Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s the most wonderful time of the year. The sun is setting later and later, there’s a cool breeze in the air and right around that time when that sun starts to set, the games begin. The 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs kick off tonight at 7 o’clock eastern time and they’ll begin with the Carolina Hurricanes and the New York Islanders. As this is primarily a Rangers fan blog, I’m going to save my lengthier Hudson River Rivalry playoff preview for tomorrow morning but with the playoffs starting today, I’m going to run through my thoughts and predictions on each of the other seven first round series’.
Carolina Hurricanes (1) vs. New York Islanders (WC1)
Carolina clinched first in the Metropolitan Division in their final regular season game where they beat the Florida Panthers by a score of 6-4. In doing so, they will match up with the team holding the top wildcard spot in the New York Islanders. The Isles weren’t having a great season and if things didn’t change, there was a real chance of them missing the playoffs all together. However, a blockbuster trade bringing over Bo Horvat from the Vancouver Canucks paved the way for them to fight their way into a wildcard spot with some help from the Penguins downfall. In addition to Horvat, the Islanders brought in Pierre Engvall who has played a big role on this team that otherwise, has looked the same for what feels like forever. The Islanders play a very low event, “boring” style of hockey. They tend to keep teams to low scoring games, have a defense first type of mentality and don’t score a ton of goals. Luckily for them, they have gotten otherworldly goaltending from Ilya Sorokin this year which not only gives them an edge in the postseason, but certainly gives them an edge against Carolina.
Carolina is a similar team in the sense that they stay true to their systems but their systems couldn’t be more different. They play a faster game, move the puck well and know how to score goals. They’re exceptional on the penalty kill, great in the faceoff circle and much like the Islanders, don’t let up a ton of goals. This is going to be a very interesting series that may even be closer than some are expecting. There’s no question the Hurricanes are the heavy favorite as the Islanders are kind of lucky to be here following the tight wildcard race. However, if Sorokin keeps up his brilliant play and the rest of the team can keep Carolina’s chances to a minimum, the Islanders are more than capable of pulling their weight. That being said, I have Carolina in six. I wouldn’t sleep on the Islanders in this series but I don’t see Carolina being a first round out after the season they’ve had.
Carolina is without one of their top players in Andrei Svechnikov and you never know what kind of goaltending you’re going to get from Freddie Anderson. Aside from that, they still have a very solid team and run a group of defensemen who can contribute offensively just as much as they contribute defensively. They have a ton of “been there before” guys and have great coaching led by Rod Brind ‘Amour. As long as they can outwork the Isles and stick to their newfound reputation, the Hurricanes getting to the second round should be a safe bet. Goaltending and how the Hurricanes matchup with the Isles style of play will be the difference maker going into this opening round. For the Islanders, expect them to rely on their veteran core players as much as they will rely on Ilya Sorokin to carry them as far as they end up going.
Players to watch/Potential X Factors: (CAR) Teuvo Teravainen, Martin Necas, Brent Burns (NYI) Mathew Barzal, Brock Nelson, Bo Horvat
Boston Bruins (P) vs. Florida Panthers (WC2)
It’s the battle of the two most recent best regular season teams as people forget, the Florida Panthers won the President’s Trophy last season. While they are a very different team this year than the one that sat atop the league standings last year, pieces are still in place and as a result, Florida could make this more of a difficult series than fans are expecting. The Boston Bruins had a record breaking season and didn’t lose many games, but against the Panthers they only put up a record of 2-2 on the year. Lucky for both sides, it’s a whole new ballgame once the postseason begins. All 16 teams have the same record of 0-0 and only one can come out as the winner. The Bruins have a lot of pressure on their shoulders having won the President’s Trophy in groundbreaking fashion and on top of that, this year feeling like their last dance. Between the President’s Trophy curse, these teams being divisional rivals and other individual matchups, this series has many components that make it must watch hockey for fans of all sorts.
If old school, rough and tough hockey is your jam then this series is bound to have plenty of it. There’s no question the Bruins play that “big bad Bruin” style of hockey but the Panthers have some players of their own that will be ready to match that. One matchup in particular that will be insanely exciting is Brad Marchand vs. Matthew Tkachuk. Two elite forwards who can throw hands as well as they score goals will undoubtedly be on each other's tail all series long. The Bruins further solidified their identity by adding Tyler Bertuzzi and Garnet Hathaway at the trade deadline. The Panthers will be ready to match that toughness with their own guys like Ryan Lomberg, Radko Gudas among others. As far as skills go, the Panthers aren’t as deep a team as the Bruins but they do have some names that can surprise fans and have guys on every line that can find the back of the net.
