Same result, different year for the Hurricanes. A regular season with 50 wins and somewhere north of 110 points, a nice playoff series win before fizzling out.

The final line for the 2023-24 Carolina Hurricanes: 52 wins, 111 points, a First Round win over the Islanders in five games before being sent packing by the Rangers in six. Another fruitful yet fruitless year in Raleigh. 

Where things stand after six years of the Rod Brind’Amour era (head coach version): 

• 278 regular season wins (only the Bruins and Lightning have more)
• .664 point percentage (only the Bruins are better, at .695)
• Three 50-plus win, 110-plus point seasons
• Four seasons with a point percentage of .677 or higher
• Eight playoff series wins (most of any team to not win a Stanley Cup over that span)
• No wins beyond the Second Round

It’s that last bullet that becomes more glaring each year it stands. Again, to repeat, the Hurricanes have not won a game beyond the Second Round in this six-year run. They’ve made two Conference Finals appearances, in 2019 and 2023, only to be swept out both times by the Bruins and Panthers, respectively.

When you consider what came before it – an 11-year playoff drought where there was very little buzz around the franchise, with the future of hockey in Carolina being called into question – does it make it all not nearly as bad? Sure. You can make the case this run under Brind’Amour saved hockey in Carolina. 

But if you’re a Hurricanes diehard, this group is the reminder of the early years you waited over so many years for. A group that went to the Stanley Cup Final twice in the decade after the franchise relocated to Carolina from Hartford, losing to an all-time Red Wings team in 2002 before going back in 2006, that time capturing the Cup by beating the Oilers. That group was solidified by Brind’Amour being dealt to Carolina from Philadelphia in January 2000. Not unlike the way Brind’Amour’s hiring to lead the bench in summer 2018 solidified this one.

Come playoff time, it’s been good but not good enough. That was never more evident in this series.

Chief among the ‘good but not good enough’ comes in net, where the goaltending – from Petr Mrazek to James Reimer to Alex Nedeljkovic to Freddie Andersen – has been very good. You don’t achieve the success they’ve achieved without being strong in net. But it hasn’t been good enough to overcome the likes of Tuukka Rask, Jaroslav Halak, Andrei Vasilevskiy or Igor Shesterkin. It was more of the same in Thursday’s Game 6 loss that eliminated the Hurricanes, where a leaky Andersen (4 goals allowed on 23 shots) was outplayed by Shesterkin (33 saves), who stopped all 16 shots he faced in the third period as the Rangers sealed the series with a 4-0 rally in the final 20 minutes.

The third period might be the biggest head-scratcher of them all, allowing four unanswered goals, including a natural hat trick to Chris Kreider. The Hurricanes came to the rink on Thursday as the best third-period team in the playoffs, outscoring the opposition, 18-5, in the final 20 of regulation in the postseason. The Canes had outscored the Rangers by a similar 4-0 scoreline in the third period of their Game 5 win.

Always world beaters until they’re not.

Just like the world-class penalty kill, which couldn’t stop a nosebleed in the first two games of the series, ultimately putting the Hurricanes in a hole they couldn’t get out of. And of course, that penalty kill got put to work by discipline issues that plagued them for much of the series. On the other end, the power play produced just two goals on 21 opportunities. That won’t win you many series. As strong as they were at five-on-five, they always seemed to be running into something (sense a theme?).

When the Rangers needed a save, they got one. When the Rangers needed a shift, they got one. The Hurricanes weren’t able to get either of the two nearly enough.

What the Hurricanes will look like come fall remains to be seen. Brind’Amour remains without a contract for next season. Seth Jarvis and Martin Necas are set to be restricted free agents, both due significant raises. Jake Guentzel, the prize of the trade deadline and a big part of the top forward line, is set to be an unrestricted free agent along with Jordan Martinook, Stefan Noesen, Brett Pesce, Brady Skjei and Teuvo Teravainen. Meanwhile, Sebastian Aho’s eight-year, $78 million deal and the $9.75 million cap hit that comes with it kicks in next season. So there’s a lot to be sorted out. 

However things look when the puck drops on the 2024-25 season in October, the Canes will continue to be the ‘how have they not won one’ club.

