Four questions facing Canada’s Stanley Cup contenders

We are about three weeks from the start of the 2023-24 Stanley Cup Playoffs, and it looks like Canada will send four teams to the postseason.

Those four teams have gone wire-to-wire as playoff bidders. The Toronto Maple Leafs, Winnipeg Jets, Vancouver Canucks, and Edmonton Oilers (after a harrowing first month of play) have been shoo-ins for some time. Betting markets currently price the Oilers as a co-favourite to advance out of the West, along with Colorado, but all four clubs have reasonable odds to advance.

They all could be early outs too, depending on a variety of factors. To that end, I wanted to spend some time on the four biggest questions facing the respective Canadian teams based on what we have observed this year.

Let’s start in the Eastern Conference with the Toronto Maple Leafs:

Question: Who is Toronto’s Game 1 goaltender?

It's been another ho-hum regular season for the Maple Leafs, light on drama and heavy on Auston Matthews highlight-reel goals.

The sentiment around this team will not change until it meaningfully breaks through in the postseason though, and once again, the Leafs are staring down the barrel of a first-round matchup with the Boston Bruins or Florida Panthers. (And yes, I think Florida may actually be the more difficult of the two).

Toronto maintains one of the league’s more fearsome lineups, but the goaltending position is a large question mark. The triumvirate of Ilya Samsonov, Martin Jones, and Joseph Woll have been good enough for head coach Sheldon Keefe, but we are still talking about a team that’s 18th in the NHL in goals conceded per-60 minutes (3.1), with an 89.5 stop rate (22nd in NHL) underpinning that. Not ideal.

In terms of experience, Samsonov is the logical relative choice. He’s played 120 games over the past three seasons and, frankly, has the “starter” contract that neither Jones nor Woll possess. But Samsonov has been shaky at best in stretches this year, and at least in the games we have seen from the 25-year-old Woll, he looks the most likely to win a game.

If we look at a three-year horizon of performance across these goaltenders, here is how they stack up:

I don’t envy Keefe. The answer feels like it’s Woll – despite the very limited experience, he’s consistently been a net positive for the Maple Leafs, and the struggles of Samsonov this season (and Jones prior to his signing in Toronto) should make that an easy Game 1 choice.

But any time you are dressing a player with 30 games of experience in the playoffs, well, the second-guessing can come fast and furious.

Heading to the Western Conference, let’s look at the Winnipeg Jets:

Question: Is Winnipeg’s slowed offensive production reason for concern?

The Jets, much like the Maple Leafs, have had a comfortable regular season, with most of the focus turning to who their first-round opponent may be. But there’s a concerning trend with Winnipeg’s offence beneath the surface.

It’s not just that the goals have dried up. It’s that the goals have dried up in correlation with a thinning of scoring chances and offensive zone time, and this is not a team that can offset a slowdown at even strength through the power play – their man advantage year-to-date is just 23rd in the NHL (6.5 goals per 60 minutes).

From the start of the season through Sunday’s action, consider how Winnipeg’s offence has trended:

When Winnipeg’s big guns are on the ice, goals can come quickly – Kyle Connor, Nikolaj Ehlers, and Mark Scheifele alone have combined for 52 even-strength goals this season.

The problem is finding offence beyond Winnipeg’s big guns has been a chore, save for a temporary breakout in December. At any rate, it is fair to say Winnipeg has a below league-average offence at even strength, with a little unfortunate puck luck in recent months.

For some teams, this middling production would be a red line, but we are talking about a Jets team backstopped by arguably the best goaltender in the world and with quality defensive structure in front of him. But look around at Winnipeg’s possible Western Conference opponents – teams like Colorado within the division, and Vancouver and Edmonton across the aisle – and you see teams with considerably more firepower.

It's a trend worth monitoring.

Out in the Pacific Division, Canada is sending two teams. First, the Vancouver Canucks.

Question: Can Vancouver manage through this Thatcher Demko injury?

Most everything has went right for the Canucks this season, and early season skeptics who were sure regression was in the cards have more or less disappeared. This is a quality lineup with star power at all three positions, when healthy.

The operative word being healthy.

The loss of Thatcher Demko — he’s currently out week-to-week with a lower-body injury — cannot be overstated. He’s one of the Western Conference’s best goaltenders and one who gives Vancouver an advantage in most theoretical playoff matchups. Vancouver’s front office seems confident Demko will return prior to the playoffs, but you never want to see a meaningful injury to a player this close to the postseason.

Casey DeSmith has been soaking up the minutes in his absence, and he’s been dependable. But if there is any scenario where Demko’s recovery extends, or if Demko is playing at less than 100 per cent, you think about this team differently.

How differently is an open question, though. DeSmith may be a journeyman backup, but his play has been solid through a six-year career (which includes a stint in Pittsburgh), with a 91.1 per cent career stop rate. And if you want to evaluate DeSmith against the shot profile he’s faced, it looks like someone you can trust:

You know things are going well when your backup has the profile of a starter. But I don’t blame Canucks fans one iota for breathlessly awaiting Demko’s return. He’s that good, and he’s done it in high-leverage situations against stiff competition – a key differentiator between the two.

Lastly, the Edmonton Oilers.

Question: Do the Oilers have a problem on the blueline?

I remain a believer in this Oilers team – if not for running into a dynamo in the Vegas Golden Knights last season, Edmonton may have ended a three-decade (and counting) championship drought. That Vegas wrinkle hasn’t gone away, but they have a litany of health-related issues they’ll have to overcome in their own right.

It’s hard to nitpick this Oilers lineup. There is talent seemingly everywhere and when you have a player the calibre of Connor McDavid on the ice for nearly 40 per cent of games, you have a colossal margin of error to work with – McDavid has shown time and again he can single-handedly win games, to say nothing of his supporting cast in Leon Draisaitl, Zach Hyman, and others.

But the blueline, specifically Cody Ceci and Darnell Nurse, can stress this team. Edmonton tends to look different structurally when playing high-powered offences; a three-goal loss to Toronto on Saturday night was no exception. I think a lot of it boils down to one key issue: The Oilers can’t play Nurse and Ceci together, and if they split them apart, that’s two pairings you now have heartburn over.

Despite playing on one of the league’s best teams, Ceci and Nurse are two goals in the red this season – compare that to teammates like Evan Bouchard (+38) and Mattias Ekholm (+23), and you realize how significant the gap is.

More concerning? Two goals in the red might flatter Ceci and Nurse when you look at their performance with and without McDavid:

Most players see performance slippage when broken away from superstars. It’s a hard cap league and you can’t have dominance everywhere, but the same question that’s hovered over this team for most of the McDavid era hasn’t gone away: Are the Oilers capable of winning the non-McDavid minutes against tough competition?

Keep an eye on first-year coach Kris Knoblauch as the playoffs inch closer. If the coaching staff is tuned into the on-ice data, you might see a strategic change in the deployment of one or both of these defenders going forward.

Data via Natural Stat Trick, NHL.com, Evolving Hockey, Hockey Reference