Stanley Cup Playoffs: The Conference Finals

What an amazing playoff we’ve had this year!  Round one was packed full of upsets while round two turned into nothing but long tough battles for nearly every team involved.  This whole “parity” thing the league is looking for, well I think they found it.  We had all the Wild Card teams advance through round one and in round two, other than the Hurricanes/Islanders series, they’ve all been back and forth.  Teams winning on the road as well proving that home ice isn’t the most important thing.  And now we’re half way there, the conference finals are upon us!  Let’s break down how the teams got this far and see if maybe…just maybe they’ll make it to the finals.

Eastern Conference: 

(Atlantic Division No.2) Boston Bruins vs (WC1) Carolina Hurricanes:

 

The Hurricanes were the first team to advance to the Conference Finals after their sweep of the Islanders.  Make no mistake, this was not an easy task for the Canes either.  The Islanders played their game and didn’t allow much and even got some great goaltending, but they lacked the veteran experience and explosive offensive potential of the Hurricanes.

Carolina was led in this series by their two veteran champions, the Captain Justin Williams, and Jordan Staal.   Not much needs to be said about Justin Williams.  He is known as Mr. Game-7, won multiple Stanley Cups on different teams.  Staal on the other hand seems to have been a it of a forgotten man when it comes to his playoff experiences.  He was a crucial member of the 2009 Penguins Stanley Cup run and a decade later he is helping to lead a young Carolina team through the playoffs.  He does everything you can ask of him, kills penalties, scores big goals, and I don’t think there was a defensive zone faceoff for the Canes that he wasn’t on the ice for in the 2^nd round. 

Now I said it was not an easy series for them.  They lost a few players to injury and their team numbers don’t look all that appealing, which also goes to show that it isn’t all about the numbers (but I’ll discuss them anyway).  The team numbers are average at best.  In the series against the Islanders they were 1-for-13 on the Power Play (.076%), the Penalty Kill on the other hand was 9-for-12 (75%).  And the possession numbers (Corsi/CF% and Fenwick/FF%) were slightly above average at 50.4 CF% and a 51.7 FF%.

They also lost defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk (TvR) to a shoulder injury and he will miss the remainder of the playoffs.  Petr Mrazek went down in game-2 with a lower body injury, but Curtis McElhinney came in and played fantastic!  In two and a half games, McElhinney had a .947 SV% and a 1.56 GAA.  But those numbers are also supported by the fantastic defensive play of the team led by Jaccob Slavin, who also leads the team in points currently with 11 (all assists).  Not to mention they’re getting balanced scoring from all their big guns along with the depth players, which we know to be a difference maker at this time of the year. 

But they’re in for one hell of a test as they face off against the heavily favored Boston Bruins in the Conference Final.  Boston just finished a hard 6-game series against the Columbus Blue Jackets in dominating fashion.  In a series that started off close, Boston began to show their superior talent and experience which led to them taking over the series in just about every facet.  But just slightly…

In game one of the series Boston came out and completely dominated by peppering Bobrovsky with 37 shots and having incredible possession of the puck (66.7% CF & 62.3% FF).  But it still took them till overtime to get the win and it was depth players and trade deadline acquisitions Coyle and Johansson who pulled them through.  From there on the series was much tighter but the Bruins offensive leaders showed up in big ways.  

In 6-games Pastrnak, Bergeron, Marchand, and Krejci combined for 17-points, 9 of those points were goals.  They were unstoppable no matter how much Columbus tried to shut them down they could only be slowed.  And when they slow down for a shift or three, the depth players picked up the slack without a problem.  They had seven other goal scorers in this series as well, only one defenseman scored, but they contributed with plenty of assists as well as shut down defensive play.

The defense, while led by Chara’s spirit, was led in this series by Krug’s offense and Carlo’s shut down defense, with a bit of everything in between from the rest of the D-core.  There was not a single defenseman who was a minus player, and everyone had at least one assist.  Charlie McAvoy also showed his amazing mixture of offensive capability and hard-hitting physical play.  Though that has led him into trouble now as he will be serving a 1-game suspension to start the series. 

And let’s not forget Tuukka here who manned the goal all series long with a terrific .948 SV% in the series and a 1.83 GAA.  That includes a shutout in the clinching game-6 where he faced 39 shots from a desperate Blue Jackets team (who even managed to hit a few posts along the way).  But once again a goaltender’s numbers do reflect how well the team in front of them is playing.  And after two hard fought series, Boston is playing at the top of their game.

Now that its time to choose…I’m torn.  Thought I did pick Columbus in the last round, my original bracket had Pittsburgh vs Boston in this spot.  And now that Boston is here, I’m in love with the upsets and fun that Carolina brings (plus…Mrazek).  But as much as it pains me here…I think the official decision has to be Boston.  The forwards are pretty even, though the Canes can be a bit more dynamic, I think Boston has a little bit more depth.  The defense is equally as even and though McAvoy will miss game one, TvR will miss the remainder of the playoffs. In net, although McElhinney and Mrazek have both played great, I think Tuukka is better head to head right now. All that said, Go Canes! But Bruins in 6.