The Avalanche enter Monday’s Game 4 down 2-1 in their Second Round series with the Stars, with a chance tie the series on home ice to make it a best-of-three series. They’re not in trouble, at least not yet. 

But they could be closer than you might think.

Colorado’s M.O. in the postseason in this Nathan MacKinnon/Mikko Rantanen/Gabriel Landeskog/Cale Makar era has been simple. When they’re in control of the series, they don’t just stomp through the throats of opponents, they make it look simple in the process. When it’s back-and-forth, they lose.

The Avs have won eight playoff series since 2019. Those series have been won in five, five, four, four, six, four, six and five games, respectively. When the franchise captured its third Stanley Cup in 2022, they waltzed their way through the playoffs with four losses. When they took down the Jets in five games after dropping Game 1, it was just the second time over that span in which they won the series after dropping the first game – the only other time coming back in 2019, when they upset the top-seeded Flames to win their first series in 11 years and kick this whole run off.

Which brings us to the greater point here – the Avalanche aren’t great at chasing series. Should Colorado tie this series up 2-2, they’d have a chance to do something they haven’t done during this run – win a series that was tied after four games. They’re 0-for-3 in three tries.

In 2019, the Avs were knocked out by the Sharks in a win-one-lose-one series, where neither team won back-to-back games; with San Jose taking the first, third, fifth and seventh games in what stands as its most recent playoff appearance. 

In 2021, the Avalanche took the first two games in their Second Round series with the Golden Knights before losing the next four while in 2023, their title defense ended as quickly as it started, being knocked out by the Kraken in seven games.

Also in that fold was their loss to the Stars in the 2020 bubble – their only playoff meeting with their Central Division rival over this span – falling behind 3-1 before coming back to force Game 7, where then-Star, now current-Av, Joel Kiviranta had one of the most out-of-nowhere playoff performances in recent memory, scoring a hat trick, among those three goals being the overtime winner, to eliminate Colorado.

The Avs are 0-3 in Game 7s over this run. The franchise hasn’t won a winner-take-all game since the 2002 Western Conference Semifinals, when they took down the Sharks in seven.

All these teams that have knocked off Colorado shared something with this Stars team – all heavy, defensive-minded clubs with the personnel to limit the Avs’ top guys just enough. Not every team has that, like the teams they’ve whisked out of the playoffs in a matter of days over the years. And some teams have the personnel but not the execution, like the never-rises-to-the-occasion Jets, who the Avalanche made quick work of in the opening round.

The Stars didn’t give an inch to the Avalanche in Saturday’s Game 3, a 4-1 Dallas win. In Game 2, a 5-3 Stars win, the Avs rallied from 4-0 down to pull within a goal. Dallas bent, but didn’t break, on the way to the victory. The Avalanche got the Stars in Game 1, winning 4-3 in overtime, but needed to overcome a three-goal deficit in doing so.

As to whether the Avs can buck the trend of being unable to catch series they’re chasing remains to be seen. 

But if you’re worried, your feelings aren’t misplaced.

We’re rolling deeper into Round Two. Every team has played at least one game. There’s one that has three in the books with a couple more set to switch rinks for the third game of their series. 

Here’s one headline for each of the four ongoing series: 

Avalanche-Stars is the Stanley Cup. Going into the playoffs, I thought the team that came out of the Central bracket of Avalanche, Golden Knights, Jets and Stars would be the team that won the Stanley Cup. And it’s lived up to that billing, if for no other reason than the fact the Stars were my favorite entering the playoffs and the Avs are my current frontrunner through a series-plus of playoffs.

We’re two games into what is shaping up to be a barnburner of a series between the Avalanche and Stars. The Avs came back from three goals down to win Game 1 and nearly came back from four goals down in Game 2, with Dallas hanging on by a thread, bending but not breaking late before Esa Lindell allowed everyone to exhale when he rifled a 199-footer into an empty Colorado net to ice the 5-3 win. This looks like a seven-game heavyweight fight.

