There was an unusual possibility at play in the NHL playoffs up until Monday night: If the Vancouver Canucks had defeated the Edmonton Oilers then the conference championship series would have featured four first-place teams for the first time ever. It didn’t happen, of course. The Oilers won Game 7 of their series against the Canucks, sending them to Dallas to play the Stars in the Western Conference final. Over in the East, it’s the Atlantic Division champions, the Florida Panthers, against the Metropolitan Division winners, the New York Rangers, playing off for the Eastern Conference title.
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Still, there were several firsts to highlight as the NHL playoffs move into the second month and the physical grind starts to take a toll. The Oilers are the first team in NHL history that have three players with 20 or more points (Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Evan Bouchard) through the first two rounds. Whoever ultimately wins this year’s Stanley Cup will end a long championship drought. The Stars (1999), Rangers (1994) and Oilers (1990) haven’t won titles since the 1990s, while the Panthers have never won, though they were the runners-up a year ago.
When Edmonton eliminated Vancouver as the visiting team the other night, it was the 16th win by a road team in the second round, where home ice hardly mattered at all. Does it now?
The Oilers go in as the underdogs against a Dallas team that has navigated a hard path to the final — first eliminating the defending Stanley Cup champion Vegas Golden Knights in the opening round and the Colorado Avalanche in the second round.
The East match-up is even more intriguing. The battle of the Russian goalies, Igor Shesterkin vs. Sergei Bobrovsky. The nastiness of Sam Bennett, Matthew Tkachuk and others against the skill of Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibanejad and Chris Kreider. The Rangers’ best all-around forward in these playoffs might be Vincent Trocheck, who spent the first seven seasons of his NHL career with the Panthers. Vladimir Tarasenko and Niko Mikkola played for the Rangers as playoff rentals a year ago. Now they’re with Florida. And a trio of current Rangers — Jacob Trouba, Blake Wheeler and Jack Roslovic — all played for Panthers coach Paul Maurice in Winnipeg. So there is a lot of familiarity there.
We’ve assembled our playoff predictions panel — of an anonymous executive, coach and scout — to assess the Final Four, granting anonymity in exchange for candor. What will turn the tide in these series? Let’s ask our panel.
New York Rangers vs. Florida Panthers
“You can throw out all the cliches and all the analytics in trying to figure out the winner,” said our executive, who wanted to remind us that he is 10-2 thus far in the playoffs. “The only thing that’s for sure is, one great team will win this series and another great team will lose this series. Neither team has a major flaw.
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“I predict that the key to the series will be who rises to the top between Vladimir Tarasenko for Florida and Adam Fox for New York. Both have been good but not as effective as they could be. Whoever wins that battle will help their team win the series. I think it’ll be Adam Fox, so I think it’ll be the Rangers.”
But our other panelists went the other way and chose Florida.
“Florida is tested,” said our scout. “A lot of times, teams go to the Finals one year and it’s hard to get back the next. It seems as if they learned from last year and they’re hungry to get back. I said it from the start, I think they’re built for the playoffs and that’s the slight edge I’m going to give them. I mean, it’s a flip of the coin, but that’s my reasoning: That they’ve been through it recently; they know what it takes and they’re hungry to take it one step further than they did a year ago.”
Meanwhile, our coach believes the X factor in the series could be the Panthers’ Bennett. In Calgary, before he broke out, Bennett had a nickname — Playoff Sam — because he tended to ramp up his play in the postseason. He’s just gotten more impactful as the years have passed.
“There isn’t a team in the league that wouldn’t take Sam Bennett on their team right now,” the coach said. “He is tough — he can go with the big boys. He hits like a freight train, and he goes to the net. He’s strong — and he plays behind Barkov. So that’s a pretty good one-two. That’ll be the interesting match-up down the middle against the Rangers because they’ve got Zibanejad and Trocheck. It’s a wash, one through four, lines-wise. Same with the D, same with the goaltending. There’s the Trouba factor — he’s a game-changer in a different way. But there’s something about Florida being there last year that could push them over the top.”
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Executive: Rangers in 7
Scout: Panthers in 6
Coach: Panthers in 7
Consensus: Panthers advance
Dallas Stars vs. Edmonton Oilers
Our scout and our coach began by disagreeing over how much of a factor fatigue might be in this series, given that Dallas has been resting and healing, while Edmonton was stretched to the limit.
Our coach thinks it’s real.
“29 (Leon Draisaitl) and 97 (Connor McDavid) in the middle of the series were playing 30 minutes and it showed in Game 5. This is the time in the playoffs when the rest starts to play in your favor because Vancouver took them to seven and I don’t think a lot of people predicted that. And those big Vancouver D leaned on their best players, something L.A. couldn’t do. And I think that’s going to show up in this series. That cliché — rest is a weapon — holds true now.”
But our scout thinks there’s enough time between now and puck drop Thursday for the Oilers to reset.
“They have two days off,” said the scout. “If they didn’t have the two days off, maybe that’s an issue. But I go back to Dallas. They went seven games with Vegas and Colorado had lots of rest and that didn’t affect the outcome.”
There was also a difference of opinion on how much of a factor Edmonton’s goaltending struggles might have in the series. Our coach and executive thought that tipped the scales heavily in Dallas’s favor.
“Let’s say Edmonton’s superstars find a way to match up with Dallas’ depth, both offensively and defensively, the difference between Jake Oettinger and Stuart Skinner or Calvin Pickard in goal is just too much for Edmonton to overcome,” said our executive.
But our scout disagreed and thinks Skinner got his struggles out of his system and it’s onward and upward from here. Edmonton fans can only hope he’s correct.
“I’m thinking Stuart has had his downturn, his bad week thing,” said our scout. “He’s been solid all year, and he looked solid at the end. I think he’ll be fine. It’s a point you could definitely worry about, but it looks as if he’s gotten it out of his system.”
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Even though Edmonton’s supporting cast up front has had a mediocre playoff thus far, our coach believes the difference will ultimately be Dallas’ defense corps, and of course, the vast edge in goal.
“If you look at the game (Monday) night, and I know it happens to a lot of teams, but Edmonton in particular, whenever they have to finish it, they struggle — and you can get to that goalie,” said the coach. “Oettinger’s gotten better and better in these playoffs. Dallas is just deeper than Edmonton and Dallas can play any way you want to play.
“Edmonton is so reliant on their power play. That would be the only thing that leans in Edmonton’s favor. Vancouver did an unbelievable job of killing Edmonton’s power plays and a big factor was Elias Lindholm winning draws on his side. I know that seems like such a small detail, but when Edmonton started with the puck in Vancouver’s zone, they were putting four and five shots on the net on one power play. When they had to go back and break out and reset, it was a different animal. They have Pav (Joe Pavelski) as a right-side faceoff guy, but they don’t want anyone like Lindholm to win defensive zone draws. That maybe could hurt them.”
Executive: Stars in 5
Scout: Oilers in 6
Coach: Stars in 6
Consensus: Stars advance
(Photo of Matthew Tkachuk and Barclay Goodrow: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)
Eric Duhatschek is a senior hockey writer for The Athletic. He spent 17 years as a columnist for The Globe and Mail and 20 years covering the Calgary Flames and the NHL for the Calgary Herald. In 2001, he won the Elmer Ferguson Award, given by the Hockey Hall of Fame for distinguished hockey journalism, and previously served on the Hockey Hall of Fame selection committee. Follow Eric on Twitter @eduhatschek
