneault's squad is one of four playoff teams that had a sub-500 Corsi percentage through 82 games. Furthermore, the Rangers have the league's highest PDO at 102.5. Good teams naturally tend to have higher PDOs, but when coupled with sub-par possession stats one can't help but wonder if a market crash in the shooting category could be in store for the Blueshirts. Then, consider a lot of the Rangers' scoring comes from players known to be plagued in consistency (Nash, Chris Kreider, and Derick Brassard,) and look back at the stats suggesting the Penguins' floodgates could burst open at any moment... suddenly the hipsters that picked the struggling Pens don't sound so bonkers.
Ultimately, missing two strong defensemen like Letang and Ehrhoff will prove to be too much for Pittsburgh to overcome. The Rangers might not be as good as the President's Trophy implies, and the Penguins probably aren't as awful as their second half of the season suggests, but Pittsburgh is rightfully slotted as the underdog in this series.
Prediction: NYR wins the series, 4-1.
Season series: WSH, 2-0-2.
Both of these teams make their triumphant return to the playoffs after monumentally disappointing years off. Both franchises made significant roster changes in the offseason in order to make it back into the chase for Lord Stanley, and here they are. Now duke it out with one another and try and crush each other's dreams.
The Capitals got off to a slow start under Barry Trotz, but as the system started to click and Braden Holtby evolved into the goalie everyone thought he'd become back in 2012, they caught fire. Trotz's responsibility-based strategies have stopped Alex Ovechkin. The Great Eight secured the regular season goal scoring title with an apparent ease, and is appropriately garnering a ton of MVP consideration. The contracts given out to defensemen Matt Niskanen and Brooks Orpik will almost certainly prove to be albatrosses in the future, but this season they have been fantastic additions.
Despite their solid record, the Caps' Fenwick% Close since the All-Star Break is an even 50 percent. Their even strength goal differential is a measly +1 in that time, too. Compare that to the Isles, who have the second-lowest winning percentage of all playoff teams since the trade deadline, but have carried very good possession stats through the whole season.
The Islanders' offense is a well-oiled machine led by most-underpaid-player-in-sports-probably John Tavares. As fast as a Formula 1 car and as furious as some of the best of the West, this team can score with the best of 'em with everyone chipping in. Anders Lee has snuck in 25 goals and 41 points, yet he's not getting any kind of support for rookie of the year (to be fair, that's probably more a testament to how loaded this year's rookie class has been, but still, no one has even considered him for a second.) Their biggest problem is not putting pucks in opponents' nets, it's keeping them out of their own goal.
The Isles' 259 goals for is fourth in the league, but their 224 goals against is the worst of any playoff team. They also carry the worst penalty kill percentage of all playoff teams. Guess who's the best on the man advantage? Yup. The Washington Capitals. A 78 percent P.K. up against a 25.3 percent power play (that happens to have Ovechkin)? I'm betting on the power play ten times out of ten, especially when that power play generates a the most unblocked shot attempts per 60 minutes than by a wide margin.
At even strength, the Islanders might be able to trade blows with Washington, but run-and-gun styles don't translate to the postseason very well in today's NHL. Those goals tend to be harder to come by. If New York starts to head to the penalty box, too, there should be little doubt that this could be a short series.
Prediction: WSH wins the series, 4-2.
