All 82 games are in the books for each NHL team this season, which can only mean that it’s once again time for the annual spectacle that is the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
In a year with unprecedented parity (10 teams recorded over 100 points), all we can guarantee you is that Lord Stanley’s hardware will reside in the United States for the 24th consecutive season, as no Canadian teams qualified for the playoffs for the first time since 1970. (Eh?)
When it comes to the Western Conference match-ups in round one, fans will be in for a treat. All three California teams have qualified. Hated rivals will face-off against one another. And a squad that has not seen much recent success has returned to claim the overall No. 1 seed for the first time since 2003. So let’s take a look at what to expect out west.
Anaheim Ducks (P1) vs Nashville Predators (WC1)
Game 1: Friday, April 15 – Honda Center – Anaheim, CA – 7:30 p.m. PDT
Let’s talk about an unlikely match-up. Logic says the Anaheim Ducks shouldn’t be here. Just under a month into the 2015-2016 campaign, the preseason cup favorites were a dismal 1-7-2, clinging on for dear life in the NHL standings.
After a second half of the season that saw the squad go a remarkable 24-7-4, here is head coach Bruce Boudreau’s squad once again sitting on top of the Pacific Division with 103 regular-season points, bringing home the division title to Anaheim for the fourth consecutive season.
The Predators on the other hand enter the series as the No. 1 wildcard in the Western Conference, finishing the season with 96 points a year after they finished second place in the Central Division with 104 points before getting bounced in the fist round by the defending-champion Chicago Blackhawks.
This is not the first time that the two squads have faced-off against one another in the quest for the cup. The Ducks and Predators fought it out in a tightly contested series in the first round of the 2011 Stanley Cup Playoffs, sitting as the No. 4 and 5 seeds under the old playoff format, respectively. The Predators won the series in six games after a stunning last-minute comeback win in game five that broke a 2-2 series tie.
Enter 2016, where the teams enter with new coaches and new skaters.
With the Ducks’ offense being the high-octane force that we have come to know in recent seasons, defense will be the true wildcard in how this series plays out. Predators’ goalie Pekka Rinne is one of the best and arguably most underrated goalies in the league, and if he shines like he has before in the playoffs, Nashville will make this series interesting. The Preds will also have to bank on MVP performances from defensemen Shea Weber and Roman Josi, a scary duo considering the two cannot only keep shots from getting off but can also snipe some nasty lasers of their own.
The Ducks however are more than an average heavyweight. It’s almost unfair when you have not one but two exceptional goalies in Freddie Andersen and John Gibson, though it could be interesting to see how the chemistry flows if both goalies get starts over the course of the series.
That however is just one hurdle for Nashville as they are also facing the team with both the top power play and penalty kill in the league. Nashville will also be challenged by containing Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaf, who have been separated to different lines this season and yet have continued to dominate. Solving that puzzle deserves a trophy of its own.
Make no mistake. Nashville is a great team, and they will make this an interesting series. At the end of the day though, they’re facing the unfortunate prospect of playing a team on a hot streak of otherwordly proportions. Once again, the only thing that may be able to stop the Ducks in this series is a game seven on home ice.
Ducks in 6.
Los Angeles Kings (P2) vs San Jose Sharks (P3)
Game 1 – Thursday, April 14 – Staples Center – Los Angeles, CA – 7:30 p.m. PDT
Ah, the good ole’ battle of Southern California vs. Northern California strikes once again. It’s the fourth meeting between the two hated rivals since the 2011 Stanley Cup Playoffs, and we should expect the blood and chaos that we always see when Los Angeles and San Jose take the ice.
The Kings can’t help but feel good about this series as they prepare to face-off against their arch-rivals from the Bay, having topped the Sharks in seven games during last two meetings in 2014 and 2013.
Though Los Angeles may still be searching for answers as to how they let the division slip away to the Ducks in the stretch run, they still finished with a solid 102 points on the season, no easy task to complete in the league these days. They can largely thank that to goalie Jonathan Quick, who tallied a .918 save percentage for the second year in a row. We’ve seen better from Quick before, but it’s still an impressive season outing.
For San Jose though, this series is about erasing the past.
If your memory serves you short, the last San Jose-Los Angeles playoff series in 2014 was an unmitigated disaster for the Sharks. After taking a commanding 3-0 series lead, San Jose did the unthinkable, becoming only the fifth team in professional sports history to lose a seven game series by losing four straight games after winning the first three.
It was the low moment in the Sharks’ tortured history of playoff failures, and all the emotions from the crushing defeat could be summed up with this:
God bless you Joe.
After missing the playoffs in 2015 for the first time in over 10 years, the stage is now set for San Jose to seek revenge after recording 98 points this season.
San Jose won’t have home ice in this one, but they do have the confidence of going 3-1-1 against Los Angeles during the regular season. Goalie Martin Jones is no Jonathan Quick, but he has shown his potential this season, and defenseman Brent Burns is a solid Norris Trophy candidate with 27 goals on the season. The two will have to bring their A-game if they are to shut down a Los Angeles roster stacked with talent in Anze Kopitar, Milan Lucic, Marian Gaborik, and Dustin Brown.
That does not change the fact that LA enters as the favorite in this one. But before we all start shouting “San Jose always chokes!” or “it’s an even year!” don’t forget this is a rivalry series. Emotions will be raging, and that can serve a team for the better or the worse. Expectations for either side can be shattered in these types of series, and how the underdog Sharks perform will significantly depend on that.
I’m adamant that this will once again be a series that goes down to the wire. The bitter, revenge-seeking Sharks won’t go down without a fight, but Los Angeles’s size and playoff success in recent years is brutal for any opponent. That’s why they’ve won two Stanley Cups over the past four seasons. I don’t think San Jose will necessarily “choke”, but at the end of round one, Southern California will be 2-0.
