The first round is over and that means we are down to the elite 8 stage of the NHL playoffs. Elite 8 is not what it is officially called however, you want to call it its proper name that’d be the division finals or maybe even conference semifinals. Anyways you want to call it it doesn’t change the fact that the eight best teams remain and the Stanley Cup winner will come from this group. Is this the best eight teams though?
Every year in the playoffs we see great teams go down and go down early in the playoffs. Take last year for example, San Jose, St. Louis, Tampa Bay and Colorado, all out after 7 or less games. All those teams last year were great and any one of those teams could have made a run at the Cup. This year is not different. Great teams have fallen and now we have the eight “best”. I use the term best loosely because they may not be the best, but they did get to this point that 22 other teams did not. Lets take a quick look on why they did make it here.
Montreal Canadiens-Were they one of the best teams in the regular season? Yes, but this team had a heck of a fight on their hands in the first round against the Ottawa Senators. Ill always argue a 3-0 series lead contains more stories and secrets than a 3-3 series you just have to look past the goose egg on one end of the score sheet. In this case this 3-0 series was one of the most physical, perhaps ever, tons of hits. After that you had a couple of over time games that Montreal took. After the 3-0 lead Ottawa put Montreal fans on alert. A team that was 14 points out of the playoffs with little time left in the regular season, crawled back into the playoffs and now after winning 2 straight after being down 0-3 just 1 game away from forcing a 7th game. Montreal ended up winning on the road in game 6 after a great game. The Habs got the lead then locked down the Dzone, barely letting Ottawa get a great scoring chance, the shot clock says Ottawa got their shots, but watching that game they didn’t have many great chances.
This might be the best thing for Montreal, not that the 82 regular season games didn’t challenge them, but an easy first round might make them let their guard down. This was a hard first round series for one of the beasts of the east and now they’re in playoff mode. Tampa Bay is going to have their hands full with this fast team capable of being shutout by the Habs defense and Carey Price.
Tampa Bay Lightning-Ask me in September and I had this team in the Stanley Cup finals. Ask me in January and I think I might reconsider. Ask me now and I have no idea. The Lightning had such an up and down opening round vs Detroit is must have felt like riding a roller coaster. Game 1 they look pretty good if not great but somehow lose at the hands of rookie goaltender Petr Mrazek. Game 2 they play another great game but get a 5-1 result instead. Game 3 not a good game, Detroit locks down Tampa, more physical, hold the Lightning to less shots and Mrazek gets a shutout. Game 4 they don’t look good or Detroit looks terrific for 55 minutes then Tampa gets two quick goals force OT and win in overtime. Game 5 comes and Tampa does not come close to building off the momentum gained from late last game and Detroit dominates them defensively, Mrazek gets shutout number 2. The Lightning play a good game 6 get an early lead and are able to hold it throughout the game great game from Tampa. And game 7 was another great one for Tampa. Typical game 7, close, 0-0 for more than 2 periods and the Lightning get on the board first and are able to hold a 1-0 until late in the third when they double their lead on an empty net goal and win the series.
After such an up and down series I have no idea how to judge this team. You have to give Detroit credit because a lot of people said this was the one series that wasn’t hard to pick, Tampa Bay wins this, and here we are now talking about a 7 game series. You have to think that Montreal and Carey Price will do a lot of the same of what Detroit did. Tampa Bay had some trouble scoring and Mrazek had 2 shutouts, what’s going to happen when they go against the team that allowed the fewest goals in the regular season? Stamkos had zero goals in the first round, he has got to get going and pot some goals against the best goalie in the NHL now. Tampa went 5-0 against the Canadiens this season but I’m not sure the Lightning have raised their game enough to beat this Montreal team.
New York Rangers-Quite possible this team was the favorites coming into the playoff. This team has a pretty deep forward group, deep defensive group and Henrik Lundqvist between the pipes, not a lot of holes in anything they do. The first round against Pittsburgh was probably closer than most people thought it would be. To be honest I had the Rangers sweeping the Penguins, I wasn’t far off from that, the series ended in 5, but this was a close 5 games that the Rangers really had to fight through. Every single game was a 1 goal game and four of the 5 games final score was 2-1 including 2 overtimes.