Panthers poked the bear. The taunts from Matthew Tkachuk and Brandon Montour toward the Bruins, and what transpired after, following third-period goals on the way to a 6-1 Panthers Game 2 win may have taken a result that should’ve put the series in Florida’s favor and swung it right back into that of Boston. Then you add Tkachuk challenging B’s superstar David Pastrnak to a fight (not sure who Tkachuk was trying to impress with that one) and Pastrnak stepping up and going. All this coming after Pat Maroon was told to hit the showers in the middle of the third period, for whatever that might be worth. Regardless, the Panthers may have lit a fire under the Bruins that they had no need lighting. 

The Rangers prove they can win without Matt Rempe. So that’s not a serious headline, obviously. But the Rangers have won 15 straight and 20 of 23 with Rempe in the lineup. After playing 4:03 in Game 2, not taking a shift after the second period, Rempe drew out of the lineup if favor of Filip Chytil. The Rangers went on to pick up another overtime win to go up 3-0 on the Hurricanes. Igor Shesterkin made 45 saves while Vincent Trocheck, who set up Artemi Panarin’s overtime winner, continues to do everything. It’s beginning to look like Peter Laviolette is going to take a fourth franchise to the Stanley Cup Final. 

Why the Oilers don’t win. You know the saying – you can’t lose games and still win. The Oilers were in total control of Game 1 of their series with the Canucks, up three goals in the second, before falling asleep and letting Vancouver come back to win, 5-4, in regulation. They might be winning in ways they hadn’t in past years but they’re still finding new and unique ways to lose.

Let’s start by saying there’s still plenty of hockey to play in this series between the Bruins and Panthers.

In spite of the dark prognostications on the B’s in this series, they did, in fact, show up in Sunrise on Monday and walked out with a 5-1 win to take the early leg up in the series. Boston took Florida’s game and threw it right back in their face. Now they just have to do it three more times, something they’ve struggled at doing in recent years – the Bruins have won 12 of its last 15 series openers, but have gone on to win the series in just five of those 11 previous series in which they’ve taken Game 1.

But if Game 1 is an indication of anything, the Bruins have the upper hand in the one place you need it, with the guy in the B’s crease holding it down better than anyone these playoffs while the guy in the other crease possibly showing signs of leaking water.

Lets’ start with Jeremy Swayman. Forget best goalie, he’s been the best player in these playoffs. His body of work through seven games – five wins, a .955 save percentage with just 10 goals allowed. He’s one of eight players in NHL history to allow two or fewer goals in each his first seven games of the playoffs, according to ESPN Stats and Info.

All seven other goalies on that list reached the Stanley Cup Final, with the three that have done it in the past half-century (Nikolai Khabibulin in 2004, Cam Ward in 2006, J-S Giguere in 2007), winning it.

Swayman began the playoffs with a 35-save performance with the Bruins taking their series opener with the Maple Leafs with an identical 5-1 score, playing at a level where the guys in front of him could just worry about playing hockey. After sitting Game 2, a Bruins 3-2 loss that followed coach Jim Montgomery’s decision to go away from Swayman’s hot hand in favor of the much-ballyhooed goalie rotation with Linus Ullmark, the 25-year-old has held down the B’s cage and hasn’t given it back.

That level of goaltending was not what Paul Maurice benefited from on Monday night, when Sergei Bobrovsky allowed four goals on 28 shots. He was a flounder all night, too often giving up the top half of the net, something the Bruins picked up on as the game continued. It’s right where defensemen Mason Lohrei and Brandon Carlo were aiming in the two goals they scored in the final 3:43 of the second period, turning a 1-1 game into a 3-1 game and blowing it wide open in favor of Boston.

All four goals came on the Bruins’ final 11 shots on net after Bobrovsky stopped the first 17 shots he faced on the night.

For all the standing-on-his-head talk of Bobrovsky in Florida’s five-game First Round win over Tampa Bay, he put up an .896 save percentage and 2.89 GAA – both very pedestrian figures. He’s now allowed four-plus goals in two of his last three games, having also allowed six goals in Game 4 of the Lightning series, a 6-3 Panthers loss. 

