In our first predictions roundtable of the 2023 NHL playoffs, we speculated on the possibility of an all-Canadian Stanley Cup Final, something that hasn’t happened since 1989 when the Calgary Flames defeated the Montreal Canadiens in six games. No Canadian-based NHL team has won the Stanley Cup since the Canadiens did 30 years ago, which leads to all sorts of consternation north of the 49th parallel.
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But now, as we head into the second round, the dream remains alive, thanks to the Edmonton Oilers and the Toronto Maple Leafs both winning their opening-round series. Edmonton defeated Los Angeles for the second consecutive postseason, while Toronto was able to flip the script on Tampa Bay, defeating the Lightning after losing to them in the opening round a year ago.
With the defending Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche and the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Boston Bruins also on the sidelines, and recent past winners such as Washington, St. Louis and Pittsburgh missing the playoffs altogether, here’s the safest prediction of all:
The NHL guard is changing and someone is either going to win the first championship in franchise history or end a long Stanley Cup drought. Let’s see where things go next.
Eastern Conference
Toronto Maple Leafs vs. Florida Panthers
The Maple Leafs won their first playoff series since 2004, while the Panthers recorded what Matthew Tkachuk described as the biggest upset in NHL history when they eliminated the 65-win Bruins in the opening round. Hyperbole? Not at all. And yet, the problem for Florida after completing such a remarkable series win is doing it again. Three years ago, when Columbus did something similar to upset heavily favored Tampa Bay, the momentum screeched to a halt in the second round. As for Toronto, exorcizing playoff demons the way the Maple Leafs just did sometimes lifts the pressure, allowing a team to soar onward and upward.
One of the more intriguing storylines is the London Knights connection. The Leafs’ Mitch Marner and Panthers’ Tkachuk formed two-thirds of one of the best junior lines of the past decade. Marner led the Leafs offensively in the opening round with 11 points. Tkachuk was the catalyst behind the Panthers’ comeback; he too led his team in scoring with 11 points. Both drive play in different ways.
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In goal, Tampa Bay had one of the most battle-tested netminders in Andrei Vasilevskiy, but his Leafs counterpart, Ilya Samsonov, more than held his own. Florida started the postseason with Alex Lyon then switched to the veteran Sergei Bobrovsky, who won three of the four games, albeit with a stats line (3.94 GAA, .891 save percentage) that probably isn’t striking fear into any Maple Leafs’ hearts.
The key to the outcome, according to our scout, is which team can put their monumental first-round wins quickly in the rearview mirror and focus on the task at hand.
“Both teams kinda won their Stanley Cups in the first round, if you know what I mean,” said the scout. “Toronto getting the monkey off their backs and then Florida beating Boston after Boston had it 3-1. That result brought all of the eight remaining teams into the Stanley Cup picture.
“It’ll be interesting to see which one can get their focus on winning the next round, because that takes veteran leadership. They both have it, but it’s a difficult task. I expect a close series. I expect Bobrovsky to be better than Vasilevskiy was in the first round. I think it’ll go the distance but I’m going to take Toronto.”
Meanwhile, our executive didn’t like the fact that the NHL scheduled the Panthers against the Leafs less than 48 hours after eliminating Boston, arguing Florida deserved more time to recover from the physical and emotional toll that series took.
“Rest in the playoffs is not talked about enough, and had the NHL just allowed this series to start on Wednesday night, it would have allowed this series to start off on a more equal footing,” said the executive, who also says Florida may have the edge behind the bench, where he believes Paul Maurice won the matchup last round against his opposite number in Boston, Jim Montgomery.
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“How Maurice was able to get the Matthew Tkachuk line on the ice in overtime against Boston’s fourth and sixth defensemen (Brandon Carlo and Matt Grzelcyk) shows why Maurice is 4-0 in Game 7s,” said the executive.
Our coach added this: “I would give the upper hand, goaltending-wise, to Florida, but Toronto has more firepower. It won’t be easy, but I think they’re going to the finals.”
