We’ve officially entered the NHL stretch run, and the Eastern and Western Conference both have some tight wildcard races.
Let’s say you’re one of the top seeds in either conference, on track to face a Wildcard opponent in Round 1. So, the question: Which bubble team would you not want to face as your ‘reward’ for finishing high in the standings?
STEVEN ELLIS: I’m going with the low-hanging fruit: the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Atlantic is so good to the point where the most successful team from the past decade isn’t guaranteed anything right now. I feel like playoff experience can be overvalued, but when you’re talking about a core that went to three consecutive Stanley Cup finals, winning twice, I wouldn’t want to bet against them. I feel like they can stack up to any team in the Eastern Conference. My biggest question: what version of Andrei Vasilevskiy are we going to see? The fact he’s more rested than he was in previous years intrigues me.
FRANK SERAVALLI: Tampa is a great answer, Steven, but I pity the top team in the West if they have to face the Vegas Golden Knights as the No. 8 seed. Congratulations, your reward for perhaps winning the President’s Trophy is a date with the defending champs. Yes, I know, the Golden Knights have really struggled the last few weeks. Hell, it’s actually longer than that. Since Dec. 1, the Golden Knights are 23rd in the league in points percentage (.510) with a 21-20-3 record. They’re the definition of ‘mid’ since then. I don’t care. They should have Tomas Hertl assimilated by then. Mark Stone may be able to return at some point from his lacerated spleen. And I’m an Adin Hill believer, even if his game has been wonky of late. Some say that you are what your record says you are, I’m just not convinced that applies to Vegas this year.
SCOTT MAXWELL: Steven’s basically setting me up with an empty net tap-in to “promote my piece from this week” with this one, but I’m going to say that the New York Islanders are a dark horse candidate to cause problems to a top-seed team. Vegas and Tampa are obvious choices, but the Isles are a sneaky one that I think would even surprise the team they’re facing. I go into this more in the piece, but since Patrick Roy took over, they’ve been a top five team in terms of expected goal suppression, similarly to the Isles teams that went on runs to the Conference Finals, if not doing so even better than those teams, and every player that played for both Barry Trotz and Roy has seen their defensive metrics improve to what they were in the Trotz era. The past year and a half under Lane Lambert has seen them be atrocious defensively and rely on their elite goaltending, but not anymore. And what might be scarier is the fact that Ilya Sorokin is much better now than he was in 2021, and Mathew Barzal is much better than he was in 2020 and 2021, and they have another finisher in Bo Horvat this time as well. They feasted on matchups against defensively weak teams that relied on talent on those runs, and if they get matched up with a team like the Boston Bruins or New York Rangers, they’ll get that same matchup again. Talent may still win out, but the Isles won’t go down easy if they make the playoffs.
MIKE GOULD: Boy, was I ever wrong about the Nashville Predators. I’m actually astonished I’m the first person to bring them up. They’ve come close to running the table down the stretch, going completely nuclear with a 14-0-2 record over their current 16-game point streak. I can’t really explain how this team has had so much success, particularly given the relatively lackluster performance of Juuse Saros for much of the year, but they’re on an otherworldly tear. Did anyone expect Gustav Nyquist to score 62 points in 70 games this year? And then there’s Ryan O’Reilly, who has rebounded from a disappointing year with the Blues and Maple Leafs to rack up 24 goals and 58 points in 70 games thus far. Tommy Novak, Luke Evangelista, Kiefer Sherwood, Michael McCarron, Mark Jankowski … the list of surprising stories and overachievers goes on. This is a team riding a bit of a magical wave and I’m fascinated to see where it takes them. I sure wouldn’t want to face them in the first round.
HUNTER CROWTHER: I may be new to the Roundtable, but how has no one picked the Detroit Red Wings? Sure, they’ve been streaky, winning six straight and then immediately starting March with a seven-game losing streak, but what fits the description of a Wild Card more than that? Dylan Larkin scored twice in their 6-3 win over the Islanders on Thursday, and his 0.50 goals-per-game rate in 2023-24 is the highest of his career — there’s a chance he could surpass his career high of 32 goals in less than 70 games. Larkin has only played five career playoff games, you don’t think he wants to add to that? Yes, there’s a concern in the net, with Alex Lyon looking more like a kitten during the seven-game skid and an unreliable 36-year-old James Reimer holding down the fort with duct tape, but even Tom Hanks in Cast Away knows you don’t need much to create a spark. Let’s not forget: Patrick Kane has made a career off of big-time playoff performances, and he’s looking more like his old self with each game. Springtime means Showtime, and while they may not be consistent, there’s nothing scarier in a best-of-seven than a wild card.
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