Bobrovsky is Ken Dryden until he’s not. Like in last year’s playoffs when he had a 12-game stretch where he won 11 games, stopped pucks at a .942 rate and had an eight-game stretch where he allowed two or fewer goals in each game. That 12-game stretch was followed up with a Cup Final in which he allowed 21 goals in five games on an .844 save percentage, with the Panthers quickly tossed aside by the Golden Knights. It certainly isn’t all on him – the Panthers’ defensive breakdowns and poor puck management played as much a factor in Monday’s result as anything – but Bob seems to be trending closer in the direction of the latter than the former.

Goaltending is the most important position on the ice. It’s also an inexact science, as impossible to project and predict as any position in sports. We could be here in a week talking about how Bobrovsky rebounded while scratching our heads about what happened with Swayman. That’s how much hockey we still have to play.

But based off what we saw from the two goaltenders in Monday’s Game 1, it’s hard not to come away with a level of concern with the defending Eastern Conference champs.

Let’s rewind the clock back to 2022. 

The final four teams standing that year: Avalanche, Lightning, Oilers, Rangers. The Avalanche claimed their first Stanley Cup in 21 years, beating a Lightning team making a return trip to the Cup Final, seeking to become the first team to win three straight Cups since the Islanders in the early 1980s. 

Now why do I bring this up, you ask? Maybe I’m alone, but it feels like this year is headed in the same direction as two years ago, albeit with the Panthers replacing the Lightning as the powerhouse club out of Florida, fresh off a Cup run, led by high-end players enjoying higher temperatures and a lower tax burden. 

To summarize the four series in front of us as we have this thing down to eight clubs in pursuit of Lord Stanley: 

• The Rangers opened up the Second Round on Sunday with a 4-3 win over the Hurricanes that looked a whole lot like different year, same result for the Canes if we’re just judging off one game. Carolina always seems to run into something. This time around, at least as far as Game 1 is concerned, it was undisciplined play and a soft, gotta-have-that-one goal allowed by goaltender Frederik Andersen to Artemi Panarin in the third period that proved to be the difference in the hockey game. Long series to play, but not the start to the series you’re looking for as a Hurricanes team that didn’t play its best in the opening round and were ultimately let off the hook by an inferior Islanders team. Meanwhile, the Rangers rolled into the Second Round on a sweep of a Capitals team that didn’t necessarily hand the series to them on a silver platter, with New York doing what they were expected to in methodical fashion.
• We all know the lead headline to the Bruins-Panthers series – the Panthers pulled one of the biggest upsets in NHL history last season, knocking off the record-setting Bruins in seven games after getting in the playoffs because the Penguins couldn’t beat the Blackhawks or Blue Jackets. The Bruins will almost certainly have that in mind. But seeking revenge only takes you so far. The B’s beat the Maple Leafs in seven games but had a hard time solving the heaviness and structure Toronto brought – and, if we’re being honest, made the Leafs appear more heavy and structured than they actually were. Needless to say the Panthers are much more heavier and more structured than that Leafs team. And yes, Panthers’ No. 2 centerman Sam Bennett being hurt (out for at least Game 1) and the hot hand in net the Bruins are currently riding in Jeremy Swayman bodes well for Boston. But if Florida has, in fact, taken the torch from Tampa Bay, well the Bruins have faced the Lightning twice in the playoffs in the Jon Cooper era in Tampa – they were finished in five games both times. It wouldn’t surprise anybody if there was a similar result here.
• Vancouver is coming in off a regular season that ended with a Pacific Division title few saw coming – not dissimilar to the Calgary team two years ago that was knocked out in five by the Oilers. Leon Draisaitl (17 points) and Connor McDavid (12 points) combined for 29 points in those five games. Hard not to see a similar outcome in this latest battle of Western Canada with a Canucks team that scored just 13 goals in six games in round one against the Predators.
• As for Colorado, what more can you say about them? Putting up 28 goals in five games on the second-best defense from the regular season in their First Round win over the Jets, never scoring fewer than five goals. Making the likely Vezina Trophy winner, Connor Hellebuyck, look like a sieve. Valeri Nichushkin scored seven goals and Artturi Lehkonen had five. Nathan MacKinnon was doing his usual Nathan MacKinnon things and the world-class pivot and presumptive league MVP might not even be the best player on his own team – Cale Makar would like to have a word on that. Best of luck to the Stars, who come in off a hard-fought series with the defending champion Golden Knights that went the distance.

