The NHL Conference Finals begin Thursday night with the game between the Carolina Hurricanes and the Florida Panthers. Friday’s game will feature the Dallas Stars and Vegas Golden Knights. Here are five thoughts on the playoffs after two rounds.
No need for a big guardian
Only one goaltender, Jake Oettinger, has finished in the NHL’s top 15 in regular-season wins. The Stars goaltender ranks fourth with 37 wins, a 2.37 goals-against average and a .919 save percentage.
The second in this chapter among the semi-finalists, at 19e rank, Sergei Bobrovsky, won 24 games, but lost 23, including three in overtime. He allowed an average of 3.07 goals per game.
Frederik Andersen of the Hurricanes is ranked 25e row and Adin Hill, of Vegas, at 33e. In their defence, they haven’t played 35 games. Andersen was injured and Hill was not among the team’s top two goaltenders this season.
Even more surprising finding: only Oettinger started the series in front of the net. After his disastrous season, Bobrovsky gave way to surprising Alex Lyon, Hill to Laurent Brossoit and Andersen was injured in the first round and watched Antti Raanta make the saves for the Hurricanes.
The Myth of the First Two Centers
It takes big stars in the center to break into the playoffs, we often hear. However, none of the four number one centers present, Sebastian Aho, Aleksander Barkov, Jack Eichel and Roope Hintz, are among the first 35 scorers in the NHL.
Eichel and Barkov were nonetheless second overall picks in the draft, by Buffalo in 2015 and Florida in 2013. Aho and Hintz were picked in the second round, by Carolina and Dallas respectively.
Barkov has missed about fifteen games, it should be noted, but his average points per game (78 points in 68 games) gives him 18e rank only. Its great value is also measured by its defensive effectiveness.
Among the second centers, only Chandler Stephenson of the Golden Knights has reached more than 60 points. The Stars are counting on Max Domi, secured for a second-round pick in 2025 at the trade deadline.
The youngest of the group at 22, Jesperi Kotkaniemi, amassed 43 points in the regular season, one more than Sam Bennett of the Florida Panthers, but in almost twenty games more.
We therefore find two former centers of the Canadian among the last eight survivors in the center of the first two trios of the semi-finalists!
A little more comfortable now with Nick Suzuki and Kirby Dach in the center as a future duo at the Canadian?
Regular season standings don’t mean anything
Of the top four teams in the regular season, only the Carolina Hurricanes still play hockey. The Boston Bruins were upset in the first round, the New Jersey Devils and Toronto Maple Leafs in the second.
The Golden Knights are the second club in the top seven in the standings as the defending champion Colorado Avalanche and Edmonton Oilers are eliminated.
The Florida Panthers reached the four aces despite a 17e place in the general classification. They finished one point behind the out-of-the-west Calgary Flames, matched the out-of-the-west Nashville Predators and edged the Pittsburgh Penguins by just one point.
With the Avalanche eliminated, only the Tampa Bay Lightning (2020, 2021) and Pittsburgh Penguins (2016, 2017) can boast of having won the Cup twice in 25 years.
We need a strong number one defender
In the absence of a center of the caliber of Sidney Crosby, Nathan MacKinnon or Auston Matthews, the presence of a leading number one defender seems essential. Each has one among the semi-finalists: Brent Burns in Carolina, Aaron Ekblad in Florida, Miro Heiskanen in Dallas and Alex Pietrangelo in Vegas.
All four were first-round picks and all but Burns were drafted in the top five in their respective years of eligibility. Burns was drafted at 20e total rank by the Minnesota Wild in 2003.
He’s a boon to the Hurricanes, who got him for a third-round pick and fringe players in a San Jose Sharks yard sale last summer. Burns revived his career this season with 61 points. He is the dean of the group at 38 years old.
Pietrangelo, fourth overall pick by the St. Louis Blues in 2008, was signed by Vegas on free agency in 2020 on a $61 million, seven-year deal. Ekblad, 27, was a first overall pick in 2014 and has never changed teams, as has 23-year-old Miro Heiskanen, the lone left-hander in the squad, Dallas’ third overall pick in 2017.
They are all supported by quality colleagues, Brandon Montour and Gustav Forsling in Florida, Jacob Slavin and Brady Skjei in Carolina, Shea Theodore and Alec Martinez in Vegas and Ryan Suter and Esa Lindell in Dallas.
Important numerical superiorities, except that…
Scoring on the power play gives a definite advantage, but more is needed. The Oilers posted a 46.2% save percentage in the playoffs, almost a goal for every two attempts. But they were defeated by Vegas in the second round.
The top four power play teams, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Boston and Los Angeles are all eliminated, including the bottom three in the first round. The Stars save the honor in fifth place with a rate of 31.7%.
The Golden Knights rank twelfth out of sixteen teams with a 17.5% rate. Vegas will have to be wary of Dallas in such an occasion. The Stars have no top-four power play scorers, but do have four of the top 11: Tyler Seguin, Joe Pavelski, Roope Hintz and Jason Robertson.
The semi-finals in the South: a first!
Not only are the four semi-finalists all in the southern United States this spring, in Florida, Texas, Nevada and North Carolina, but this is a first in history. of the National Hockey League!
There has always been, in the NHL’s 117-year history, at least one representative north of Colorado, Nebraska, Missouri, Kentucky and Virginia in the semi-finals.
It will also be a final between two teams from the southern United States for the first time since 1996, the second time in history. That year, the Colorado Avalanche, considered a Southwestern state, faced the Florida Panthers.
There were three teams in southern Illinois 30 years ago: Tampa, San Jose and Los Angeles, with the birth of the Sharks in 1991 and the Lightning in 1992. There are now eleven, one third of the League, not to mention Seattle located on the American West Coast.