Western Conference: Round 1

Now we’ve arrived at our look into round one of the Western Conference playoffs.  This is a conference that is truly up for grabs. Teams we expected to dominate haven’t and some that we didn’t have.  Its going to be a wild one, so place your bets now because some of these odds are great.  Let’s get right to it and look to see who should come out on top and advance to round two, and why.

Central Division:

2) Winnipeg Jets vs 3) St. Louis Blues:

This is the type of series we’ve all been waiting for and the best part is that it wont take place with games starting at 10:30 EST!  This central division matchup pits a preseason Stanley Cup favorite against one of the hottest teams in the history of the game against each other in what is sure to be one of the most exciting series in recent history.  And yes, there will be blood!

The favorite coming into the season of these two teams was the Winnipeg Jets and for most of the season they showed why.  With a high-flying offense, a mean and nasty defense, and one of the best young goalies in the game, they’ve been on track to make a deep playoff run all season long.  They’re 6^th in goals scored this season and 15^th in goals against. They have the 4^th ranked PP but the PK is only 23^rd in the league, that’s unexpectedly bad.  And since the trade deadline they have only amassed a 10-9-1 record.  What’s a bit more concerning is that goal scoring winger Patrik Laine isn’t scoring.  Since the deadline he has 2 goals in 20 games.  He must be better in this series to help propel the Jets over the Blues; they cannot do it without him.

On the other hand, the Blues are so hot no one can touch them!  As of January 2^nd, they were the last place team in the league with 34pts.  They finished the year with 99 meaning they went on from a 15-18-4 record the 1^st half to a 30-10-5 record in the new year. The only team better since then, the Tampa Bay Lightning with 31 wins.  In that time frame the PP has been steady at their season average of roughly 21% and the PK is boosted above their season average to 84.7%.  And while their offense isn’t the best in the league (they’ve scored the 15^th most goals in the league), they’ve allowed the 4^th least goals in the league.  And they’re tied for 3^rd in shots against.

And while Winnipeg has won 3-of-4 games this season head to head, all those games took place before the New Year, New Blues, showed up to play hockey.  Because of that, I give you my 1^st upset special of the Playoffs.  St. Louis Blues win this series in 6 games!  (Also, I think I told you the Blues would be a better team this year didn’t I…)

Central Division:

1) Nashville Predators vs WC1) Dallas Stars:

This is another “styles make fights” type of series.  The main questions are can the Dallas Stars high powered offensive stars take over against the tight, controlled, methodical team game that comes in waves by the Nashville Predators? 

Now when I say Dallas has some high-powered offensive stars, I mean that.  They have Benn, Seguin, and Radulov…that’s about where it ends for them.  The team is far from a goal scoring power house.  Dallas scored the 3^rd least goals in the entire league this season though they’re tied for the 10^th best PP in the league.  Looking at them from the other side of things, their team defense has been rather stellar and very underrated.  They allowed the 2^nd least goals all year at an even 200.  And the PK is rather impressive as well coming in at 3^rd in the league!  And as they say, your goalie is your best penalty killer and big Ben Bishop has been nothing short of spectacular this year. Bishop leads all goalies this season with a .934 SV% and is 2^nd with a 1.98 GAA.

Nashville is similar yet thought of differently.  When you think Nashville, you think of a team with a great defense and goaltending, but that can fire the puck into the net with the best of them when it counts. But that isn’t really the case either.  When it comes to keeping the puck out of their net, they’re one of the best.  They’re 4^th in the league in goals against and their PK is 4^th in the league (right behind the Stars).  When it comes to scoring goals though they’re quite a bit better at it than Dallas.  The Preds rank 19^th in the league, which isn’t great but its better than Dallas’s 28^th.  The PP though is absolutely 100% trash.  The Nashville PP comes in at 12.9%...dead last in the league.

And that is what will cause this series to turn on its head.  Both teams are relatively even in just about every way other than the powerplay. And even since the trade deadline where Nashville went out and traded for Simmonds, a man known for being a powerplay specialist, they’ve still only converted on 16% of those chances since then.  Meanwhile Dallas has been clicking away at 24.5% in that time.  Due to that I have no choice but to give the nod here to the Dallas Stars… Lets go Stars in 7.

