Who Will Play For The Stanley Cup?
The answers to these questions should determine the NHL's conference-final winners.
As I wrote on Wednesday, the NHL’s last four teams standing — the Vegas Golden Knights, Carolina Hurricanes, Florida Panthers and Dallas Stars — represent the warmest-weather quartet of conference finalists in league history, in terms of average latitude. It’s a funny trend to think about, given that hockey is played on, you know, ice, and a testament to the sport’s southward expansion/relocation efforts. But once the puck drops, they do still have to keep that ice as frozen as ever and play the games just like if it was January in Winnipeg.
So which teams have the edge when that happens? Here are four huge questions that I think will determine the Stanley Cup finalists once they get answered.
Can Carolina solve Sergei Bobrovsky?
Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky has had a weird career full of ups and downs, to put it mildly. Right now, though, he’s riding an upswing: No goalie left in these playoffs has saved more goals relative to league average. And Florida has needed every bit of it, too, as their defense is tied for the most shots per game allowed of any team in the postseason — continuing the form that saw them allow the league’s 11th-most shots per game during the regular season. In other words, Florida’s defense needs work… or short of that, it needs Bobrovsky to keep bailing the team out.
For their part, the Hurricanes have improved on offense during the playoffs, going from 3.2 GPG during the regular season to 3.6 this postseason, and their forwards are carrying a slightly larger share of the point-scoring load (73% versus 71%) too. It’s a positive sign for a team that was probably overly reliant on defensemen to produce offense during the regular season.
Can Matthew Tkachuk and the Panthers dent the Hurricanes’ defense?
Bobrovsky’s sudden resurgence aside, Florida’s strength lies in its offense, as led by MVP finalist left wing Matthew Tkachuk. The Panthers ranked sixth in goals per game during the regular season while Tkachuk produced 40 goals and 109 points, often tag-teaming with center Carter Verhaeghe to make Florida a threat against just about any defense. And that has continued in the postseason: With 5 goals and 16 points in 12 games — or 1.33 points per game — Tkachuk is second only to Dallas’ Roope Hintz (1.46 PPG) among skaters still active in the playoffs, while Verhaeghe has chipped in 12 points of his own in 12 games.
But the Hurricanes are an imposing defensive test for Florida’s best. Carolina led the league in fewest shots per game allowed during the regular season, largely smothering Tkachuk and Verhaeghe when they faced head-to-head, and the Hurricanes have allowed just 2.5 goals per game in the playoffs, easily the best defensive showing of any team remaining in the bracket. If Florida can’t get its offense going in this series, the pressure on Bobrovsky to steal games might prove to be too much.
Is Vegas’ offensive explosion for real?
No active playoff team has a better rate of putting pucks in the net than the Golden Knights, who’ve lit the lamp 3.73 times per game on average in the postseason so far. At the top of the team’s scoring list, Jack Eichel has 6 goals and 14 points in 11 games, rediscovering his MVP candidate form of 2020 with Buffalo, and Mark Stone is healthy again and proving to be as dangerous as ever. But plenty of others have chipped in as well — a postseason-high five Vegas skaters (Eichel, Stone, Chandler Stephenson, Jonathan Marchessault, William Karlsson) have at least 5 goals.
We knew Vegas was deep before the playoffs, sure, but they ranked just 14th in goals during the regular season and their leading scorer (Eichel) produced just 66 points, which was tied (with Montreal’s Nick Suzuki) for the fifth-fewest of any team’s leading scorer. Needless to say, the Knights have blown that baseline away during the playoffs. But it remains to be seen if they can keep it rolling against a Dallas defense that ranked third in fewest goals allowed per game during the regular season and has been extra-stingy when necessary — allowing 1.0 goal per game in closeout games — during the playoffs.
Can whomever starts in net for the Knights slow down Dallas’ offensive stars?
To their great credit, the Golden Knights have weathered a tremendous number of goaltending injuries and avoided a disaster at the sport’s most important position. But there are a lot of questions about who will log the bulk of the minutes between the pipes for Vegas in the conference finals. Laurent Brossoit, the Knights’ primary goalie in the playoffs so far, has a lower-body injury and may not play all series. Adin Hill, who shined in the series-clincher against Edmonton, is still a playoff rookie. Logan Thompson, who was the team’s best goalie by GAR during the regular season, hasn’t played since March 23 — but he might be available against Dallas. And two-time Stanley Cup winner Jonathan Quick has been dressing as a backup since Brossoit’s injury.
The Stars are a tough opponent to ride out an ongoing goaltending crisis against. Dallas ranked seventh in goals per game during the regular season, and they’re scoring even more often in the playoffs thus far. The sheer amount of talent the Stars will throw at Vegas is also imposing: Regular-season scoring leader Jason Robertson had just as many points as Tkachuk (109) and even more goals (46)… and he’s only second on the team (behind Hintz) in postseason scoring and tied for eighth in goals. Veteran center Joe Pavelski had an unbelievable 8 goals in 7 games against Seattle in Round 2, and don’t be surprised if he terrorizes whichever netminder the Golden Knights send out for this series.
All of this give-and-take between strengths and weaknesses feeds the uncertainty around who will advance to the Cup Final. According to FiveThirtyEight’s Elo model, Carolina is currently the championship favorite, but every remaining team has odds squeezed between 17% and 35%. And that checks out to me — there’s a good case to be made for each member of the Final Four to win it all this year. We’ll just have to see which of them can answer their most pressing questions along the way.
Filed under: NHL