Wyshynski: My picks for every series in playoffs
Before each season, I predict who will win the Stanley Cup. I predict whom they will defeat for the Stanley Cup.
Both the champion and the runner-up from those preseason predictions for 2023-24 qualified for the 2024 Stanley Cup playoffs. Rather than hedge or waver against that prognostication, I actually see a path for both of them in this tournament. Call it delusional, call it stubborn, call it hubris -- I'm sticking with them.
Here is how the Stanley Cup playoffs will play out, from the opening round through the last game of the Final. I apologize in advance for spoiling the next two months for you, as obviously all of this is going to happen exactly to script and none of these picks will be incorrect.
Please enjoy the best postseason tournament in all of sports, no matter how it actually plays out.
The Battle of Florida has been lopsided in the postseason, with Tampa Bay winning both previous meetings, in 2021 and 2022, and winning eight out of 10 games between the teams. But those were different Lightning teams.
This team is more top-heavy than ever: There's a 29-point gap between the Lightning's fifth- and sixth- leading scorers. They don't have injured defenseman Mikhail Sergachev, a key to their blue line. They haven't had the same Andrei Vasilevskiy they've relied on for years to carry them. He missed two months with injury and posted a minus-10.84 goals saved above expected.
If Vasy is Vasy again, there's always a chance that Tampa Bay's collection of stars -- MVP candidate Nikita Kucherov, defenseman Victor Hedman, center Brayden Point and forward Steven Stamkos -- can control a seven-game series. But I think this is where that diminished supporting cast will get exposed.
Sure, the Panthers are a bit top-heavy, too. But they're deeper down the lineup and significantly better defensively (first in goals-against average) than Tampa Bay (21st).
Winner: Panthers eliminate Lightning in five.
This is going to go one of two ways. The Leafs could skate out for Game 1, see the Spoked B across the ice, think about the three first-round seven-game series wins the Bruins have against them in the past 11 years, and crumble. Or this series could become like the one back in 2018 when the Washington Capitals finally overcame their own postseason tormentors, the Pittsburgh Penguins, and that momentum carried them all the way to their first Stanley Cup win in franchise history.
The goaltending matchup is going to get the most attention here, and rightfully so. The Bruins have it; the Leafs might not. The real intrigue is Boston finding a way to stop Toronto's offense, which was second in the NHL this season (3.63 goals per game).
If they load up with Charlie McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm in an attempt to stop Auston Matthews (69 goals), that's asking a lot from the other pairings against the Leafs' other lines. While Charlie Coyle and Pavel Zacha have done a more than admirable job in the middle this season, it's in the postseason where not having Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci anymore is finally going to be felt.
So, in summary, it's the latter: The Leafs exorcize their demons, and away they go.
Winner: Maple Leafs eliminate Bruins in six games (because if it goes seven, they're in trouble).
The only reasons we're even humoring the Capitals here: Goalie Charlie Lindgren was fifth in the league in goals saved above expected (12.97) and won four of five games down the stretch; and Washington has had an uncanny habit of subverting expectations, making the playoffs after an aggressive bit of selling at the trade deadline.
Yes, the Rangers carry the hex of the Presidents' Trophy: There have been 37 previous winners for having the league's best record. Eight of them won the Stanley Cup. Eight of them didn't make it out of the first round.
But losing to the Capitals -- who don't have the matchup advantages to exploit the Rangers' shortcomings -- would be quite the upset.
Alex Ovechkin and John Carlson have seen that movie before: The Caps won the Presidents' Trophy in 2010 and then were goalied out of the playoffs by Jaroslav Halak and the Canadiens. That's the kind of scenario they'd need here -- although let's not sleep on the elite defensive play first-year coach Spencer Carbery has squeezed out of this group.
Winner: Rangers eliminate the Capitals in five.
The Hurricanes won this matchup in six games last season. But those were boring and predictable Lane Lambert Islanders, two terms that could never apply to new coach Patrick Roy. His Islanders generate more scoring chances and prevent fewer from opponents than under Lambert. Roy's team has been on a heater to end the season, too, winning eight of nine games and giving up two or fewer goals in six of them.
The Islanders are rolling with Semyon Varlamov to start, but it won't be long before we see Ilya Sorokin.