Pacific Division:

2) San Jose Sharks vs 3) Vegas Golden Knights:

This has been the longest known 1^st round match up coming out of the Western Conference and what a dandy it should be.  San Jose has been a power house team in the West for nearly a decade and finally made it to the Cup Finals a few years ago.  This year they feel that they have a better team and have a better chance at winning the cup than before.  They’re 3^rd in the league in GF/G and have the 6^th ranked PP.  Their problem though is keeping the puck out of their own net.  Martin Jones has not been as consistent this season and as a result the team has allowed the 11^th most GA/G.  To go along with that they have the 15^th ranked PK heading into the series.

Vegas has been nothing short of a Cinderella story since coming into the league last season.  In their 1^st year they went all the way to the Cup Finals and seem destined to do it again.  Though they haven’t been as explosive this year as in year one, they still find ways to win.  One key is that that they are 10 in the league in GA over the whole season. They’re also outshooting their opponents consistently while not allowing as many against.  The biggest problem they have is that their PP is ranked 21^st overall in the league and their PK is ranked 12^th. 

Since the trade deadline Vegas has put up an 11-5-2 record, scoring 62 goals and only allowing 44.  And while I’m not an advanced stats guy, their Corsi and Fenwick are both at 56.2%.  This means that they are controlling play during the game and have the puck on their sticks that much more throughout the game.  The Sharks on the other hand have gone 8-9-1.  Only scoring 56 goals and allowed 62, that is a number they’re on the wrong end of. Their Corsi and Fenwick are slightly under Vegas’ at 54.6 and 52.6 respectively.  

The X-Factors for this series will be Erik Karlsson and Marc-Andre Fleury.  Both have been missing time late in this season but are expected to be ready when this series starts.  While these are two very evenly matched teams, I find it very hard to bet against The Flower.  And while Vegas will need to have success on the special teams to win this series, Fleury is the biggest X-Factor of them all.   I’ll take Vegas in 6 games.

Pacific Division:

1) Calgary Flames vs WC2) Colorado Avalanche:

This is a series that should redefine what it means to play fast!  Both teams can fly up and down the ice and play some wide-open hockey while putting the puck in the back of the net.  But one team tends to do it quite a bit better than the other.  And while they put it in the net better, they also tend to find a way to keep the puck out as well.

The Av’s are a team who plays fast and is led by one of the best young players in the league in Nathan MacKinnon.  If you somehow haven’t seen him or his highlights, then you should get on YouTube.  Either way, the Av’s rank 16^th in goal for this season while having the 7^th ranked PP in the league. When it comes to team defense, they rank 16^th in goals against as well and have the 25^th ranked PK at 78.8%.  Good news though is that since the trade deadline that number has improved dramatically up to 86.9% which would make them the best in the league if that was their yearly pace.

Calgary on the other hand has been a power house.  They went from being a team who missed the playoffs last season to becoming the division champs! They also put the puck in the net like crazy too.  Tied for 2^nd in goals scored with 289, they have five players with over 70pts this season.  But for some reason, they have a nonexistent powerplay. For the whole season they are 18^th in the league at 19.3%, but since the trade deadline it has been a nightmarish 8.6%.  And in that time, they have only won 11 of their 20 games going an even 11-9.

In those 20 games for Calgary though the PK has improved from their season average of 79.7 to 83.6.  So, while they’re struggling (to put it lightly) on the powerplay, the penalty kill has been great.  Goaltending will be their biggest question mark.  Since the deadline both Mike Smith and David Rittich have both played 10 games and neither has stood out.  Smith has gone 5-5 with a .911 SV% while Rittich has gone 6-4 with a .908 SV%. 

