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NHL Playoffs
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We’re well into the conference finals, having now witnessed over a month’s worth of playoff performances. For some fans, now would be the time to celebrate the best of the best and spend some time admiring the players who’ve elevated their games when it matters most.
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For the other 99 percent of us, there’s this column. It’s playoff disappointment time.
As always, some ground rules™:
• We’re building a 21-man roster, with 12 forwards, six defensemen and three goalies, because we’ll need that extra guy. Beyond that, positions don’t matter. We’ll also have a coach and GM, because the guys in suits deserve some scrutiny, too.
• There’s a maximum of three spots per team.
• Every playoff team must be represented at least once.
And yes, that last rule applies to the teams that are still playing, which opens the door to that fun situation where I call somebody a bust and then they score four goals that night. I’m willing to take that risk because it’s the playoffs, and it’s all about courage.
As with any great team, we build from the net out …
We might as well start with a bang, as Hellebuyck’s early struggles may have been the biggest story of the first two rounds. Despite being a sure-thing to win his third Vezina Trophy as the league’s best goalie this year, Hellebuyck’s playoff struggles were a well-worn narrative, especially after he was shelled last year. This time, he was at least able to get the Jets out of the first round, although that’s not much consolation for a team that needed more. He was often shaky at home and outright awful on the road, although he got better as the Stars series went on. Ultimately, an .866 save percentage was nowhere near good enough, and now you have to wonder how much the Jets can count on their franchise player going forward.
The Vezina finalist spent the regular season announcing, “I’m back.” Then he spent five playoff games saying “just kidding,” posting a miserable .872 save percentage against the Panthers. It’s the third postseason in a row that he’s been under .900, and the third in a row that’s seen him and the Lightning out after round one. That’s hard to accept for Tampa fans, even if we all know whose fault it is.
I’m not sure which is more surprising: that the 2023 Cup hero went cold in this year’s playoffs, or that the notoriously impatient Golden Knights left him in the crease the whole time. It could have paid off, and it’s not like you can blame the goalie when your season ends on back-to-back shutouts. But you need your goalie to be great to beat the Oilers, and an .887 won’t cut it.
At 35, you’re no longer expecting the sort of offensive numbers that nearly won him the Norris Trophy in 2020. But you’d like to see more than a single secondary assist at even strength across two rounds of playoff action. Worse, he led the league in expected goals against per 60 among defensemen who played at least 100 minutes.
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His comeback from injury was a great story, and there were times during the season when the 35-year-old looked like his younger, Norris-contending self. Those moments were few and far between in the postseason, with the Kings mostly underwater during his five-on-five minutes by just about every available metric, including plain old goals (where he was a minus-7 for the series). It’s the top-heavy Oilers, we get it, but the Kings needed more.
This feels a little unfair, given he was coming back from an injury. Almost any production might have felt like a bonus, even as the Devils needed everything they could get. Instead, Hamilton managed just two first-period secondary assists in the series, while the expected goals for his ice time dipped below 40 percent.
The good news is that Spurgeon scored 100 percent of the goals that the Wild got from the blue line against Vegas. The bad news is that it adds up to one goal. The more unfortunate news is that it was Spurgeon’s only point of the series. The even more unfortunate news is that the captain was also underwater by just about every metric.
He hasn’t been awful, but you’d like to see a bit more from the Oilers’ highest-paid defenseman, especially with Mattias Ekholm out. Instead, you could argue that Nurse’s biggest contribution has been taking Roope Hintz out with a slash. Still, I’m mostly using Nurse here to fill out the blue line, and because it would feel mean to pick Jeff Skinner after he waited 15 seasons to make his playoff debut and then immediately got benched.
Zub’s one of those old-school shutdown defensemen where you’re happy if you don’t notice them at all. Sometimes those guys can be the hidden key to a playoff upset. Sometimes, like Zub did against the Leafs, they put up the single worst on-ice expected goals percentage of any defenseman in the postseason while leading the league in high-danger chances allowed per 60. Partner Jake Sanderson should wear some of that, too, but at least he had an OT winner.
We might as well start the forward group with our captain. Matthews once again delivered a quiet postseason, this time with just three goals in 13 games. He was hurt (like probably most of the guys on this list), and his two-way game was fine. But we all know the story in Toronto by now, and this time it cost the president his job.
