Round 2 Of The NHL Playoffs Has Provided Goals... But Not Thrills

With a few exceptions, we've seen an unusual number of blowouts.

The opening round of the 2023 NHL playoffs was objectively outstanding, with almost every series going 6 or 7 games and featuring a lot of exciting upsets (or at least highly uncertain outcomes). But Round 2 hasn’t quite carried forward that same energy. We’re getting a lot of goals, to be sure — and as a child of the dead-puck era, I hesitate to complain too much about a round where 10 of 14 games (or 71%) have seen at least one team score 5+ goals. (That’s the highest such share in the second round of the playoffs since 16 of 22 games met that criteria in 1985.)

But if there can be too much of a good thing, this year’s second round might be proving it. Because, to go with an increase in scoring, we’re not getting back-and-forth, thrilling shootouts… for the most part. (Contests like Game 1 of the Stars-Kraken series — which saw Dallas come back from down 4-2 to tie the game in the 3rd, only to fall in OT — have been exceptions to the overall rule.) Instead, we’re getting blowout after blowout after blowout.