Of course, Carolina's a different team, too. Jake Guentzel took the Canes' top line from "good" to "preposterously good": Carolina had an expected goals share of 61% when he was on the ice. (Evgeny Kuznetsov has had less of an impact so far.)
Home ice swings this thing to the Canes, but the Islanders won't go quietly. Unfortunately for New York, it doesn't get any benefit for overtime losses in the playoffs.
Winner: Hurricanes eliminate the Islanders in five.
Last season, the Panthers rode the momentum of their incredible seven-game stunner over the Bruins to knock out the Leafs in the second round. I think the opposite will happen here, with Toronto getting the "We beat Boston!" wind in its sails against Florida.
Every series is an education. The lesson the Leafs must learn during the first round is how to grind out chances in the playoffs against a superior defensive opponent. If Boston is the test to that end, Florida is the final exam. The Panthers are the gold standard in limiting their opponents' scoring chances and finished as the NHL's best defense team this season.
The Leafs got down 3-0 in their series against the Cats last season. This whole thing probably swings on whether Toronto can take home-ice advantage away on the road -- and whether it has found a goalie who can keep Sam Reinhart, Aleksander Barkov and Matthew Tkachuk off the board.
Winner: Maple Leafs in six.
Rangers fans have pointed out once or twice or 3,000 times that the Blueshirts are 5-2-0 against the Hurricanes in the past two regular seasons, as a rebuttal of my claims that the Canes match up particularly well against them.
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But I don't think that's a sufficient counterargument against Carolina being the type of team that can exploit New York's deficiencies at even strength -- documented here in a deep dive on the Rangers before the playoffs -- and hang with them offensively, having finished just 0.01 goals per game behind them this season.
The Rangers' greatest advantage against any opponent, their power play, was already limited by playoff officiating. But Carolina was the best penalty-killing team in the league this season, having limited New York to one goal in 10 power plays during their season series. If anything, special teams is a wash: The Canes were actually slightly better on the PP than the Rangers this season (26.9% to 26.4%), and the Blueshirts were third on the kill.
Although the Rangers have the advantage in goal, I don't think it'll be enough to swing the series.
Winner: Hurricanes in six.
The last time the Maple Leafs were in the conference final, Travis Green, now coach of the Devils, was their 10th-leading scorer and Tie Domi, father of current Leafs winger Max Domi, led them with 157 penalty minutes. Oh, and the Carolina Hurricanes dumped them in six games to advance to the Stanley Cup Final. The fifth-leading scorer on that team? Current Carolina coach Rod Brind'Amour. Time is a flat circle.
It's hard to even conceive what the frenzy in Toronto might look like if the Leafs made the penultimate round of the playoffs for the first time since 2002, but we're going to find out. The Hurricanes are going to be an incredibly difficult out based on the way they play, their overall depth, and the kind of shutdown options they have at forward and on the blue line. For Toronto to win, it's going to have to find a few heroes who aren't in the Core Four to score a big goal at a critical time. That's how playoff legends are made.
If the Leafs are going to play for the Stanley Cup as I've predicted, it's going to be in a series that looks a lot like the one the Panthers had against the Canes: tightly played one-bounce games in which the Maple Leafs find a way while the Hurricanes are still searching for that one goal to tip the series.
Winner: Maple Leafs in six.
It's possible the defending Stanley Cup champions' playoff fate might have been sealed by the Anaheim Ducks. In Game 82 of the regular season, the Ducks defeated the Knights in Las Vegas, which -- combined with the Los Angeles Kings' overtime win over the Chicago Blackhawks -- gave L.A. the third seed in the Pacific. Instead of facing the Edmonton Oilers, whom they solved last season in the semifinals, the Knights drew the Stars, whom they defeated in the conference final in a series that featured three overtime games.
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Stop us if you've heard this one before, but Vegas' success here comes down to players who were too injured to appear at the end of the regular season returning to its lineup for the playoffs -- and whether its goaltending answers the bell. In the former case, it's getting forwards Mark Stone and William Carrier back; in the latter, it's whether Logan Thompson is ready to make a mark in the postseason. He could see more action here than 2023 playoff hero Adin Hill, despite not having appeared in the playoff
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4 of May 2024