Western Conference: 

(Pacific Division No.2 San Jose Shark ) vs (Central Division No.3) St. Louis Blues:

Finally, we’ve arrived at our Western Conference Final and the first team to lock in their spot, after a back and forth 7-game series, the St. Louis Blues!  The series they just had with the Dallas Stars was much tighter than anyone could have imagined.  Dallas big guns came to play, but the Blues teamwork and depth was enough to outlast Ben Bishop and the Dallas Stars. And they did it in come from behind fashion as well.

After falling behind in the series 3-2, the Blues went into Dallas and got a 4-1 win to force game 7.  Then in game 7, they dominated at home outshooting Dallas 54-30 through regulation and double overtime! Dallas even had 30 blocked shots in the game as well.  This doesn’t include other shots the missed the net or hit the post either, so you could easily imagine that St. Louis had over 100 shot attempts in game7.  But still it took them into double overtime and they only managed to get 2-goals passed Bishop.

Now getting that many shots off, clearly, you’re possessing the puck much more than your opponents are and in game 7 the Blues had a CF% of 63.5 and an FF% of 61.2…absurd numbers.  In the series those numbers are a bit closer to the 50/50 mark.  Excluding game 7 from the average they had a 52.1% CF and a 50.9% FF, much more average numbers, but still on the side you want to be on.  They’re a team known for puck control off faceoffs too and they got worked over there too winning only 46% of their draws in 7 games. The series was still only separated by a one goal difference and that was the overtime winner. 

Free agent addition and St. Louis native Patrick Maroon scored 2-goals in this series, both clutch, game winning goals.  And that was the difference in the series, the depth players.   All but two players contributed on the score sheet for the Blues in the series whereas nine players in the Dallas lineup were unable to help offensively. That also goes to show how solid St. Louis plays not only defensively as a team but the defenseman they have out there. 

They’re led by Captain Alex Pietrangelo who has been paired with Colton Parayko who is becoming an absolute monster out there (with a cannon of a shot no less).  This pairing averaged over 25 minutes each per game in the series, shut down the top players for Dallas, and contributed 5-points each. Throw in veteran Jay Bouwmeester and his 24 minutes per night and that’s stiff competition for any team.  And having a team that controls the puck this much and is aware defensively definitely helps the goaltending.  And Binnington can surely attest to that after putting up a .922 SV% throughout the series. 

And they’ll need Binnington to be at his best as they’ll be facing off against likely the most complete team left in these playoffs, the San Jose Sharks.  After yet another hard fought 7-game series, the Sharks showed why they were many peoples pick to be a Stanley Cup favorite before the season started.  Not only that but they rallied around their Captain, Joe Pavelski after his injury against Vegas in game 7.  And he made a triumphant return in games 7 of this series which propelled them to the finals. 

Pavelski and the rest of the Sharks came out on fire and took an early 2-0 lead in the first period with a goal from Pavelski and the second one set up by him, both roughly about 5-minutes apart.  And though Colorado battled back and gave them everything thing they had, the veteran leadership of the Sharks was able to with stand the onslaught and even get the eventual game winner out of Joonas Donskoi (who is famed for his clutch OT goal in the Stanley Cup Final a few years back against the Penguins).

If that doesn’t key you into the deciding factor of this back and forth series, nothing will, but that “key” was experience.  San Jose is loaded from top to bottom with a mix of players, but many of them have been in these situations time and time again.  Guys like Burns, Thornton, Pavelski, Couture, and Hertl (just to name a few) were all part of the team that made its way to the finals before but fell short.  With the addition of some veteran players with various experiences from all other corners of the league, their knowledge of how to play at this time of the year, and ability to execute, is second to none.  

And while this series was back and forth, the Sharks dominated where it mattered most.  They were better in every game in possession with a 53.3% CF and a 52.8 FF (based off 6-games).  Their special teams performed well too, with a 91.3% Penalty Kill and a 10% Power Play (ok, the Power Play didn’t do that great).  But as they say, defense wins championships, and the penalty killing, and goaltending were key.

Martin Jones, who had been a question mark coming into the playoffs seems to have regained his form that we had seen a few years ago.  In this series Jones had some very respectable numbers with a .915 SV% and a 2.28 GAA.  And while the numbers aren’t eye popping good, he has been making the big saves in the big situations.  Plus, he is another guy on this Sharks team who has made a deep playoff run before and knows what it takes to win. 

All these factors make for a very tough series to call.  Both teams play a similar style with hard, down low forechecks, along with very active defense. St. Louis plays a bit more of a defensive style, but the Sharks have a more dynamic offensive potential that is driven from the blue line by Burns and Karlsson.  As we’ve seen home ice advantage hasn’t matter much, but the Sharks have won two game 7’s on home ice so far…do they have another in them?  I think they do. This series is likely to be the tightest we’ve seen so far, and I expect it will go the distance.  And while I’ve had the Blues all season and playoffs long, it’s hard to bet against the Sharks, especially seeing how they’ve rallied together as a team. Sharks in 7.

And with that, we’re on to the conference finals, before we know it, we’ll be playing for the Cup itself.  Its amazing how fast these playoffs fly by and how competitive they have been.  Upsets everywhere, come from behind game and series wins, this is why the Stanley Cup Playoffs are the best in all sports.  And they’re only half way done, enjoy the Conference Finals!