Comparing head to head…Calgary wins the offensive category, but only by a slim margin as both teams lack offensive depth.  Calgary has the far superior D-core, while Colorado has the better goaltenders in Varlamov and Grubauer.  Since the deadline Colorado has had a powerplay that’s been clicking at 21% as well.  All those factors lead me to pick Colorado here, but I’m not sure I can.  Most of the game is played at 5-on-5 and that is where the Flames dominate.  Because of that, I’ll take the Flames in 6.  But don’t be surprised if their goaltending faulters, they’ll only go as far as Mike Smith or David Rittich can carry them. 

And that wraps up the first round of the Western Conference!  The West is truly wide open and up for grabs with plenty of upsets that could easily happen, much more so than in the East.  And to recap my picks here, St. Louis in 6, Dallas in 7, Vegas in 6, and Calgary in 6.  Will I be right, or will I be wrong, as I said before, only time will tell.  Within a week we will see just how things have been shaping up and we’ll know the true contenders from the pretenders in the West as we race now towards Lord Stanley’s Cup!

Power Rankings!!! 10-1

Here we are, the Grand Finale of the Power Rankings!!!!  So far we've briefly examined the dumpster fires of the league and all the teams who are just in the mix due to all the parity in the league now.  For those teams, one thing could make or break their respective seasons.  But now we're on to the upper echelon on the league, the true contenders heading into the season.  So lets jump in and see who's left.

10: St. Louis Blues - A team that has been in contender status for the last few years starts us off.  This is a highly skilled team all around.  A few major shake ups the last 2 off-seasons should pay dividends as this season approaches.  After bring in Schenn last year and seeing him have a major break out season, can Ryan O'Reilly come in and have more success than he normally does?  One of the best face-off men in the league every year, I'd expect him to make a major difference for the Blues.  The overall depth is good upfront (though they have just put Jaskin on Waivers) , they even have quite a few young players who would make NHL rosters on teams not as well off.  Do I even need to mention Tarasenko and his wicked shot?  Didn't think so.  The Defense is pretty outstanding as well.  Its just solid all around being led by Pietrangelo and Parayko.  Most importantly though is Jake Allen in net, once again a common theme.  At 28 he is in the ultimate prime of his career and is 1000% solidified as the number one goalie now that Carter Hutton has left to go to Buffalo.  With Chad Johnson as a serviceable back up, it will be all firmly on the shoulders of Jake Allen.  But as long as he is positional and doesn't allow anything weak, the Blues should be primed and ready for a nice playoff run.

9: Columbus Blue Jackets - This is a team that is a very interesting spot. Heading in, they're a favorite in their division to finish top 3 at least.  Unfortunately they're starting off on the wrong foot though.  An injury to the ankle of Seth Jones could seriously derail the team right from the start.  Jones is a Norris candidate on the blue line with out him the team could suffer greatly the first 5-6 weeks.  Depending on where they are in the standings at this point could affect the moves the make at the deadline.  They have two high caliber players in Panarin and Bobrovsky who seem to be destined for Free Agency.  And it seem almost as a certainty that Panarin will not be back no matter how the team performs.  A good team on paper heading in, but many story lines are brewing in Columbus, we'll have the answers sooner than we'll realize though.

8: Pittsburgh Penguins - What do we really need to say about the Pens?  They have the greatest player in the world with Crosby, and I'll stand by that for a long time.  Follow that with Malkin, Kessel, Letang, Schultz, and Guentzel...just to name a few and this a powerful team...yet they're only at number 8!!!  The all around depth is amazing as well.  Long time rival turned teammate in Brassard will now have a full year with the team as a 3rd line center and should be able to find his game again.  The speed of Hagelin and Rust are almost unmatched this far down on most depth charts.  And now dad is back in the form of Matt Cullen who's leadership and influence make a tremendous difference on the 4th line and P.K.  The defense is just as stacked with the addition of Jack Johnson in the off-season and Jamie Oleksiak at the deadline last year. Don't forget about Maata and Dumoulin and you have yourselves a very formidable top-6.  In net look for Murray to have a more consistent year and be prepared to take the Pens back deep into the playoffs this year.