Carter Verhaeghe is a guy to keep an eye on as he tends to heat up in playoffs as well as some younger guys like Anton Lundell and Eetu Luostarinen. They aren’t super strong defensively but their top pair in Aaron Ekblad and Gustav Forsling is certainly one that can shutdown any of the Bruins top lines. Expect them to be averaging around thirty minutes of ice time each night, likely seeing the ice any time the Bruins top two lines are out there. The real question mark for the Panthers will be in net as right now, it looks like Alex Lyon may be their guy. With Spencer Knight leaving the team earlier in the season and Sergei Bobrovsky not being the guy he once was, it’s left the Panthers to trust Alex Lyon, who has spent the majority of his 7 year professional career as a fringe NHLer at best. Despite bouncing back and forth between the AHL and NHL over the years, Lyon has stepped up lately and has been a huge part of the Panthers resurgence that got them into the postseason. WIth a 9-4-2 record, Lyon is carrying a .914 save percentage into the postseason and will need to be big to shut down the big bad Bruins.
Lyon will be going up against Linus Ullmark who has put up a Vezina Trophy calibur season and is backed by a reliable young potential star in Jeremy Swayman. There’s no question the Bruins have a strong lineup up and down the roster and have all the confidence going into this series. One question mark for Boston however is the status of their veteran leader Patrice Bergeron who is day-to-day in jeopardy of missing game one of the series tonight. While it’s fair to assume the Bruins will be fine without him, if the Panthers find a way to take game one then it’s a whole different story going into game two. As much as I am not a fan of them, I have to go with the Bruins here but I think it’ll take six or seven games to get there. This Florida team has some grit to them and the skill to back it up. With how thin the Wild Card race was in the East, the Panthers have been playing end all be all type of hockey for a couple weeks now. They have the potential to make some noise if they can keep that energy going early here.
Players to watch/Potential X Factors: (BOS) David Krejci, Pavel Zacha, Tomas Nosek (FLA) Ryan Lomberg, Carter Verhaeghe, Gustav Forsling
Toronto Maple Leafs (2) vs. Tampa Bay Lightning (3)
The East is honestly full of must watch hockey this playoff as this will without a doubt be as exciting a series as any. The Leafs are desperate to get past the first round and the Lightning are on a three year streak of Cup appearances. You have to wonder which of the two will give first and I gotta say, this very well may be the year the Leafs finally get past the first round. The Leafs went as all in as they could go at the trade deadline this year, bringing in Ryan O’Reilly, Sam Lafferty, Noel Accairi, Jake McCabe and more. The Leafs have a real good balance of NHL superstars, elite veterans, reliable defenders, with grit and glue types of depth players. The one question mark they will have is with their netminder, which is where Tampa has the clear advantage. There’s no doubt Andrei Vasilevskiy will be the go to starting goaltender on one end of the ice but for the Leafs, there is more of a debate to be had.
With Matt Murray injured, the goaltending duties were left to Ilya Samsonov who has been a bit shaky as of late. Joseph Woll is currently with the Leafs in place of Murray and has had an incredible first pro season spent mainly with the Marlies. In his recent efforts since his call up, he has looked very good for the Leafs which gives reason for his name to be in the discussion for who Toronto will start in net. You have to think they will inevitably make the safe decision and go with Samsonov but if things don’t get off to a good start, the Leafs could look to Woll. The moral of the story with the Leafs this post season is they essentially have to get past the first round. While the Lightning are not an easy team to beat, they’re a team that have played more hockey than anyone these last couple years. You have to think at some point it’s going to give and with how good this Leafs team is, this could be the time for it to give.
Despite all the miles on the wagon, the Bolts aren’t ready to call it quits and they also made that clear at the deadline, paying a hefty price for Tanner Jeannot. On top of that, it’s hard to count out a team that has a lineup of guys like Brayden Point, Anthony Cirelli, Nikita Kucherov, Steven Stamkos, Victor Hedman and one of the best goalies in the league. Defensively they’re a little weak which will be a challenge in shutting down the core-four threat of Auston Matthews, William Nylander, Mitch Marner and John Tavares. The interesting part of this series is that these two teams have known for months that they were very likely to see each other in round one and all that emotion came out in their final regular season meeting which happened to be game 81 of 82. In what was on paper a meaningless game, these two teams definitely took this game as an opportunity to set the tone for playoffs. Expect that same intensity to carry into game one between these two teams.
The Bolts only saw the Leafs three times in the regular season and the Leafs came out on top of that season series 2-0-1. Given the circumstances on both sides here, I’m going with the Leafs in 5. This is the year that the Toronto curse finally breaks and they find a way out of the first round. The pressures on and I believe Matthews, Marner, and the rest of the group are going to step up and get this team to where they want to go.
Players to Watch/Potential X Factors: (TOR) Ryan O’Reilly, Zach Acton-Reese, Michael Bunting (TBL) Tanner Jeannot, Nick Paul, Nicklaus Perbix
Chris Feldman
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