You see what I’m getting at here? If you want a Second Round with less predictability and longer series than the first, you might have good reason to worry. Because it feels like it’s laid out in front of our own eyes.

Florida and New York have been the best two teams in the East from jump street. It’s felt like a crash course to those two playing in the East Final for about six months. Colorado was easily the most dominant team in the First Round and Edmonton took care of business, filling the net against Los Angeles and leaning on Stuart Skinner when they couldn’t. 

All signs point toward those four teams (again, with the Panthers drawing in for the Lightning). Just like two years ago.

It’s been a strange first round. The series are lopsided yet the hockey hasn’t been as a bad as the results might suggest. Though at the same time playoff hockey is a lot like pizza – even when it’s bad it’s good. 

Of the eight series, two have already been settled – the Rangers swept the Capitals while the Panthers sent the Lightning packing in five games. Of the six series yet to be decided, five currently stand at 3-1, with only the Golden Knights-Stars series tied 2-2.

We went into Monday with the prospect of the whole round being settled by Wednesday, which was saved by the Stars beating the Golden Knights to tie the series and assure us of opening round action through at least Friday. 

All the 3-1 series means the heightened possibility of 3-1 comebacks, something the First Round of the Stanley Cup playoffs are no stranger to. 

Which ones are most likely to see such a rally? Lets rank ‘em.

Predators-Canucks. The Canucks have as flimsy a 3-1 lead as you’ll find. They’re up 3-1 having outscored the Preds just 11-10 overall while being outshot, 100-72. This series is a late Game 4 comeback from being knotted at 2-2.

Verdict: If any series is having a 3-1 comeback, it’s this one.

Kings-Oilers. Stuart Skinner stole Game 4. The Kings put 33 shots on net to the Oilers’ 13 in Sunday’s 1-0 Edmonton win to make it 3-1 in favor of the Oilers. Where we go from here probably looms largely on which Skinner we see – the one that allowed nine goals in the first two games of this series or the one that stopped 60 of 61 shots the last two times out. 

Verdict: Sometimes we get a 3-1 rally we never saw coming. Could it be here? I would never bet against a side that has Anze Kopitar and Drew Doughty.

Avalanche-Jets. The second this series got established as a track meet was the second you knew the Jets were in hot water. The Avs look like the team that won the Stanley Cup two years ago. Cale Makar has been a man possessed in this series and Nathan MacKinnon has been his usual dominant self. Then you look at their depth – 22 goals from 10 different scorers in the first four games of this series, with Valeri Nichushkin and Artturi Lehkonen pacing it with six and four goals, respectively. 

Verdict: Forget this round, if Colorado keeps playing this way they’re going to win their second Cup in three years.

Islanders-Hurricanes. The Hurricanes haven’t played their best hockey but the Islanders haven’t taken advantage of it. The Canes rally from three goals down to win, 5-3, in Game 2 felt like a death blow to the Isles.

Verdict: Don’t see if happening.

Maple Leafs-Bruins. The Leafs look completely discombobulated. They haven’t been able to figure out this Bruins team that continues to be a thorn in their side, nor have they been able to solve goaltender Jeremy Swayman, who has stopped pucks at a .956 rate in three games in this series. I won’t put their chances at zero – all you need is that top group to turn it on and they can rip off three straight easily. But there’s nothing that makes you think that’s going to happen. 

Verdict: If the Maple Leafs come back in this series, it’ll be more shocking than the Bruins loss to the Panthers last season.

We’re pretty much at the halfway point of the first round. Everyone has played two or three games. Teams are beginning to get a sense of who the opponent is. We’re starting to get a grasp of what these series are. 

And with all that, a game of what we (I) expected going in as well what maybe wasn’t expected. Lets dig in.

