Breaking down the Eastern Conference playoff matchups

Travis Yost

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With 1,271 regular-season games in the books, it’s time for the real fun to begin.

Saturday’s slate of games wrapped up the 2018-19 regular season, so we now turn our attention to the Stanley Cup Playoffs. As is tradition, we will preview each of the eight first-round series by conference, paying specific attention to the statistical strengths and weaknesses of the respective participants.

I’ve broken out performance across key performance indicators over the last 25 games of the regular season for every series. Then, I calculate the advantage/disadvantage from the home team’s perspective – the higher the relative percentage, the bigger the gap between the two teams. I’ll include the usual key performance indicators, the lineups coaches have been utilizing since the trade deadline concluded (blue: increasing role; red: decreasing role), and my qualitative thoughts on the series.

We will open up with the Eastern Conference, and what better place to start than Boston?

There is an irony in the two best first-round series also being the two match-ups we have seen coming for quite some time – Boston and Toronto in the Atlantic, and San Jose and Vegas in the Pacific. (Consequently, I would argue that Toronto and Vegas have the two toughest roads to the Stanley Cup).

Toronto has had a roller coaster of a season and the last month or so has been relatively unpleasant to watch. It’s hard to know how much the Maple Leafs have throttled back lately – their matchup with the Bruins has been all but guaranteed since the trade deadline, and their defensive indifference (and a heavy rotation of backup goaltenders) down the stretch ensured that they would be the road team in this series.

The Maple Leafs compare favourably – in some cases, very favourably – against the majority of teams that reached the postseason, but the Bruins are not one of them. The painful history is one thing, but the fact that they’ve drawn a Bruins team that finished second overall in the NHL (underpinned by the league’s third best goal differential) and owned the head-to-head matchup (+6 in goals over four games) is a bit of a nightmare.

Both teams are fantastic at even strength, but they are polar opposites in other areas. The Bruins grade out as one of the league’s best teams at suppressing shots (No. 1), scoring chances (No. 1) and goals (No. 5). Toronto, on the other hand, is known for their hyper-aggressive attack. Their impressive grades tend to come in the offensive zone where they are among the best at generating shots (No. 1), scoring chances (No. 1) and goals (No. 9).

The differentiator – and why the Bruins show as having a slight edge at 5-on-5 in the series – is largely due to Toronto’s leakiness in the defensive third. The Leafs have been defensively indifferent for quite some time now, and when the goaltending fell into a similar slump, their numbers took a considerable dip.

Two interesting wrinkles within this series: One, the return of defenceman Jake Gardiner should really help Toronto. The Maple Leafs saw what life might look like in the post-Gardiner era thanks to his mid-season back injury, and let’s just say that the team still doesn’t have the competency or the depth on the blueline to replace him. His return should be massive.

Two, keep an eye on Patrice Bergeron. The Bruins have been aggressively managing his minutes late in the season. Bergeron has taken on a monstrous power-play and penalty-killing role, but is just the eighth most utilized forward for the Bruins at 5-on-5. That sort of minute management should pay dividends for the Bruins in this series. Bergeron is the exact type of two-way player that has given the Leafs attackers trouble over the years and the Bruins will need to stretch him out in those critical even- strength minutes in what should be an ultra-competitive first-round series.

Pick: Boston in seven

Tampa Bay vs. Columbus

The Lightning were going to be the biggest favourite to advance in the first-round regardless of who they played, and they’ll likely be the biggest favourite in each round until they either win the Stanley Cup or are eliminated. That's just what happens when you pick up 62 wins in a single regular season – a number we have only seen once before, from the 1995-96 Detroit Red Wings, who reached the Western Conference Finals that year.

I won’t rehash all of the reasons why this Tampa Bay team was so much better than the field, but I will emphasize that this is a team with no weakness. A lot of time has been spent dissecting them from a 5-on-5 standpoint, where they posted a ridiculous +55 goal differential, but they are also backstopped by a likely Vezina finalist and have a power play and penalty kill combination that’s second to none in the NHL. This is, unquestionably, the best team in the league. 

It will be interesting to see whether or not this semi-new Columbus team had enough time to gel before this David versus Goliath matchup. The Blue Jackets did manage to pick up some steam down the stretch, rattling off a series of wins to steal one of the last playoff spots up for grabs. New acquisitions Matt Duchene and Ryan Dzingel have given Columbus an abundance of scoring talent within the top six, but their impact has really only been felt at even strength.

That’s something worth noting, because this Blue Jackets team has been notoriously bad on the power play for years now. The 2018-19 season was no different: Columbus converted on just 15 per cent of their man advantages this season (5.4 goals per 60 minutes) – nearly half of Tampa Bay’s 28 per cent (10.9 goals per 60 minutes). It’s the biggest game state disparity you will find in the first round, and quite frankly that alone might be enough to sink Columbus’ chances of stealing this round.

It’s worth mentioning that Columbus does have one of the league’s better kill units – they sat top-five all year long – but again, Tampa Bay is just as good.