Bottom line I think this Rangers team made that series harder than they had to. Crosby had 2 goals in 1 game and Malkin had zeros goals and they could barely get by this team for 4 games. Not only were Pittsburgh’s stars not scoring they had some serious defense issues, Letang, Erhoff and Maata did not play 1 minute this series. 3 of their top 4 didn’t play this series. If the Rangers can’t score against a seriously weakened D of Pittsburgh, who knows what could happen against a better defensive team like the Capitals next round.
Washington Capitals-This is a team I really liked going into the playoffs. I thought this team possibly more than any other was built for playoff like hockey. After the first round you still saw more good than bad in this team. The New York Islanders pushed this team much hard than I thought they would. This series was one of the most physical in history again. Hits were high and hard. The Capitals knocked out some Islanders Dmen and really wore that D crop down and played very good playoff like hockey. Washington has a reputation for underachieving in the playoffs and they had every opportunity to do that again this year. Losing game 1 on home ice, losing game 3 to go down 1-2, finally going up in the series 3-2 and not closing it out and in comes game 7. Game 7 was a terrific game for the Capitals. One of the better defensive games I’ve seen from this team maybe ever, really limiting chances and keeping the shots low, and even after going up in game 7 they let the Islanders tie the game early in the third period and could have let the pressure get to them. They didn’t, They continued to play hard and eventually got the game winning goal from Evgeni Kuznetsov. After the 2-1 goal the Capitals closed it down and win that game.
This Capitals team is different than any other Caps team from 2009-14. This team has good defense, goaltending and can still score goals. Maybe something higher than anything else is they have confidence in what they’re doing, they have confidence in what coach Barry Trotz is preaching and that could be a deciding factor in the next round vs the New York Rangers.
That leaves us with the match ups of Montreal vs Tampa bay and New York Rangers vs Washington. Both series should be great ones and neither lack in storylines. You have Montreal and Tampa Bay who played last year in the first round where Montreal looked to have little trouble against Tampa Bay, but the Lightning did not have Vezina candidate Ben Bishop in that series and it showed. This year both teams are better, mostly healthy and ready to take this little rivalry to the next stage. After the showings from these teams in the first round I’m going to pick Montreal to win in 6, Carey Price is playing great right now, not shocking, and the team looked good in the first round both offensively and defensively. Tampa Bay had some trouble against a Red Wings team and that Detroit team isn’t as good as Montreal. Maybe going against a better team will make the Lightning play better but I’m not going to bet against odds on favorite MVP winner Carey Price.
As for Washington vs the Rangers this series is trickier to prediect. Both great teams and both showed they belong here. But again, going off the last round, I think I have to pick Washington in a long 6 or 7 game series. This is weird for me because at the start of the playoffs I had New York winning the Cup, but after the showing against Pittsburgh I have some issues with this team. I really did not like how they had issues against a defense who was missing their top 3 defensemen. The Capitals have a pretty good if not great defense, way better than what the Penguins had due to their injuries. The Capitals also has a pretty good forward group again better than the Penguins in my opinion. And last but not least the Capitals have a system they have bought into and that system is working, seemingly unlike the Penguins for most of the second half of the season. This Capitals team is different than the ones the Rangers beat a couple of times a few years ago and that’s why I’m picking the Capitals in a long hard series.
There you have it. If you thought the first round of the NHL playoffs was entertaining, oh my friends we’re just getting started here. The battle level goes up, you can see the desperation increase with every game and now were down to the best 8 teams the NHL has to offer. What more can you ask for? I have something to ask for actually, comment and tell me your opinions on the first round as well as your thoughts on the second round. Or you can find me on Twitter @CJSportsrambler follow me and ask me anything on there.
Enjoy the second round everybody!
