Toronto Maple Leafs: Round 1 Western Conference NHL Playoff Predictions
While the Toronto Maple Leafs finished fourth in the entire NHL and drew the unlucky straw of the reigning champion; in the West, things are a little nicer.
The Calgary Flames finished sixth in the league, 4 points back from the Toronto Maple Leafs and were rewarded with the league’s 15th place side, the Dallas Stars in round one.
Such is the strength of the Atlantic Division and Eastern Conference on the whole. In fact, the only Western Conference team above the Leafs were the Colorado Avalanche.
The opening round in the West certainly has some interesting looking match-ups and probably has the best odds of an upset series win or two.
After all, given the strength of all the Eastern Conference participants in this year’s playoffs, would any one team winning over another truly be seen as an upset.
Of interest to Toronto Maple Leafs fans will be a few former players set to be in action across the Western Conference match-ups.
The stand-out of course being Colorado Avalanche centre Nazem Kadri, who will be hoping to redeem himself from a rather dubious trend of being suspended in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Also of note is former Leafs prospect Sean Durzi who has made himself an important piece on the Los Angeles Kings’ blue-line, while former top line favourite Zach Hyman is headed back to the playoffs in his first year with the Edmonton Oilers.
The match-ups certainly look to be juicy in the Western Conference; anyhow, on with the predictions.
Colorado Avalanche vs Nashville Predators
The Colorado Avalanche of course feature a former Toronto Maple Leafs favorite in Nazem Kadri and there will be plenty of interest around whether he ends up suspended as he so often has in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Colorado are the Western Conference form team; indeed they came mighty close to claiming the President’s Trophy. All expectations are that they should handle the Predators with some level of ease.
However, that doesn’t factor for the recent hot form of Mikael Granlund, who hit the playoffs with 9 points in his last 5 games. Never rule out the talent of Roman Josi on their blue-line either.
Looking at the very basic statistics though, it really will be Colorado’s game to lose.
At even strength, the Colorado Avalanche are a top-ten team in both Goals For and Goals Against. Likewise, they were the top goal scoring team on the powerplay in the regular season.
Nashville by comparison were right up there, with the fifth most Goals For on the powerplay but will find themselves challenged with the fourth-worst Goals Against on the penalty kill.
This makes them incredibly vulnerable to the roster depth that the Avalanche bring to the table.
The likes of Nazem Kadri, Andre Burakovsky and Valeri Nichushkin certainly wouldn’t look out of place on some teams’ first lines, such is the strength of the Avalanche top-six.
Let’s not forget that they also ice one of the most impressive young defensemen in the league in Cale Makar.
The Colorado Avalanche have been justly rewarded (unlike the Toronto Maple Leafs) for an impressive regular season and should take this series in 5.
Statistics courtesy of Natural Stat Trick.
Minnesota Wild vs St. Louis Blues
Traditionally, these two teams would look to play a series that is the exact opposite of the end-to-end offense you expect from the Toronto Maple Leafs clash with Tampa.
However this season, this may very well prove the most exciting series in the West. The Blues and Wild were the third and fourth highest goal scoring sides in the league this year.
In fact, only the Toronto Maple Leafs and Florida Panthers offered up more in the Goals For column.
Kirill Kaprizov has arrived in Minnesota and completely flipped the script. Perpetually the also-ran or the side just good enough to make playoffs but not go anywhere, suddenly the Wild have direction.
Their young Russian is heading this change. He’s the franchise’s first ever 100-point scorer and not only that it’s 108 points; two more than the Toronto Maple Leafs leading guy. Hardly something to sniff at.
On the other side of the fence, you have a St. Louis Blues side that still features a lot of its Stanley Cup winning core group. They also feature a bit more depth through their top-nine which is always key in the postseason.
Perhaps the big surprise is the goaltending in this match-up.
Looking at that Stanley Cup winning side, it was Jordan Binnington who carried the Blues through. He has found himself usurped by Ville Husso as the number one in St. Louis.
Compare this to the Wild net and it’s actually anyone’s guess who starts in the first round.
Marc-Andre Fleury was a trade target of the Toronto Maple Leafs but now finds himself the partner of Cam Talbot which presents a reasonably formidable duo.
This is one of the series you could reasonably safely expect to go to a full seven game series.
Predicting that the Blues edge this series 4-3 purely on the basis of having a little more elimination game experience at this point.
Calgary Flames vs Dallas Stars
The Calgary Flames achieved something the Toronto Maple Leafs couldn’t this season and that was having three players among the league’s top 30 point scorers.
That makes them a huge threat to sweep their series with the Stars. However, Dallas still has enough about them that they should make this a real match-up.
Regardless of their final league positions, the Dallas Stars will be riding into the Stanley Cup Playoffs with some momentum as they were playing for their spot essentially until the last week of the campaign.
If the Stars are to overcome the Pacific Division champions, they need some of their bigger names to fire. Joe Pavelski, Roope Hintz and Jason Robertson have been their shining lights this season.
Tyler Seguin and Jamie Benn have been relatively quiet and that should absolutely be a concern for the Flames.
For all that fear though, the Dallas Stars will need to overcome the fact their goaltending has fallen on Jake Oettinger this year with injuries to far more playoff experienced names, Braden Holtby and Anton Khudobin.
At the opposite end, the Flames have the league leader for shutouts this season in Jacob Markstrom, while Dan Vladar has shown himself to be no pushover.
Despite being the league sixth placed team against the fifteenth place team, it’s not going to be an easy match-up for the Calgary Flames and they could find themselves very much at risk of an upset.
With that said though, it’s hard to overlook the talent the Calgary Flames have on their top line.
The way that Matthew Tkachuk plays the game is made for the Stanley Cup Playoffs and for that reason, it’s hard to look past the Flames.
Dallas aren’t about to make it easy for them, but the Flames will get it done in 6 games.
Edmonton Oilers vs Los Angeles Kings
It’s very easy to look at the Edmonton Oilers and say that with the talents of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, they are practically in the second round already.
However, as any Toronto Maple Leafs fan knows, talent alone can’t win a playoff round. The fact that Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and company haven’t been past round one speaks to that.
This is where the Los Angeles Kings must absolutely key in on the weakness.
With Dustin Brown announcing his retirement after this postseason concludes, the Kings now have someone to rally around and do their utmost to give him a fitting send-off.
Of course, riding on the emotional tug of getting it done for your former captain will likely only get you so far against such big talents though.
It’s also worth noting that the immense offensive talent on the Oilers will be lining up against a defense that is lacking a fair bit of depth.
Indeed, former Toronto Maple Leafs prospect Sean Durzi is their ice-time leading defenseman on the power play this season. That from a player still in his rookie NHL campaign.
It certainly speaks to some depth challenges within the Kings line-up. Having Drew Doughty on injured reserve isn’t helping their situation either.
As a Toronto Maple Leafs fan, there’s plenty of recognizable names beyond Durzi; the likes of Trevor Moore and Carl Grundstrom also feature, while Phillip Danualt is a name we know a little too well.
Realistically though, this iteration of the Kings team feels almost like the Toronto Maple Leafs back in 2016-17, when they managed to make the playoffs in Matthews’ rookie year.
Next. Eastern Conference Predictions. dark
They have done a good job making the playoffs but simply put the Edmonton Oilers will prove too strong for them. Edmonton in 5.