7: San Jose Sharks - For some reason, on paper, I'm never really a fan of the Sharks up front. But damn there is no arguing the results year after year.  A consistent playoff team, the only question we have is how far will the go?  Well that's one of the questions anyway...another could be...How will Joe Thornton perform this season? A key cog in the Sharks line up for the last decade, now at age 39, and coming off 2 straight years of ACL injuries, we have to think this will be the last shot at glory for one of the greatest players we've ever seen play the game.  And they could be in the best position ever to get it done (though they finally made it to the Cup Final 3 seasons ago now).  They've added in Evander Kane for the long term now and he flourished last season after being dealt to the team.  One would figure he can only get better still.  And now and already good defense has just gotten that much better as they have brought in Erik Karlsson from the Senators! Burns, Vlasic, and Karlsson probably makes up the best top-3 defense men in the league, or at least in the West.  And with a consistently solid goalie in Martin Jones behind them...I think Peter Deboer is going to open the cage this year and let the Sharks feed on the rest of the western conference.

6:  Tampa Bay Lightning -  The usual favorite to win the Atlantic Division but in a tough division I have them in 2nd.  A stacked team who in finishing 2nd could be a benefit in the playoffs.  I will say though...I don't know where to start in discussing the team.  The forwards are absolutely stacked!  Stammer, Kucherov, Palat, Miller, Johnson, and Point, just to name a few, make up the core of an incredible forward group.  Back on defense they're led by Hedman, McDonagh, and Sergachev.  All that and then some playing in front of Vasilevsky makes for one of the most consistent and balanced teams in the entire league.  With nothing but Lord Stanley on their minds heading into the season...Could this be their year?

5: Vegas Golden Knights - Holy. Shit.  An expansion team coming out and doing what they did last season was insane to say the least, and no one expected it.  I think I am one of the few who had them being a playoff bubble team and maybe squeaking in.  But to run the entire division all year and then make it all the way to the Cup Final, and make it all look easy? No I didn't see that coming one bit.  And somehow...I think the got even better.  They have given Wild Bill Karlsson a 1 year, show me the money, contract.  They brought in Paul Stastny in free agency.  And just a few weeks ago added in Max Pacioretty of the Montreal Canadiens. Their D-core isn't the best overall, but as a team the play together very well and never get out worked.  The only question I have is can Fleury keep up the magic?  He has always been a great goaltender but at age 33 how much longer can he keep it up?

4:  Toronto Maple Leafs - Maybe I'm a bandwagon fan here, but I have the Leafs taking over the top spot in the Atlantic this year.  This was an already solid team offensively and they only got better by adding in John Tavares.  I would expect the Leafs to have a top-5 Power Play at the very least this year as they power their way through the conference.  And that's all without William Nylander at the moment.  Should he ever decide he wants to play hockey again and be apart of a winner, he will make them all the better as the depth will be spread around tremendously up front. And a forgot man in Toronto as well, one of my favorite players in the league, Nazem Kadri, is still in his prime.  He has had back to back 32 goal season and been right around 60 points, can he take advantage of some mismatches and push above 70 points this year?  They also have a growing defense that should only get better with time.  If they can limit the chances against Freddy Andersen a bit more they'll be a cup favorite for sure.

3: Nashville Predators - It was tough to knock the Preds back to the 3rd spot but that's what I had to do.  Led up front by Forsberg, Johansen and Arvidsson, the have an great core of forwards. The most important thing is that all of their forwards are under 30's old other than Bonino, and for the most part they're all locked up for a few more years as well.  With probably the best top-4 D in the league, all righty/lefty combos and 27-29 years old, they're also all in their primes.  The one man who isn't is our most recent Vezina winner in Pekka Rinne.  At 35 years old and closing in on 36 quickly I wonder how much is left in the tank.  Not to mention it is a contract year for the big Fin, the pressure is really going to be on in Nashville.