Executive: Toronto in 6
Coach: Toronto in 7
Scout: Toronto in 7
Consensus: Leafs advance
GO DEEPER 2023 NHL playoff preview: Maple Leafs vs. Panthers
As did Florida, Carolina and the Devils also made in-series goaltending adjustments in the opening round. Carolina opted to go with their de facto No. 1 Freddie Andersen in Game 6 after starting backup Antti Raanta for the first five games. If Carolina were to ever get through the round and play the Maple Leafs in the Eastern Conference final, the idea of Andersen facing his former team is too delicious to even consider.
The Hurricanes defeated the Islanders in the first round, despite a popgun attack. Sebastian Aho was the clear leader — four goals, seven points — but the No. 2 goal scorer was the veteran Paul Stastny, who contributed three goals averaging just over nine minutes of ice time per night. Meanwhile, the Devils got a shutout from 22-year-old Akira Schmid in the deciding game over the New York Rangers Monday night.
On paper, the Devils have an advantage offensively based on regular-season stats — they were tied for fourth overall in scoring, while Carolina was just 15th. But until they popped four against the Rangers in the playoff finale, the Devils were averaging a league-low 2.17 goals per game thus far in the postseason. It’s not much of a stretch to suggest this will be the lowest-scoring series of the second round, in part because of Carolina’s stalwart defense corps.
“Brent Burns, Jaccob Slavin, Brady Skjei and Brett Pesce are four walls of granite on defense for the Hurricanes, and they will need them to be at their best this series,” said our executive. “Jack Hughes and Nico Hischier are on the cusp of being superstars and the experience of being a part of a seven-game victory over the Rangers will only continue to help them. Overall, the Devils have the advantage in youth, speed and enthusiasm. The Hurricanes are stronger on defense, but the Devils have more talent and are heathier up front, and I give the edge in goal to the Devils because Schmid is playing like Jake Oettinger did last year for Dallas.”
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New Jersey made huge season-over-season strides, to the point where they finished just a point behind Carolina in the regular-season standings (113 points to 112). Both teams are a little small up front but rely on speed and pace to get their opponents back on their heels. The series has a chance to evolve into a frantic uptempo track meet.
“Carolina had its hands full with the Islanders, but their depth of scoring is going to hurt them against a better team like the Devils,” commented our scout.
“I think the Hurricanes’ injuries up front (primarily to Andrei Svechnikov, Teuvo Teravainen and Max Pacioretty) are going to catch up to them,” added our coach. “Their saving grace might be their defense and their goaltending, if Freddie doesn’t get hurt again, but I just don’t see that they have enough.”
It’s unanimous:
Executive: New Jersey in 6
Coach: New Jersey in 6
Scout: New Jersey in 6
Consensus: Devils advance
Nico Hischier and Martin Necas fight for the puck. (Elsa / Getty Images)
Western Conference
Vegas Golden Knights vs. Edmonton Oilers
Vegas goaltender Laurent Broissoit vanquished one of his former teams, the Winnipeg Jets, in the opening round, and now he’ll get a chance to do it again against the Oilers, the team he started his NHL career with. Of course, Edmonton represents a completely different challenge, given how Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid can take over a game virtually every time they step on the ice. The Oilers’ win over the Kings checked a lot of boxes — they were dominant on the power play, received secondary scoring when needed and got a reasonable level of goaltending from Stuart Skinner.
One potentially troubling stat from the Vegas side: Its penalty killing in the opening round was the second worst in the league (58.3 percent). Only the Kings were worse (43.8 percent). Vegas got an enormous emotional boost from the return of captain Mark Stone and his running mate, Chandler Stephenson, was arguably its best player in the win over Winnipeg.
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“Vegas is deeper than the Kings and they have a much better, heavier fourth line, so that 11/7 strategy the Oilers used against L.A. might not work against the Golden Knights,” said our coach. “Vegas is going to win faceoffs, they’re going to put pucks behind Edmonton’s defense, and they’re going to grind the hell out of them. I didn’t like Edmonton’s goaltending in the first round.