Expected: Star power. Connor McDavid has six points through two games, putting up five assists in the playoff opener after putting up 100 assists in the regular season. Zach Hyman has followed up his 54-goal campaign with four goals through a pair of playoff games. Brad Marchand, who tied Cam Neely for the Bruins all-time lead in playoff goals (55), is tied with McDavid for the league lead with six points, albeit through three games. Cale Makar has five points. Matthew Tkachuk has three goals. 

Not expected: Lopsided series. There’s a chance three of the four East series are sweeps. Vegas is up 2-0 on Dallas and looks like the same buzzsaw that won the Cup last year. That looks like one in danger of being over quick. The Avalanche are 1-1 with the Jets headed back to Colorado, the series played in a style that benefits the Avs. The last two seasons have yielded a combined eight Game 7s in the opening round; three last season and five in 2022. This year looks like the year where water reaches its level on that side of things. 

Expected: Great goaltending. If for no other reason because it’s the playoffs and if accuracy mattered to the founding fathers of this fever dream we call playoff hockey, they would’ve just called it goalie. We’ve seen more than a handful of how-did-he-make-that type saves, highlighted by the Sergei Bobrovsky stop in Game 2 that looked like something out of a video game.

Not expected: Jake Oettinger outplayed by Vegas once again. Oettinger finished out the regular season looking like the backbone of a team primed to make a Cup run. But he’s been largely subpar through two games of these playoffs, allowing six goals and stopping pucks at an .850 rate, outplayed by Vegas counterpart Logan Thompson. And maybe something more alarming if you’re a Stars fan – Oettinger has an .874 save percentage and 3.57 GAA over his last 15 playoff games dating to the start of last year’s Second Round. That won’t cut it this time of year.

Expected: Maple Leafs/Bruins has been most dramatic. Two division rivals, two teams that have faced each other three prior times in the playoffs in the previous 11 years. Tyler Bertuzzi, Max Domi and Ryan Reaves on one side. Brad Marchand and Pat Maroon on the other side. Two of the game’s elite players going head to head in David Pastrnak and Auston Matthews. Through three games, it’s lived up to it and then some. And now you’ve even got the two coaches going back and forth. Unless the game has completely passed me by, we’ll likely come out of this series expecting a penalty-filled, fight where a hockey game breaks out type of affair between these clubs next season.

Not Expected: Golden Knights running away from the Stars. Though, hand up, I should’ve given if the last seven years have taught us anything it’s that everything comes up Vegas. After a regular season that was largely uninspiring, the Golden Knights suddenly look like the juggernaut that ran through the league en route to a Cup last spring. Jonathan Marchessault looks like the guy that won the Conn Smythe, Jack Eichel looks like the guy that made as strong a case to win the Conn Smythe as you could without winning it, the defense has stiffened up and Thompson has held it down in the crease. 

Expected: William Nylander steals headlines. Because he’s one of the game’s most dynamic figures, on and off the ice. They don’t call him Willy Styles for no reason.

Not expected: William Nylander steals headlines.. by not playing. Nylander played all 82 games and put up a career-high 98 points only to miss the first three (and likely more) games of the playoffs with a reported migraine issue. The Leafs just simply can’t have anything go right for them ever.

Expected: Islanders/Hurricanes among lowest scoring. Two teams that love a good 2-1 game. Game 2 was a fun one, a 5-3 Hurricanes comeback win. The other two were 3-2 and 3-1, the latter of which included an empty netter. Kind of what we expected. 

Not expected: Avalanche/Jets among highest-scoring. The two clubs have combined for 20 goals through two games – tied with Kings/Oilers for the most. Not something you really expected in a series that while, yes, involved the high-tempo Avalanche, also featured a Jets club that had the league’s best goalie and second-best defense.

Expected: Rangers sliding past the Caps. The Capitals/Rangers series is two games old and it doesn’t look like it’ll be more than four of five games. 

Not expected: Panthers on verge of sweeping the Lightning. This had the look of a series destined to go seven games. But the Panthers have really just had a little bit more than the Bolts in every category and it’s proven to be the difference. The Cats are 14-1 in their last 15 Eastern Conference playoff games and have followed the same blueprint – a methodical, heavy game backed by strong goaltending. 