2: Winnipeg Jets - The high flying Jets are my favorite to win the West, but its just by a hair!  They are fast up front, as well as big.  They can score with the best in the league as the have one of the best young goal scorers we've ever seen in Patrik Laine.  Mark Scheifele is only 25 and has emerged as one of the best centers in all of hockey, and he is also obsessed with getting better and better.  Captain Blake Wheeler is the oldest player in the forward group at 32 and his game brings every thing.  At 6'5" and 225lbs he brings high end speed, physicality, finesse, basically...everything. Not bad qualities and skills to have in a leader.  The rest of the group is all under 30 as well and quite a few are in contract years, like forgotten rookie goal scorer of last year, Kyle Connor, who wasn't even a Calder candidate and put up 31 goals.  Moving on the the defense whats not to like?  Led by former Stanley Cup champ in Byfuglien this is a very good top-6.  And other than Big Buff, they're all in their mid 20's as well, primed and ready to go prove something.  In net they're anchored by one of the best goalies in the league, easily in everyones top-3 league wide, Connor Hellebuyck.  After establishing himself last year as the absolute number one goalie in the organization he was rewarded with a nice raise.  Now we'll see if he lives up to it, and boy he better.  He'll be playing almost 70 games this year as his backup Brossoit, has not shown he could be relied upon while in Edmonton.  I don't know for sure if Winnipeg will take the top spot in the West but expect them to be near the top all year long.

1: Washington Capitals - Finally, after all these years, the Washington Capitals are the Stanley Cup Champions!  After 14 years Ovi has thrown off the demons and lived up to the expectations (as if he wasn't anyway) and solidified his legacy.  Already the greatest goal scorer in the history of the game, yeah I said it and I'll take it to my grave,  he now has the most prized possession.  But can he and the rest of the Capitals defend it?  Led not only by Ovi, but Backstrom, Oshie and Kuzy up front, they have plenty of offensive potential.  They will be missing Tom Wilson up front though as he will be starting the season with a suspension of who knows how many games at the time of writing this.  I would imagine somewhere in the 10-12 game range.  Back on defense the team is very well off.  The don't have the superstars of some other teams, but they're in great shape on less. Led by Carlson and Niskanen, they're in good shape.  Orlov has become a stud in his own right and Bowey and Djoos are coming into their primes.  In net they lost one of the better backups in league in Grubauer to Colorado but they're still in good shape.  Led by Holtby in net, the constant Vezina candidate, I'd expect a bounce back season after a bit of a rougher year last year. 

All in all I think we're in for one hell of a season to say the least.  The game is better than ever, and the competition night in and night out is fierce.  Where will all these teams end up by the end of the season is any ones guess.  But I am sure its going to be a fun ride with plenty of questions to ask and be answered as we go on throughout the year.  Now if we could just drop the puck and get this show started, let the debates end and have the teams battle it out and prove us wrong, or right!

Most Improved Teams of the Off-Season.

This off-season has seen plenty of players joining new teams either via trade, free agency, and almost most importantly the draft. With all these players changing places most teams should have a different outlook coming into the season, for better or worse.  So, I'm going do a breakdown of a few teams I think have improved the most and not just on paper.  These teams I think are really going to have a significant improvement in the standings as opposed to last season.

Let’s start with the easy one, the Toronto Maple Leafs.  Are the most improved as a whole, probably not.  Defense was never really addressed here, but offense?  That's another story.  They landed arguably the biggest free agent available in the last 10 years by bringing in the home town kid in John Tavares.  They now have top-3 center depth reminiscent of the 2009 Penguins.

Penguins had Crosby, Malkin, and Jordan Staal at center the year they won the cup, now the Leafs have Matthews, Tavares, and Kadri!  This is scary, not think about Mitch Marner, William Nylander, and Patty Marleau on the wings.  That's a lot of high-end talent, each line just needs a gritty and physical guy to go in the corners and really help dig out that puck to get it into space, and these guys don’t need much. As far as D goes, not much happened, but look for Timothy Lilgren to crack the lineup. He was scary good last year when I saw him at USA Arena and thought he was NHL ready then, he definitely should be now.  Look for the Leafs to battle for top spot in the League this season.

On to the Buffalo Sabres.  Another easy choice, but on a deeper level than just picking up Rasmus Dahlin.  They have made some remarkable trades!  In the process they had to give up a bit, and even gave up one of the best centers in the league when he is on his game in Ryan O'Reilly, but they got back so much more the team is pretty fantastic on paper.