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The back-to-back Art Ross Trophy winner didn’t have a goal and was held to just four assists, with three of those coming in the Lightning’s only win. In four losses, Kucherov managed just a single assist, and that came early in Game 1. Not a great performance for a guy who’s led the postseason in scoring twice in his career.
It’s been a weird postseason so far for Tkachuk, who’s very clearly hurt and maybe wouldn’t even be playing if it were November instead of May. He’s still putting up nearly a point-per-game, but that includes only four goals, and just one in his last 13 games. Given how we’ve seen him elevate his game in previous playoffs, it’s strange to see him be just kind of there this year. With the potential for some rest and recovery time before the final, if the Panthers can close the series out on Wednesday, there’s a good chance this pick comes back to haunt me.
I’ll be honest, I kind of forgot Benn was on this team when I first made this list. (I had Jason Robertson as my first Stars pick, so Dallas fans, you’re welcome for those two goals over the last two games.) Benn isn’t the Art Ross guy he once was, but you’d hope for more than one goal and three points, especially in what could be his final run with the only team he’s ever known. Maybe he’s saving the best for a dramatic finish?
Call this the Mikko Rantanen effect, because Necas wasn’t bad — his five points were tied for third on the team. But when the guy you were essentially traded for is lighting up the series on the other side, the spotlight is going to shine brighter on your production. And Necas had just one goal and four assists in a series in which Rantanen went for five and seven.
The Senators’ problem was that most of their best players were pretty good in a playoff series where they were going to need a few guys to be great. Cozens didn’t even get to pretty good in his long-awaited playoff debut, with only two points. Or, as his former Sabres teammates would call it, “a Conn Smythe-worthy performance.”
With Jack Hughes out, the Devils needed their remaining stars to shine to have any chance against the Hurricanes. Bratt managed just three points, and the Devils got rolled.
Hertl laid a postseason egg for the second straight year, contributing just three goals and five points over 11 games. The Golden Knights’ inability to summon offense when they needed it was their biggest story of the postseason, and Hertl’s line was a huge part of that.
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Coming off what had seemed like a breakout year in which he had career highs of 30 goals and 89 points, Suzuki couldn’t get much going against the Capitals. He had two goals, and they were both important. But that was it for the offense, leaving him tied in the series scoring ranks with guys such as Trevor van Riemsdyk and Alexandre Carrier.
After hitting the 70-point mark for the third time in four years, Kyrou couldn’t get much going in the playoffs. He scored three times but didn’t have any helpers, and his opener, a minute into Game 7, was his only even-strength point of the series.
He was part of Team Canada at the 4 Nations because he’s supposed to be the sort of guy you can go to battle with when games are toughest. But against the Panthers, he was limited to just a single point — and that was an empty net goal in a game that was already decided. Put it this way, when your only point isn’t even the most memorable thing that happens on that shift, it hasn’t been a great postseason.
Believe it or not, the Hurricanes have made it to the conference final before running into (among other things) a lack of offensive firepower. You don’t expect Kotkaniemi to be a game breaker, but you wouldn’t mind a goal. For the second straight playoff run, he hasn’t provided one and was even a healthy scratch against the Panthers.
Maybe the easiest pick for this whole roster. We’re probably at the point where the “One no-hope challenge cost the Kings the entire series” narrative is a bit overdone. But it was a series turning point, without question. It’s tough to go back and read Eric’s piece from after that game, in which everyone acknowledges that Hiller’s mistake could flip the series. It did, and while it wasn’t the Kings’ only problem, it’s a moment that nobody’s going to forget anytime soon.
OK, one last Rantanen reference. MacFarland couldn’t have enjoyed watching the player he chose to trade light his team up in a Game 7, especially with Necas failing to come close to keeping up. Mix in deadline acquisitions, Brock Nelson and Charlie Coyle, combining for one goal and four assists in the series, and MacFarland’s probably glad that half of you still think Joe Sakic is the GM in Colorado.
(Illustration: Demetrius Robinson / The Athletic; Mike Carlson, Cameron Bartlett, Juan Ocampo / NHLI / Getty Images)
Sean McIndoe has been a senior NHL writer with The Athletic since 2018. He launched Down Goes Brown in 2008 and has been writing about hockey ever since, with stops including Grantland, Sportsnet and Vice Sports. His book, “The Down Goes Brown History of the NHL,” is available in book stores now. Follow Sean on Twitter @DownGoesBrown