Expected: Canada bringing the heat. The spectacle that is the white out in Winnipeg is something you can’t turn away from no matter how hard you try. The crowd virtually draped in white, along with the ice (which is also white) then the navy Jets jerseys serving as a nice complement is an unreal scene. And it’s like that everywhere in Canada. The scenes inside the arena are must-see, all while about 10-fold people gather outside the arena. It’s like football in the south or soccer in Europe. 

Not expected: Potentially only one Canadian team advancing out of the First Round (if that). In the continued search for the first Canadian Stanley Cup since 1993, it looked like a pretty good possibility at least three of the four Canadian participants in these playoffs would reach the final eight – with the Oilers heavily favored to beat the Kings, the Canucks expected to take care of the Predators along with either the Jets or Maple Leafs potentially getting out. Well so far, the Maple Leafs are down 2-1 to the Bruins, the Jets and Canucks are tied 1-1 with the Avalanche and Predators, respectably, and looking vulnerable. Meanwhile, the Oilers, like the Jets and Canucks, lost home ice to the Kings on Wednesday in their 5-4 overtime defeat.

It sure looked like same result, different year in Boston on Saturday night.

The Bruins absolutely throttled the Maple Leafs. Sure, the Leafs had their stretches, mainly at the beginning of all three periods – the Leafs open periods as well as anyone in the league – but it was ultimately all for naught as the B’s ran away for a 5-1 final. 

And with that comes the realization in Toronto that this feels like the same old Leafs, coming up short against that team. This series marks the fourth between the two clubs since 2013, with the Leafs dropping the previous three in agonizing fashion. Their last playoff series win against the Bruins came back in 1959, four Stanley Cups ago for a club that hasn’t won one in 57 years. 

If you’re a Leafs fan, that’s at the forefront of your mind. But you might also be saying if only they could’ve just got one early in the first. Or early in the second. Or both. Maybe we’re taking about this whole thing differently. But that’s what the Bruins are in the Toronto psyche – a series of ‘what ifs.’ If ifs and buts were cherries and nuts you guys wouldn’t have to hear ‘1967’ at every turn, right? Then there’s the fact you had to go it without William Nylander, as well as Bobby McMann for good measure. A small silver lining until you start to think ‘but what if Nylander is out long-term?’ 

Well, if you’re a Leafs fan looking for hope, let’s take a trip down memory lane. To last season’s playoff opener, to be exact. At their home barn, Scotiabank Arena, not the house of horrors that is the TD Garden, taking on the Tampa Bay Lightning with its full complement of Matthews, Marner, Nylander, Tavares, Rielly, and even Ryan O’Reilly and Luke Schenn to sweeten the pot. The result – a 7-3 blowout at the hands of the Lightning that wasn’t even that close. Run out of their own rink by a Bolts team that hadn’t lost a playoff series to an Eastern Conference team since being swept in the First Round by the Blue Jackets following a near-record setting 2018-19 regular season, and looked determined never to again.

Same old Leafs, right? 

Well, the Maple Leafs went on to take four of the next five games to eliminate the Bolts and win their first playoff series since 2004. They returned the favor in Game 2 with a 7-2 win then went on to win three overtime games to take the series, closing it out in Game 6 in Tampa with a John Tavares winner.

Now, the circumstances this time around are different. If Nylander is more than a day-to-day thing, this team is in serious trouble. Losing a player like Nylander moves everyone up in the lineup. Third-line players become second-line players. Fourth-line players become third-line players, and so on. We saw on Saturday night the issues that could pose. All this coming against the Bruins, no less, Toronto’s nemesis, who they haven’t beat in 65 years. And unable to solve Jeremy Swayman in the process, a guy they’ve been trying to solve for some time now.

It feels ominous, and it probably should. But it was same old Leafs last year, too, and it turned out to not be same old Leafs, at least for one round. 

All a long-winded way of saying there’s still lots of hockey to play.

Well if the playoffs match the heat the regular season brought, we’re in for a good one. 

