Eastern Conference: Round 1!

Here we go!  The playoffs have finally arrived, and it took literally until the very last day of the regular season to find out the different matchups we’re going to get to see here.  It has been an incredible season with so many highs and lows for both teams and individual players.  And now it all comes down to this, the race to Lord Stanley’s Cup.  Now let’s take a closer look at our matchups for round one in the Eastern Conference.

Atlantic Division:

2) Boston Bruins vs 3) Toronto Maple Leafs:

Well now if this isn’t a story, we’ve seen a few times in recent years. I’d certainly say so, but maybe this time, we’ll have a different ending…or maybe not.  Toronto had come into this season as one of the sexy picks to win the Stanley Cup.  After all, they have some of the best young talent in all of hockey.  And they landed the biggest fish in the free agent market over the summer in John Tavares.  He certainly has not disappointed so far, setting all new career highs in just about every statistical category.  But so far, this regular season it hasn’t seemed to be enough against the big bad Bruins.

Boston will have won 3 of the 4 meetings the teams had during the regular season coming into this series.  And while the regular season counts for very little when it comes to the playoffs, you must wonder how deep in minds of the young Leafs the Bruins really are.  They took them out easily in the playoffs last season and that has carried over in the head to head matchups this season as well.  And for all the fire power the Leafs have up front, Boston still has the superior power play, which will make a difference in this series.  And while their PK’s are basically even through the regular season, I think the nod must go to Boston here when you compare the defenseman for each team.  Chara may be 41 years old, but he is still Chara.

Final Answer:  I have no choice but to take Boston here.  Aside from being the far more experienced team, they’ve shown nothing but dominance over the Leafs in recent years.  Not to mention they have a physicality that Toronto sorely lacks. I must take Boston in 6.

Atlantic Division:

1) Tampa Bay Lightning vs WC2) Columbus Blue Jackets:

In our premier Eastern Conference matchup, we have the 2^nd most dominant team in the history of the league in the Tampa Bay Lightning.  They are taking on a team who sold it all and bought the farm for their chance at glory this year, the Columbus Blue Jackets.  This is truly a David vs Goliath fight if there ever was one.

Tampa Bay has shown all year that they’re the best team in the league, hands down.  They won 62 games this year, 12 more than the next best team.  They have the leading scorer in the league in Kucherov with 128 pts, 12 more than the next best in McDavid.  They have three different 40- goal scorers in Kuch, Stamkos, and Point.  They’ve not only outscored their opponents but they’re not allowing a lot either.  They’re tied for 5^th in the league in least goals against as well.  When it comes to special teams, they’re the best there too.  The have the best PP in the league with a 28.2% of success.  And the PK is an even 85%, tied with Arizona for tops in the league.

When you look at all that Tampa has accomplished, how can the Blue Jackets even stand a chance?  Columbus is a team that has never won a single round in the playoffs.  They had the Washington Capitals on the ropes last year and then collapsed in what seemed to be their best chance in franchise history.  But now with the team they have assembled and the battles that they have had to go through just to make it into the playoffs…they have a punchers chance. 

They come into this series playing their best hockey of the year winning 7 of the last 8 games.  In those games they have also had 3 shut outs, leading one to believe that Bobrovsky has finally found his game.  Bob is the ultimate X-factor for this series as well.  He is the only active 2-time Vezina Trophy winner. Since March he has gone 10-5 with a .933 SV% and a 1.86 GAA.  Looking at how the forwards compare against the Lightnings, you don’t think they stand much of a chance.  But they have very solid players up and down their line-up.  

The key for them is that they play a team game and they’ll need to follow the lead of their coach in John Tortorella. They’re skilled and have great depth as well.  They must be physical at every chance and eliminate time and space from Tampa.  If they can do that…they’ll have a chance.

That said…I got Tampa…in Five. 

Metropolitan Division:

2) New York Islanders vs 3) Pittsburgh Penguins:

Boy oh boy, this will be a fun series here.  To start the season who would have thought that the Islanders would have even sniffed the playoffs, let alone lead their division most of the year.  But here we are, they didn’t hold on to the top spot but they’re sitting here with home ice through the 1^st round against the battle tested Penguins.  And if anyone knows how a team should play against Pittsburgh, its Barry Trotz.

The key to this series for the Islanders is to keep playing their team game.  Barry Trotz came over from Washington immediately after winning the Stanley Cup last year and turned the worst defensive team in the league into arguably the best one.  They allowed a league low 191 goals against.  When it comes to special teams though, they’re just … not that good.  They have the 29^th ranked PP and they PK is 17^th, playing a team like the Penguins, they must be better.