Kings in 7
Dallas Stars (C1) vs Minnesota Wild (WC 2)
Game 1 – Thursday, April 14 – American Airlines Center – Dallas, TX – 8:30 p.m. CST
The last time the Dallas Stars finished atop the standings in the Western Conference, the faces of the franchise were Mike Modano, Marty Turco and Bill Guerin.
Thirteen years later, the Stars are back on top, and this time it is Jamie Benn, Tyler Seguin and and Jason Spezza leading the way. The 2015-16 campaign was a renaissance for the Dallas franchise that was for so long the doormat of pro-sports in the metroplex, amassing 109 points to win the Central Division and the West.
How did this sudden success happen? A compilation of homegrown talent, brilliant trades that brought in players such as Patrick Sharp and Spezza, and one heck of a coaching job by Lindy Ruff in his third full season with the franchise.
For the Wild, they are once again the Wild Card, recording 87 points to sneak into the playoffs as the Colorado Avalanche collapsed in the stretch run. It’s the lowest point total of any playoff team this season, and makes for a 22 point differential between these round one opponents.
On paper, this series is David vs Goliath. It’s the top scoring team in the league vs No. 20 in the league. It’s a team that has won six straight games at home vs. a team that lost five straight games to end the season.
But from what we have seen in the past, don’t sleep on the Wild. When faced with adversity as a wildcard seed in previous years, they have accepted the challenge and prevailed.
Last year the Wild were in a similar situation as this season, sitting as a wild card team up against the Western Conference-best St. Louis Blues, who coincidentally had 109 points as well. People were in for a surprise when the Wild sent St. Louis packing with a stunning 4-2 series win.
Then there was 2014, when the wildcard Wild upset the Central Division winner Colorado Avalanche in seven games, thanks to a series winning overtime goal courtesy of Nino Niederreiter.
The Wild are not playing like they did last year when they recorded 100 regular season points, and the potential absence of left-winger Zach Parise due to an injury will not help the team’s cause in round one, but many of the same puzzle pieces from last year remain intact.
Goalie Devan Dubnyk is back and putting up solid numbers, recording .923 save percentage since November with a .933 even strength save percentage. If he keeps it up in the playoffs, Dallas’s high scoring offense that has carried them this season could be in for a bit of a wake up call.
Niederreiter and Charlie Coyle have also tallied an impressive 20 and 21 goals this season, respectively. With Stars’ goalies Antti Niemi and Kari Lethonen recording save percentages of .905 and .906 this season, Niederreiter and Coyle will be firing on all looks that they get.
At the end of the day, I want to say that Dallas walks away from this series with ease. But knowing the Wild, they will find a way to keep us on our toes. There will be moments of promise in this series for the team from the land of a thousand lakes, but everything is bigger in Texas, including the amount of goals scored by the Dallas in this match-up.
Stars in 6
St. Louis Blues (C2) vs Chicago Blackhawks (C3)
Game 1 – Wednesday, April 13 – Scottrade Center – St. Louis, MO – 8:30 p.m. CST
Yet another rematch from the first round of the 2014 Stanley Cup Playoffs, and finally a series between two teams that almost match-up perfectly on paper.
The Blues and Hawks have been two of the most consistent teams in the NHL since 2012, always finishing as two of the best in the west, let alone the stacked central division. Excluding the abbreviated lockout season in 2013, both have recorded at least 100 points in every season going back to their the 2011-2012 campaigns.
Come the postseason though, it’s night and day between the two teams.
For Chicago, a tradition of playoff success has been established, regardless of what seed they are to begin. They have not missed the playoffs since 2008, making it to at least the Western Conference Final five times in that stretch. “Losing” is not part of Chicago’s vocabulary.
For St. Louis, the word “playoffs” is synonymous with “coming up short.”
Each of the last three seasons, St. Louis has had home ice advantage, with over 100 points in 2014 and 2015. That regular season success did not translate into the postseason success though, suffering a first round exit in each of those seasons. What’s even more tormenting for Blues fans is that they had a 2-0 series lead in 2013 and 2014 before losing four straight in each instance.
So will the fourth time be the charm for the gateway city?
It may have to be if Ken Hitchcock wants to keep his job as head coach in St. Louis, with the leash already incredibly short after recent playoff failures. The Blues certainly have what it takes to knock out the defending champs with their star-studded lineup of players that includes Vlad Tarasenko, Paul Stastny, David Backes and Kevin Shattenkirk.
However, all of those figures were there last year and it wasn’t enough to get past a wildcard opponent, and this year the task is incredibly more difficult given they will have to deal with Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane and company.
In the end, this series may come down to a battle of goal-tending. Both Brian Elliot of the Blues and Corey Crawford of the Blackhawks have had phenomenal seasons, recording save percentages of .930 (the best in the NHL) and .924 respectively.
At the end of the day though, Crawford has won two Stanley Cups. Elliot has a dismal .897 career playoff save percentage, and that won’t cut it against Chicago in the playoffs.
If St. Louis wins this series, it will likely be thanks to Elliot finally finding his groove in the playoffs, stopping Chicago’s snipers when it matters most. That’s hard to do though when you’ve repeatedly found yourself coming up short in the postseason.
Oh, and did I mention that Hitchcock will have to out-coach Joel Quenneville in this series? That’s a feat that doesn’t happen to often.
I can’t help but see Chicago further establishing its playoff dominance with a gritty series win, sending St. Louis packing in the first round for the fourth straight season and sending Hitchcock looking for a new job.
Blackhawks in 6