For those tempted to alter their predictions due to the Oilers’ overtime loss to the Kings on Monday or the Kraken’s victory over the Avalanche, remember this: The Toronto Maple Leafs smashed the Tampa Lightning Bay 5-0 in the first playoff game of 2022 and the Kings beat the Oilers 4-3 on a late Philip Danault goal. That didn’t stop Tampa and Edmonton from advancing to the second round.
Of course, winning Game 1 of a playoff series is always recommended, but last year, in addition to Tampa and Edmonton, New York lost its season opener to the Penguins on a goal by Evgeni Malkin in the third. extension period.
These three teams not only made it past the first round, but reached the semi-finals, and Tampa made it to the Stanley Cup Finals. The Florida Panthers were also defeated in their first game against the Washington Capitals before eliminating their opponents in six games.
Half of the clubs having lost their initial playoff match in 2022 have therefore passed the first round. Enough to encourage Toronto, New Jersey, Vegas, Dallas, Edmonton, Colorado, Florida and the New York Islanders.
Losing a second consecutive match mortgages your chances of success, but does not eliminate you from the start either. In history, 53 out of 393 clubs have overcome a 2-0 deficit in a series. It is suggested to bet on the club in advance, but with a 13.5% probability rate of reversing the tide, avoid writing the post mortem after two meetings.
We were probably preparing for the Canadian in Game 5 against the Maple Leafs in 2021, until Alex Galchenyuk gave the puck to Cole Caufield in overtime…
Overcoming a 3-1 deficit is a rare feat, however. The Rangers emulated the Canadiens against the Penguins last year. Five other clubs have done so in the last ten springs.
Andrei Vasilevskiy, the NHL’s best goaltender in recent years, was central to the Lightning’s Stanley Cup conquests.
But should we rule out a club outright in our early playoff predictions because their goaltender isn’t a Vezina Trophy finalist?
The Avalanche won the Stanley Cup last year with Darcy Kuemper, whose playoff experience was limited to 14 games, whose number one title was confirmed at only 28 years old for the poor Coyotes of the Arizona and whose only Vezina Trophy aspiration was a fifth-place finish in his dream year of 2019.
And he didn’t do the job alone. Pavel Francouz held the fort for four games in the semifinals against Edmonton and played in the final two games of the first-round series against Nashville.
The other finalist in the West in 2022, the Edmonton Oilers, relied on a worn-out Mike Smith at 39, and whose last lap it was. In the East, Vasilevskiy in Tampa and Igor Shesterkin in New York helped restore elite guards to their former glory.
In 2019, on the other hand, the logic was not respected. The Blues won the Cup against the Bruins with an unknown goaltender, Jordan Binnington. He had even been loaned to the Boston farm club the previous season because we didn’t have a place for him in the American League!
Binnington is $44 million richer today, but he’s won just four playoff games in 15 starts since then and his regular-season stats remain very average.
That year, Binnington and the Blues faced Martin Jones and the Sharks in the Western Conference Finals. Jones has had a sub-.900 save percentage the past five seasons.
In the Eastern Conference, the Hurricanes were represented by Petr Mrazek, who the Maple Leafs got rid of last summer by trading their first-round pick for a second-round pick, and Curtis McElhenney. Boston saved the honor in the quad with Tuukka Rask.
A year later, Anton Khudobin, a career backup goalie called up to relieve Ben Bishop in Game 1 of the playoffs, led the Dallas Stars to two wins from winning the Stanley Cup.
One would be tempted to award the Cup to the Boston Bruins after their 65 victories, a record, and their title of champion in the regular season, with 22 points more than their closest rivals.
But since 2005, only two of the seventeen winners of the President’s Trophy have won the Cup. The Chicago Blackhawks last achieved the feat in… 2013.
Since the Hawks’ victory, the best team in the regular season has never reached the final, been eliminated seven times in the second round, once in the first round (Tampa against Columbus in 2019) and made the conference final once. time.
Wild coach Dean Evason took a calculated risk in handing the net to youngster Filip Gustavsson in Game 1 of the series against the Dallas Stars, given Marc-André Fleury’s career track record.
But Gustavsson, 24, was coming off a great regular season after all: 22-9-7, 2.10 GAA and .931 save percentage. He was brilliant in that game, won 3-2 in overtime, stopping 51 of 53 pucks aimed at him.
Gustavsson, we recall, was traded last summer by the Ottawa Senators for goaltender Cam Talbot, 35. Talbot’s departure has already been announced, after a difficult season punctuated by injuries.
Nobody can know if Gustavsson would have had the same success this winter in Ottawa, but with the turnstile of goalies this season with the Senators (seven) and Gustavsson’s performances in Minnesota before he even reached the quarter century, the transaction does not does not make the organization look good.