They have added Skinner, Thompson, Berglund, Sobotka, and Connor Sheary all via trade this off season,  On top of already having Eichel, Mittelstadt, and Okposo...thats a pretty formidable top-6 no matter how you put it together, and their 3rd line shouldn’t be too shabby either. On D they have Ristolainen, Dahlin, Bogo, and Scandella; which makes for a nice top4 set of D-men.  Now the worry is in goal, which isn’t much of a change from last season.  The question now is can Carter Hutton carry the load of being a number 1 goalie for the 1st time at 32 years old?  If he can look for the Sabre to battle anywhere from wild card to 2nd overall in the Atlantic Division.

In the west, we have the Arizona Coyotes up first. I don’t think that they had the biggest F.A. signings but they definitely locked up a good player in Grabner. He will be a good fit on the 2nd or 3rd line for them, bringing a little bit of size, but a hell of a lot of speed and some goal scoring ability.  He'll also be vital on the PK where he had 2 shorty’s and has had 15 so far in his career.  More importantly than signing Grabner, they were able to resign some key players in Raanta, Dvorak, and Hjalmarsson. When healthy last season Raanta was stellar in goal winning 21 of the teams 29 victories, with only 46 starts. Dvorak is a young player with a high ceiling that he began to show last season earning himself a substantial raise.  And Hjalmarsson is just a solid, hardworking defense man who has "been there and done that" and provides tremendous leadership to a young D-core.

The biggest move they made was trading, straight up, Max Domi for Alex Galchenyuk.  While Domi has a lot of upside, Galchenyuk is a bit bigger and a proven goal scorer who most would expect about 30 goals a season out of. Not to mention he has been great on the power play when he is on his game.  Combine that with a young and promising group of forward I would expect a solid top 9 and at least 3 20-goal scorers this season...could there be more or someone even to get 30 goals?  Only time will tell.  Goaltending is in good shape with Raanta as mentioned before, but how will the D-core perform? A pretty good top-4 led by OEL, but will it stay healthy and the depth players rise up?  We'll see but expect to Yotes to be in it till the end this year battling for a wild card spot.

And to finish things off we have the St. Louis Blues. An already solid team, though the just missed the playoffs, really shook things up this off season in a big way.  Most of all quite a lot was lost in the Ryan O'Reilly trade that was already talked about back up in the Sabres talk, so I'm going to leave that alone.  Other than that, they made some key free agency deals that should help to off-set the loss of a few players. Key signings made were of Bozak and Perron returning from Vegas...I think Perron has been moved from the team and came back now 3-4 times at this point, its nuts.  Bozak will now give the Blues solid top-3 center depth with O'Reilly and Schenn, who had his own breakout year last season.  Down the wings you have one of the best snipers in the game, Tarasenko, along with Steen, Fabri, and big Patty Marron. With a few younger players who'll be looking to make an impact we have another team with a very solid top-9.

The Defense of the Blues is the real key though, they have likely the 3rd, maybe 4th ,best D core in their division, yet it is still likely in the top 3rd of the league. The top-4 is about as solid as it comes being led by Pietrangelo and Parayko.  Though that don’t have much in the way of depth or prospects in the system it will be very important that they stay health and play well.  Back in goal they have Jake Allen so has been able to stand on his head often, and with the number one spot secured, it will be gravely important that he plays to his best especially late into the season.  In a stacked division they will need every victory they can get to make it into the playoffs, the west really looks like it will be the wild, wild, west again and I would expect the Blues to push for the 3rd place spot trying to avoid the wildcard.

I had 2 honorable mentions until today though...now I have 3.  I'm not going to go in depth at all, you can do the work and let your imagination run wild.  Number one, the Carolina Hurricanes, and no its not because of Mrazek (though it totally helps).  Second the Calgary Flames...funny I think these teams did some business this summer.  And Third as of about 2:30 EST this afternoon...the San Jose Sharks...Eric Karlsson, what more needs to be said.