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The NHL playoffs open Saturday afternoon with the Ottawa Senators visiting the Carolina Hurricanes, while the Edmonton Oilers and the Montreal Canadiens are also in the running to become the first Canadian team to hoist the Stanley Cup sincethe Habs in 1993.
Here’s a quick look at the three first-round series involving a Canadian club, plus a bit on each of the five all-U.S. matchups.
Ottawa vs. Carolina (starts Saturday at 3 p.m. ET)
As the lower of the two Eastern Conference wild cards, the Senators are obviously clear underdogs against the top-seeded Hurricanes, who won the Metropolitan Division in a landslide and finished with the second-best record in the league, behind Colorado.
But Ottawa has been one of the NHL’s top teams since March 1, going 15-5-3 while Carolina was 15-7-1. Also, the betting markets suggest this series could be closer than it looks, with the current series odds implying the ‘Canes have around a 60 per cent chance of taking it. By comparison, Western top seed Colorado’s implied odds of winning its opening-round series are around 80 per cent.
To upset high-scoring Carolina, the Sens will need up-and-down goalie Linus Ullmark to be the best version of himself. The 2023 Vezina Trophy winner struggled over the first three months of the season before taking a 16-game leave of absence for mental-health reasons, and Ottawa sank to last place in the East in mid-January. But, since returning at the end of that month, Ullmark is 14-4-3 with a fantastic 2.30 goals-against average, helping his team overcome a 10-point deficit to reach the playoffs.
Montreal vs. Tampa Bay (starts Sunday at 5:45 p.m ET)
The Canadiens and the Lightning finished with the same number of points (106) in the same division (the Atlantic). And yet, Tampa Bay is nearly a 70 per cent betting favourite to win their series. Why?
Well, the Bolts earned six more regulation-time wins than the Habs, giving them second place in the division and home-ice advantage for a potential Game 7 against third-place Montreal. The Lightning also have the much better recent playoff track record, winning back-to-back Stanley Cups in 2020 and 2021 and reaching a third straight final in 2022 with close to the same core of players they still have.
They’re also loaded with established star forwards like Nikita Kucherov (second in the league with 130 points), Brayden Point, Brandon Hagel and Jake Guentzel; and goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy is favoured to win his second Vezina.
However, aging Tampa got bounced in the first round in each of the last three years. And don’t count out the up-and-coming Canadiens, who improved by 15 points last year to earn a surprising wild-card berth (they lost in the first round too) and added another 15 this season to stay in the tough Atlantic race right to the end.
Twenty-six-year-old captain Nick Suzuki became the first Montreal player in 40 years to reach the 100-point mark, while 25-year-old sniper Cole Caufield is the first Hab in 36 years to score 50 goals, finishing just two behind Rocket Richard Trophy winner Nathan MacKinnon with 51. Twenty-two-year-old defenceman Lane Hutson had 78 points, including 66 assists to match Larry Robinson’s record for a Habs blue-liner.
5 things you need to know about the Habs ahead of the playoffs
Edmonton vs. Anaheim (starts Monday at 10 p.m. ET)
The Oilers, who finished one point ahead of the Ducks for second place in the weak Pacific Division, will try for their third straight trip to the Stanley Cup final after back-to-back losses to Florida.
The good news is the Panthers, who overpowered Edmonton in six games last year, failed to reach the playoffs. And the Oilers once again drew a favourable path to the final as they won’t have to face any of the top three teams in the West — Colorado, Dallas and Minnesota, who all play in the ferocious Central Division — until the conference final. Plus, star forward Leon Draisaitl, out for the last month with a lower-body injury, is expected back at some point in the first round, maybe even Game 1.
Draisaitl’s return is essential for the Oilers to have a chance at winning their first Stanley Cup of the Connor McDavid era, which is now in its 11th season. The 29-year-old wrapped up his sixth scoring title last night, moving him into a tie with Mario Lemieux and Gordie Howe for the second-most Art Ross Trophies ever, trailing only Wayne Gretzky’s 10. But McDavid is still searching for his first championship, while Lemieux won two and Gretzky and Howe nabbed four apiece. None of them won a Cup past the age of 27, so the clock is definitely ticking.