“The only thing that would concern me on the Vegas side is their special teams play. Their power play is going to have to score some goals. And their penalty killers — guys like Alec Martinez and Alex Pietrangelo — are going to (have to) fill the shooting lanes and block more shots than the Kings did.”
Our executive also targeted the wide regular-season gap between the Oilers’ play with the man advantage and Vegas’.
“With the firepower on both sides, this has the potential to be a high-scoring series, where no lead is safe,” he said. “For Vegas, the key to any possible success is if they can contain the Oilers offense, and especially the power play. L.A. couldn’t. Edmonton scored nine power-play goals on 15 tries over the six games. Overall, they led the league with 89 power-play goals — 47 more than Vegas scored.”
For all the reasons to like Vegas’ chances in the series, however, our scout couldn’t get past the most obvious factor: The way McDavid and Draisaitl continue to raise their levels in the playoffs.
“I really like Vegas’ defense and I really like the way they’re playing, but I can’t bet against Edmonton’s two big guys, especially against this goalie (Brossoit),” he said. “He’ll be starting the series. I don’t know if he’ll be finishing it. The Oilers power play is just so good. I think Edmonton’s two big guys will eat this goalie alive.”
Executive: Edmonton in 6
Coach: Vegas in 7
Scout: Edmonton in 6
Consensus: Oilers advance
GO DEEPER 2023 NHL playoff preview: Golden Knights vs. Oilers
Dallas Stars vs. Seattle Kraken
The defending champion Avalanche pushed hard to get the Central Division regular-season title but may have expended too much energy in its pursuit because they were outplayed for long stretches of their series by the second-year Kraken, a team that — while they very little playoff history of their own — has recruited half-a-dozen players with championship pedigree, including a few — such as Yanni Gourde and Jaden Schwartz — who made a difference in taking out the Avs.
Another difference-maker was goaltender Philipp Grubauer, who voluntarily left Colorado just ahead of their championship season to sign with Seattle in the Kraken’s expansion year.
Though the regular-season goaltending numbers heavily skewed Colorado’s way, Grubauer outplayed Alexandar Georgiev in the series. He’ll need to be as good — or better — versus the Stars, as Dallas received another outstanding first-round goaltending performance from Jake Oettinger, whose coming out party came in last year’s opening round, a heroic performance in what was ultimately a seven-game series loss against Calgary. Dallas played most of the Minnesota series without Joe Pavelski but got an unexpectedly strong performance from his replacement, Tyler Seguin.
“Seattle is tough to play against, but they will have to play even tighter to have any chance of stopping the high-powered offense of the Dallas Stars,” predicted our executive. “Roope Hintz was unstoppable in their series against Minnesota. Jason Robertson was his normal outstanding self, but it was the play of Tyler Sequin that made Dallas so dangerous. If Pavelski is healthy, the Stars are loaded with offensive power up front — plus they have Miro Heiskanen, who is almost certainly going to be the best defenseman in this series. I can’t rule out Seattle, given how well they played against Colorado — and how explosively loud their home crowd will be — but Dallas should have too much for the Kraken to handle. Still, Seattle will put up an impressive showing.”
Among the remaining Western Conference teams, our coach suggested the Stars are the team he would be most careful not to overlook.
“Dallas is a sleeper for me; they’re going to be a tough out. I like their mix — the vets and young guys. The goalie is a star. When Pavelski went down, I had questions, but they said, ‘Next man up, let’s go.’ They’re big, they’re heavy. … I think Seattle can take them to seven, but Dallas will prevail.”
And our scout made it unanimous: “Grubauer played better than I thought in the first round, but Oettinger seems to be one of those guys who can take it to another level in the playoffs. He’ll outplay Grubauer. I like Seattle’s depth, but I think Dallas can match Seattle’s depth and the difference is they have a couple of stars in Hintz and Robertson.”
Executive: Dallas in 6
Coach: Dallas in 7
Scout: Dallas in 6
Consensus: Dallas advances
GO DEEPER 2023 NHL playoff preview: Stars vs. Kraken
(Top photo of Matthew Tkachuk in front of Ilya Samsonov: Dan Hamilton / USA Today)