The first round of the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs is still underway with us having almost a week of games in the books. The first opportunity to wrap the series is Tuesday, with Toronto and Carolina having the opportunity to close and move on.
The playoff hockey and the regular season are completely different beasts. The hockey is still the only sport where the success of the postseason rarely, if ever, aligns with what a team did before the playoffs. That means we have the perfect opportunity to dive now and see what teams they feel they could go to the end and that they seem suitors.
CONTANT: TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS
I would owe have important doubts about the reads that enter the playoffs because, well … [looks at the last six decades]. However, after a handful of games against the senators, I am buying in this team.
The biggest problem with the Leafs last year was that when the team arrived at the playoffs, its best players disappeared. Mitch Marner and John Tavares disappeared more or less, while Williams Nylander fought against the injury. This left a massive void where the only players like Max Domi and Tyler Bertuzzi were really working.
We are already seeing that this is different. Marner, Nylyer and Auston Matthews are anchoring the team and demonstrating that the stars are literally aligning. I know that many people are scared after the overtime defeat of Toronto against Ottawa on Saturday, but I do not see that the story is repeated. When he also considers that the Atlantic road with the Stanley Cup finals aligns well for Leafs, it means we could see great things in Toronto.
Pretend: Winnipeg Jets
I really don’t know what to say here. For a long time, the jets were my favorite to win the Cup, but the team we are seeing at this time does not look at its counterpart of the regular season. Much is reduced to Connor Hellebuyck, who has become pumpkin thesis playoffs.
It is difficult to remember the last time that a favorite goalkeeper from time to time was taken twice in the opening series to allow soft goals, but here we are. Simply: Winnipeg is based on efficiency and defense. If Hellebuyck is allowing five goals against a team like blues, then you will not be able to keep the head of the jets on the water if they advance to face the tastes of Colorado, Dallas or Edmonton.
While it is still very possible for jets to fit the blues and move on, it is difficult to imagine them to go much further in the playoffs unless something changes in big. Winnipeg is simply in the same way as the regular season lasts, and those problems will only increase with each loss or closed game they have.
CONTANT: Carolina Hurricanes
This is beginning to feel the year when dogs are real in the playoffs. While an opening round against the Devils might not seem the best fire test, what has shown us is that Carolina’s brutal lawyer and the deep lines can deliver a faster team designed around the delicacy game.
The stars of this team, Andrei Svechnikov, Sebastian Aho and Seth Jarvis are appearing big, but you take into account the team’s youth game in Jackson Blake and Logan Stankoven who has very well for a deep playoff race. What we are seeing is the next evolution of the Rod Idaur system, which combines the two hard line game with allowing enough maneuvering margin so that the stars show their personality.
All this is before starting to mention that hurricanes have an important Factor X that awaits in the wings: Alexander Nikishin. Khl’s phenomenon arrived in Raleigh shortly before the playoffs, and has been practicing with the team in preparation for his debut. Nikishin is all that this team has been losing as a field Marshal defender with the ability to give a great pop in the power game with its Cale Makar-Esque game, and if you can enter and give Carolina the will of another will.
Pretend: Tampa Bay Lightning
There is no doubt that Tampa threw a short straw on taking Florida in the first round, but I don’t see it from this team in 2025. Andrei Vasilevskiy is really playing on the network, which has been a defense defense meanwhile on the offensive side of the team is simply not getting much but anyone but Jake Guentzel and Brayden Point. Some other hash Pass and obtain some objectives.
Tampa is more or less who we think they were. A very good team, but lacks factor X to be a winning team of the Stanley Cup. The incorporation of Guentzel into free agency was fantastic, but it has necessarily turned rays into a dramatically better team.
Florida obtaining healthy for the playoffs has exposed more or less the weaknesses of this team.
What about Dallas and Colorado?
Undoubtedly, the most brutal opening round series has between the stars and Avalanche, both teams that had a legitimate potential of the Stanley Cup entertaining the playoffs. That series has a show, we know everything, and nothing about any of the teams.
The consistency from night to night has not been there from the stars. Mikko Rantanen has not appeared as Dallas needs it, but it is a testimony of how good they are as a team that are still competing without their as playing in their best hockey.
Meanwhile, the AVs have all the traps of an elite team, but we have not yet seen that they really take advantage of the fact that the stars are fighting offensively. To put this team in a contender state, I would have a pleasant leg to see a little more teeth and try to step on the neck of Dallas early. Instead, this series is dragging.
Ultimately, it seems that both stars and avs will be victims with each other. Keeping mutually in a brutal series of seven games to become piques for those who move on. It is a shame, but a bad break for two teams that are Neith Contenders, or suitors, but both incredible.
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