The Toronto Maple Leafs and the Eastern Conference: Playoff Locks and Contenders
Which Eastern Conference Teams are a lock for the Playoffs?
The Toronto Maple Leafs are not having a good off-season, but due to their pre-existing excellence, they are absolute and total locks to make the playoffs.
The Toronto Maple Leafs are a weird team because they constantly make bad decisions about who should surround their superstars, but their superstars are so good that it almost doesn't matter.
I mean, it matters a bit - they certainly haven't won anything, and I recently came across a blurb in the Toronto Star that mentioned that no team had ever been this good for this long in the regular season while failing so badly in the playoffs.
Like, not just no hockey teams either - no teams of any kind.
It's not the kind of record you want to have, but it does make you think - maybe this team isn't as bad as everyone says? Maybe they really just have been snake-bitten in the playoffs?
I mean, I've been saying that for eight years so you know I believe it. I don't think anyone else does, but I ride with the Core 4 to the end.
Besides the Toronto Maple Leafs, which other seven teams will make the Eastern Conference playoffs next season?
While obviously we don't know for sure, we can make some educated guesses.
The fact is, however, that the NHL is a salary capped professional league and injuries and luck play almost as big a part as roster construction in deciding who will be good and who won't be.
Still, some things, like that ads on jerseys are disgusting tributes to greed and avarice, or Columbus not making the playoffs, can be taken for granted.
We know the Leafs are in and Columbus is out. The rest is just guessing, but here goes:
The Toronto Maple Leafs and the Eastern Conference: Playoff Locks and Contenders
Locks:
The Leafs have made the Playoffs in every year of Auston Matthews career. This is a fantastic accomplishment that will only be retroactively recognized when the team wins the Stanley Cup.
The Leafs are right smack dab in the middle of the longest unbroken string of contender status in the history of the NHL's most ancient and revered franchise. Again, you wouldn't know it, and again, it will only be recognized retroactively after victory, but I assure you, that victory will come.
Eventually.
The Toronto Maple Leafs and the Stanley Cup Winning Florida Panthres are 100% locks to make the playoffs.
You can add the New Jersey Devils to this group, as they are an awesome team on the rise who were short-circuited last year due to goaltending and injuries.
They will a contender this season and that's just a fact.
The New York Rangers have a sick roster and a top goalie. The Carolina Hurricanes aren't going anywhere either. Both teams are guaranteed to make the playoffs.
That is five teams that are pretty much guaranteed to make it, meaning the other 11 teams are fighting for 3 spots.
Almost Certainly Not Making It
Columbus, Montreal and Detroit have basically no chance.
The Blue Jackets are a ridiculous franchise and if they were actually good, I'd have to re-assess everything.
Are jean-jackets still cool? Do I still like rap music? Coffee? Long walks on the beach with Benji the Austrailian Sheppard?
If Columbus was a good team, the world would tilt on its axis, is what I'm saying.
But also, don't worry about it, cause they won't be.
The Red Wings are teaching us a lesson about overrated GMs and seem like a perpetual bubble team. The Blue Jackets and Canadiens are starting to assemble good players, due to prolonged suckage, but they will still be bad.
The Capitals did a lot of stuff to try and make Ovechkin's final yeas fun, but they won't be.
The Flyers will still be fairly awful, and the Islanders are, like Detroit, just a bubble team going nowhere.
Of the 11 teams fighting for 3 spots, we have eliminated Columbus, Montreal, Detroit, Washington, Philadelphia and Long Island.
That leaves:
5 Teams for 3 Spots
Oh the Drama!
The Eastern Conference should have a fairly entertaining playoff race with five teams trying to win the final three spots.
To recap, the locks to make the playoffs are your Toronto Maple Leafs, the Carolina Hurricanes, the New York Rangers, the New Jersey Devils and the Stanley Cup Winning Florida Panthers.
Teams that will surely miss the playoffs are the Blue Jackets, Canadiens, Red Wings, Capitals, Islanders and Flyers.
And that brings us to the up-and-coming Ottawa Senators, now rocking an elite goalie in Linus Ullmark.
The Sabres blue-line is too good for them not to eventually contend.
Tampa and Boston are formerly great teams on the downswing. The Bruins always seem to get worse but their players just roll along at the top of the league. It would be nuts to count them out despite the fact they don't really look like a playoff team on paper.
Finally, the Pittsburgh Penguins: They missed the playoffs last year, but their roster is still great and they are unlikely to face such bad luck on the power-play again. Erik Karlsson, Gino Malkin and Sidney Crosby are still on the team and I wouldn't bet against them.
With all that said, here is what I think the playoffs will look like next season and please note, I'm just going by total points and not distributing the teams based on the NHL's wacky playoff seeding system:
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1. Toronto Maple Leafs 2. Buffalo Sabres 3. New Jersey Devils 4. Carolina Hurricanes 4. New York Rangers 6. Pittsburgh Penguins 7. Florida Panthers 8. Ottawa Senators