The Pens are a team who has had their struggles this year but still find a way to get it done.  Early on they had struggles in net from Matt Murray and they just couldn’t win many games. But since the trade deadline they have been on a roll.  They have a 12-4-4 record since then and they’re PP has been clicking with a 24.5% success rate. But the PK on the other hand has only been at 77.5 in that time. Once again though, Crosby has topped 100pts in a season and Jake Guentzel has even hit the 40-goal mark. 

This really is a “styles make fights” type of series and it should be about as even of a series as we can get.  Can the defensive prowess of the Islanders shut down the battle tested warriors that are led by Crosby and Malkin? Time will tell.  For me, I love a good upset, but I’m going Pittsburgh, in 6.

Metropolitan Division:

1) Washington Capitals vs WC1) Carolina Hurricanes:

And now for our last matchup in the East and it is another David vs Goliath scenario…though not as bad as Columbus’s odds.  We have the up-start Carolina Hurricanes (didn’t I tell you they’d be a better team this year!) facing off against the reigning, defending, Stanley Cup Champions of the Wooooooooorld, The Washington Capitals!

The Hurricanes have been a fun team to watch all season long.  They play a fast, high flying style of hockey which is backed up by a top-5 D-core as well.  The questions that they have always had have been in net.  But it seems they may have found an answer in the combo of Mrazek and McElhinney.  It seems that Mrazek should get the start as well, its not like he hasn’t earned it either. He’s played 40 games this season, and 10 since March.  In those last 10 he has gone 8-2 with a .942 SV% and a 1.8 GAA.  He also has a history of playing well against Ovi and his Capitals.

As a team the Canes don’t score a lot though, but they trend into the right direction.  They outshoot everyone and they’ve done that all year and they typically don’t allow many shots either, being ranked 1^st and 3^rd in those two categories respectively.  And they’re tied with Tampa for 5^th in GA this season as well. On special teams they rank 20^th on the PP and 8^th on the PK.  They will need to take advantage of their PP chances in this series.

As for the Caps, we know what they’re all about.  They have a power house of a team and have for nearly a decade.  Led by their captain, The Great 8, they will have their eyes set on a Championship repeat.  In net they have Holtby, who after a shaky start has found his game again, especially since the trade deadline.  Since then he has gone 11-3-1 with a .921 SV% and a 2.2 GAA. Combine that with the 12^th ranked PP and the 24^th ranked PK…and now you have an intriguing series.

Though I have been riding high on the Bunch of Jerks bandwagon and love seeing Mrazek play well, I don’t think they’ll have enough to get through the Caps this time.  Though it won’t be easy at all, I have to put my money on Washington.  They just have been there over and over, and this is the first time in a decade that Carolina has made the playoffs.  This will be a great learning experience for this young team. The future is bright, but Washington in 6.

And with that we have a nice break down of all the first round of the Eastern Conference series.  And once again, my picks.  Boston in 6, Tampa in 5, Pittsburgh in 6, and Washington in 6.  No crazy upsets this round, things should go as expected, though it won’t be easy for anyone.  Am I right here or am I completely out of my mind with some of these? There is only one way to find out and that’s by watching how all the games play out.  But we’ll all know soon enough.  We’ll reconvene with all these teams in round two, until then keep an eye out for the other half of my break down where I examine the Western Conference.

One month in - The Atlantic Edition

So we're about a month into the season now and what a month it has been.  Scoring is up for sure, roughly 6.5 goals per game.  Individual break outs and team breaks.  We have surprises in all different ways as well.  Some teams doing what was expected and then some, while others are in the dumps that we didn't expect.  So instead of doing this power rankings style, I'm going to just go over the standings broken down by division.  But I will compare based on my preseason power rankings to see how things are shaking out.  So lets go....

The Atlantic:

So above is obviously a look at the standings at this point. A few things look as they should and a few don't at this point.  

Toronto has been one of the best teams in the league and that was as expected.  Auston Matthews has been a beast all year, but now he has a shoulder injury and I think it is safe to say no one in the league wants him out long term...just for when you're team plays them.  But even without him last year they still won .600% of their games, so it isn't like he has to carry the team alone like McDavid does in Edmonton, but that is another story for another time.  The team has played 11 games to date and already have 5 players with 10pts or more and an equal amount with at least 4 goals.  A bit of a better goal differential would be good but its a positive and that is the most important thing.  Basically they're just riding the wave. 