To summarize: the highlights of this 1,312-game journey over the last six months included: 

• 100-assist seasons by Nikita Kucherov and Connor McDavid (a feat previously accomplished by Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux and Bobby Orr, google them if you don’t know who they are)
• An Art Ross Trophy race for the ages between Kucherov and Nathan MacKinnon that McDavid slightly snuck his way into.
• A Hart Trophy race between Kucherov, MacKinnon, McDavid and Auston Matthews that at this hour remains too close to call (but it should be Kucherov).
• Matthews’ bid to be the first player to score 70 goals in a season in over 30 years, a bid that came up one goal short.
• Nine players overall with 100 points and four with 50 goals.
• A race for the second wild card in the East that had everybody on the edge of their seats for the final couple weeks of the season.

You don’t need play-in games and in-season tournaments when your league is pumping out stuff like that.

Can we top that in the postseason? Time will tell. But given that it’s the Stanley Cup Playoffs we’re talking about the odds might not be as long as you might think.

Some thoughts on the playoff field as we get started, and how it could top the regular season:

All four First Round series in the East can go either way: I know what you’re saying – how could you possibly think that Capitals team could get out of the First Round? Well look at the way they got into the playoffs. If they win, it wouldn’t be the first or last time a team like that found their way out of a round after fighting and clawing their way in right up to Game 82. Add in the way Charlie Lindgren is playing in net, add in the opponent that is the historical postseason face-planter New York Rangers, it’s not inconceivable. Then you’ve got a Bruins playing the Maple Leafs, who based off the way the B’s played their final two games of the season (they didn’t), the Leafs appeared to be their desired opponent. That never ends well and for all the Leafs playoff futility over the years, they’ve made a habit of making series interesting, which always makes it more of a coin flip than it might appear to be. The Hurricanes went nearly half the season without getting a save then somehow finished with 52 wins while the Islanders have played well since Patrick Roy took over as head coach in January and are really starting to see results. Panthers-Lightning is a toss up.

It’s wide open as a whole: I mean honestly, is there one you look at here and say ‘how is anybody going to beat that team?’ 

Golden Knights will not repeat: I was beating this drum all year but I simply can’t anymore. It feels like a typical year-after-the-Cup type year, where a team gets out to a blazing start (Vegas was 11-0-1 through 12 games) then has a lot of ‘meh’ the rest of the way. They’re more likely to go one-and-done than they are to win a Cup for the second straight year.

Avalanche go one-and-done again: You couldn’t find a worse matchup for this Avalanche team than the Jets. It feels like all of Colorado’s weaknesses are Winnipeg’s strengths.

All eyes on Winnipeg to end the Canadian Cup drought: It’s been 31 years since a Canada-based team won a Stanley Cup and it’s been quite some time since you’ve looked at a team among that group of seven clubs and seen one that can truly win it (Edmonton always manages to prove themselves to be who I thought they were). Defensively stout, built from the net-out with tons of size. If them and Dallas meet in the Second Round that could be the Cup.

Don’t sleep on the Lightning: If you told me the winner of the Florida-Tampa First Round series was the team that came out of the East, I’d buy it.

We get a 15-goal performance, and a 35-goal performance: Sticking to theme of what’s been a ‘party like it’s the 80s’ season in terms of individual scoring. There’s been 10 instances of players putting up 35 points in a postseason but only one since 1992-93, when Evgeni Malkin put up 36 en route to delivering the Penguins the Cup in 2009. There’s been 21 instances of players scoring 15 goals in a postseason but just two since Joe Sakic scored 18 back in 1996, in Sidney Crosby (15, 2009) and Alex Ovechkin (15, 2018). I’ll say someone hits both those numbers these playoffs. And yes, playoff hockey doesn’t necessarily cede itself to players filling the net, but here’s this – scoring was actually down almost 200 goals from last season and didn’t get in the way of having individual numbers as fruitful as they’d been in 30 years. 

It all ends with Stanley Cup returning to Dallas: Last year was the Golden Knights’ turn and this year feels like the Stars’ turn. This group has been at it for six years now, being knocked out by the Cup winner three of the last five seasons and reaching the Cup Final in 2020 (losing to the Lightning). Perhaps biggest of all for the Stars is the fact Jake Oettinger has found his game, with a .941 save percentage and 1.54 GAA over his final 11 games of the regular season.