The Blue Jackets turning it on late – and with their added star power since Feb. 25 – might have made them a sexy upset pick in other matchups, but they feel like cannon fodder against Tampa Bay. Pun absolutely intended.

Pick: Tampa Bay in five

Washington vs. Carolina

This year’s Carolina Hurricanes finally capitalized on years of comically advantageous shot and scoring chance differentials, turning those opportunities into goals, wins, and their first playoff berth 2009. Now they get to wrestle with the defending Stanley Cup champions in the first round.

Much like Toronto and Boston in the Atlantic, these two teams couldn’t be more different. The Capitals are one of the few teams in the league that can offset seemingly average underlying numbers because of how much shooting talent and skill is scattered across the roster.

Alexander Ovechkin – the Rocket Richard winner for the eighth time in his career – is at the top of that list, but this is a team with seven 20+ goal scorers and plenty of complementary players throughout the lineup. Put that in front of a quality goaltender like Braden Holtby, and you certainly have your hands full.

But don’t count Carolina out. One of the most effective ways of neutralizing teams with this much talent is to keep the puck off of their sticks, and no team has been better at doing that than Rod Brind’Amour’s club. The Hurricanes finished the year with the league’s most decisive even-strength shot advantage (55 per cent) and second-most decisive scoring chance advantage (54 per cent), decimal points behind the Vegas Golden Knights. The question for Carolina has never been about puck control; it’s always been about them proving they can turn those attacking sequences into goals.

Newly acquired winger Nino Niederreiter is a piece that has certainly helped Carolina on this front. The Swiss forward is Carolina’s leading goal scorer since the Jan. 17 deal with 14, and is third in overall in scoring behind Teuvo Teravainen and Sebastian Aho over the same period. If anything, it has given the Hurricanes another credible attacker with a track record of scoring (save for his bizarre one-goal season in 2011-12, which is now looking like one of the weirdest single-season outliers we’ve ever seen).

One last note: If you put stock into the regular-season series, you may want to take a glance at what Washington did to Carolina this year. The Capitals swept the series and carried a +6 goal differential with one shootout win in the process.

Pick: Washington in seven

Pittsburgh vs. New York Islanders

The New York Islanders have had a tremendous season, especially considering the loss of superstar forward John Tavares last summer. The mere fact they reached the postseason – and rather comfortably – is a huge testament to the work from this lineup under new head coach Barry Trotz.

But, like every other team, we must grade the Islanders at this point of the season relative to other playoff-calibre clubs. Unfortunately, the theme of this Islanders season is that the (often fleeting) percentages have been a big driver of their success, especially within the crease.

Over the full season, the Islanders goaltending tandem of Robin Lehner and Thomas Greiss has been sensational, stopping 93.7 per cent of shots at 5-on-5 and 92.5 per cent of shots across all situations. Both were comfortably first overall.

There are surely ranging opinions on how good of a goaltending group this duo is, but Lehner and Greiss both have respectable NHL resumes prior to the surge in 2018-19. For that reason, I think this Islanders’ goaltending duo is an advantage of sorts, but I’m also disinclined to bet heavily on a team that seems rather reliant on the goalies to win games. (And, as you can see in the graph above, their save percentage has started to regress a bit. Their save percentages since the trade deadline: 93.0 per cent at 5-on-5 (No. 9), and 92.3 in all situations (No. 5).)

The Islanders do have some degree of skating competency, but graded relatively to the likes of the Penguins, it’s hard to see. Mathew Barzal, Josh Bailey, Brock Nelson, Anders Lee, and Jordan Eberle offer obvious firepower on paper, but the scoring wasn’t really there for this group this season. The Islanders only had one 60-point skater (Barzal), and a lot of that had to do with a completely ineffective power play.

It’s kind of amusing that the power-play disparities in the Tampa Bay-Columbus series also exist here. The Islanders converted on just 14.5 per cent of their man advantages this year (4.9 goals per 60 minutes), which is shockingly bad. But it’s actually gotten worse as the season has developed. Since the trade deadline, the Islanders have three goals on the power play. Three! Pittsburgh’s Phil Kessel, Sidney Crosby, and Jake Guentzel have met or exceeded that number individually over the same interval.

In Pittsburgh, there’s never doubt about the capabilities of the forward group. The blueline, at least historically, has been a different story. The Penguins will enjoy the luxury of having the core of their defensive group available to start the series – something that didn’t seem as apparent six weeks ago. No player is more important on the back end than Kris Letang, but getting a healthy Olli Maatta back from his upper-body injury could be quite consequential.

All said and done, my confidence in the Islanders’ goaltending may be more than the average person, but it’s not enough to pick them in this series. The Penguins have a better lineup top-to-bottom with more finishing talent and should be able to dictate pace and tempo against an Islanders team that finished 16th in scoring chances and 26th in shot rates over the full season.

More opportunity is always a good thing, but it’s even better when your lineup is flush with bona fide goal scorers.

Pick: Pittsburgh in six