Tampa Bay, the defending division champs, are sitting in 2nd place early on and have been doing it very quietly.  Not only has the team been off to a quiet start, so has Stammer who only has 1 goal, 5 pts and is a minus -3 as of now.  They don't seem to be scoring at a crazy pace like Toronto has been but they're doing it more by committee as virtually everyone has contributed at least a point.   I wouldn't expect them to stay in the Leafs shadow for to long though.  Consider them a sleeping giant who is still a little drowsy as we're early in the season. 

Montreal has been one of the surprise teams early this year as they sit in 3rd place in the division. I'll be the 1st to admit I didn't expect them to come out of the gate like this.  With a 6-2-2 record, I would have expected something more like a 2-6-2 record.  But led by their youth, they're playing hard and fast.  Domi, acquired in the off season for Galchenyuk, is leading the team with 11pts in 10 games.  He is followed by Petry and Drouin.  Petry leads the way on the back end, while Drouin looks to finally be the guy they expected when picking him up from Tampa. Tatar seems to be fitting in nicely as well after coming over in an off season trade as well.  And how can I not mention Kotkaniemi?  He has been playing solid as a center, though only 4 pts, he is a plus-3 and has been incredibly dependable. 

Boston...I don't know how they do it.  Tied with Montreal in points but playing 1 more game, they fall to 4th.  They are led by arguably the best line in hockey right now in Bergeron, Pastrnak, and Marchand.  They have some shown some solid depth on offense as well, but it will have to pick up if they wanna hang on and stay in the race.  Rask has not been himself and Halak has stolen a few games from him lately, even putting up a recent shutout.  If Rask doesn't find his game Halak will steal his starting job, and I don't know if he can get it done long term.

Buffalo.  As predicted in my most improved teams post, Buffalo is finally putting it together, though they're not 100% there yet.  Officially led by new Captain Jack Eichel they're going to be a force to reckon with this season.  Jeff Skinner has proven to be one of the best acquisitions of the off season as he leads all players on the team in points with 12, 1 more than Eichel.  Pominville is looking like he is in his mid-20's again as well.  Hutton though has played all 8 games thus far and is .500 and could have better numbers, but he is keeping them afloat so far.  And of course Dahlin has not really looked out of place, as he has 4pts and is only a minus -1 early on. 

Ottawa came out of the gate pretty hot after a rough off season and even rougher year last year.  But they have been competitive all year so far and hold a .500 record for now, but they've dropped 3 straight...so maybe the hope that they had is gone and reality is now setting in.  Brady has been out with an injury though and that has clearly hurt them the most as he had 6pts in 4 games to start off his career.  Thomas Chabot has just about made everyone forget about that Karlsson guy though with 13pts in 10 games.  Duchene has played very well too and Chris Tierney has found another level.  But don't expect the fun ride to last much longer.

Florida has definitely been the disappointment of the season.  2 wins in 9 games with 3 OTL...ouch.  They're a minus -7 goal differential too...only 1 worse team in the division.  It looks like one of their biggest problems is Special teams.  15% on the PP and 71% on the PK...worst in the division.  Goal tending has clearly been bad as the offense seems to be doing what they need.  They're out shooting opponents on average and they're getting pretty goo production from all the guys you'd expect.  I don't think they'll stay at the bottom for to much longer...but it may be to little to late once again for the playoffs. 

Detroit...ugh.   So whats been good here as they're sitting in the corner of the basement?  Larkin is beginning to look like a number 1 center.  AA has been explosive and looks like a solid number 2, even back checking.  Bert has been putting the puck in the net. Mantha is starting to figure it out. And Cholowski seems like a future number 1 D-man, something I didn't think he would ever be.  So whats the problem?  The PP is in the middle of the pack and the PK is actually 2nd in the Atlantic.   They just haven't been able to find the back of the net playing 5-on-5.  2.3 GF/G and 3.8 GA/G...that doesn't make a winning formula.  They also are being out shot by about 7 shots per game...I remember the good ole days when we were out shooting teams by 10 or more. Well...#lose4Hughes should be in full effect. 

So with that we clearly have 5 teams already pulling away from the pack and should stay pretty tight in the points race through most of the season.  They'll need to if they want a shot at playing through mid-April.  As we know, American Thanksgiving is a major marker in the season and has shown us who will and wont make the playoffs the majority of the time.  With the top 3 teams in every division guaranteed a spot, the 4th and 5th place teams will have to keep it up and be better than the teams in their rival division within the conference.  For the Atlantic, that means the Metro,  who is home to the last 3 Stanley Cup Champions.  The race will only heat up from here.  

Keep an eye out for my next breakdown which will focus on the Metropolitan Division before moving off to the Western Conference. 

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.