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The NHL’s top two teams start their quest for the Cup tonight
The 2022 Stanley Cup playoffs opened last night with very different results for the two Canadian teams in action. In Toronto, the Maple Leafs silenced their critics (for now) with a stunning 5-0 blowout of two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay, boosting their hopes of making it past the first round for the first time in the salary cap era. In Edmonton, the Oilers’ shaky supporting cast was once again exposed in a 4-3 loss to underdog Los Angeles. Connor McDavid scored with a brilliant solo effort, but goalie Mike Smith’s late-game giveaway triggered the decisive goal.
Tonight, the only other Canadian team in the playoffs hits the ice when Calgary hosts Dallas (watch the game live at 10 p.m. ET on CBC TV, CBCSports.ca and the CBC Sports app). We examined the Pacific Division champion Flames’ Stanley Cup chances (quite good) in yesterday’s newsletter, so today let’s focus on the other two most interesting clubs in action tonight.
Florida and Colorado finished 1-2 in the overall standings this season and are the betting favourites to meet in the Cup final. They’re also two of the most entertaining teams in the league. Here’s a quick primer on each:
Florida Panthers
If you thought the Leafs’ playoff-victory drought was bad, get a load of this: Florida hasn’t won a series since its improbable, rat-infested run to the Cup final in 1996. In the 24 post-seasons since then, the franchise has won a grand total of nine games.
These Panthers, though, are a new breed. The Floridaissance can be traced back to 2011, when the Panthers drafted forward Jonathan Huberdeau third overall. Two years later, they grabbed forward Aleksander Barkov with the No. 2 pick, and the next year they added defenceman Aaron Eklbad with the No. 1 choice.
Today, those three guys form the core of a spectacular team that just won the Presidents’ Trophy for the first time in franchise history, and just became the NHL’s highest-scoring team since the 1995-1996 Lemieux/Jagr Penguins. Huberdeau piled up a career-high 115 points (trailing only McDavid McDavid), Barkov potted 39 goals in only 67 games, and Ekblad was nearly a point-per-game defenceman before missing the last 20 games with a lower-body injury. He’ll return tonight for Game 1 against the Washington Capitals, who expect to have Alex Ovechkin (upper-body injury) in the lineup.
Other Panthers forwards to watch on this incredibly deep unit include third-line centre Sam Reinhart (career-high 82 points after being liberated from Buffalo), Anthony Duclair (career-high 31 goals) and Claude Giroux (23 points in 18 games since Florida traded for Philadelphia’s former franchise player). In net, two-time Vezina Trophy winner Sergei Bobrovsky is past his prime (and overpaid) but remains above average.
Last year, Florida posted the fourth-best record in the league but had the awful luck of drawing defending (and eventual repeat) champion Tampa Bay in the first round. This time, assuming their run ‘n’ gun style holds up in the playoffs, the Panthers should at least be able to score their first series win in more than a quarter century — and maybe even go all the way.
Colorado Avalanche
Last year’s regular-season champions got bounced in the second round of the playoffs by Vegas, becoming the sixth consecutive Presidents’ Trophy winner to fail to make it past that stage. The “curse” won’t apply to this year’s Avalanche, who finished three points behind Florida to place second overall (and tops in the Western Conference) despite injuries to several key players.
Two-time Hart Trophy finalist Nathan MacKinnon missed 17 games but still produced at a 111-point pace for the third season in a row. Mikko Rantanen missed seven games but still racked up a team-high 92 points (including 36 goals), while their linemate (and captain) Gabriel Landeskog had 30 goals and 59 points in only 51 games before knee surgery. He’ll be back for Game 1 vs. Nashville tonight at 9:30 p.m. ET. Second-line centre Nazem Kadri had a career-best 87 points despite missing 11 games.
Excellent as those top forwards are (especially MacKinnon), the most brilliant Av of all might be defenceman Cale Makar. A year after placing second in Norris Trophy voting in just his second season as a pro, the 23-year-old piled up a Coffey-flavoured 28 goals and 86 points in 77 games. His name hasn’t been mentioned much in the MVP debate, but Makar’s incredible skating and puck-moving skills make him arguably the best player on arguably the best team in hockey.
In the past few seasons, goaltending was seen as the Avs’ Achilles’ heel. But they seem to have solved that problem with last summer’s trade for former Coyote Darcy Kuemper, who had the fifth-best save percentage in the league among No. 1 goalies. If the hole in net is truly patched and Colorado’s skaters are back at full strength, this team should be considered the favourite to hoist the Cup in June.
Quickly…
Guy Lafleur got his final send-off at a national funeral in Montreal. In the days leading up to today’s ceremony at a downtown Catholic cathedral, thousands of people lined up (some for hours) to pay their respects to the hockey legend and French Canadian cultural icon, who died at the age of 70. Lafleur’s casket today was draped in a Canadiens flag, and the speakers at the funeral included former Montreal teammates Yvan Cournoyer and Guy Carbonneau. Many other former and current Habs attended, along with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. As one of the most dazzling players ever, Lafleur appealed to hockey fans everywhere. But he was especially revered in Montreal, where he won five Stanley Cups in the ’70s and remains the Canadiens’ all-time leader in points, and in the province of Quebec as a whole (born in Thurso, Que., Lafleur finished his career with the Nordiques in the early ’90s). Quebec Premier François Legault today called Lafleur “the idol for the Quebec nation… We were so proud that a guy coming from here was the best player in the world.” Read more about the funeral for Lafleur here.
Bianca Andreescu’s encouraging run at the Madrid Open is over. Playing in just her second tournament of the year after a six-month break to care for her mental health, the unseeded Canadian won two matches at the clay-court event — including a 6-1, 6-1 drubbing of world No. 8 Danielle Collins. The 111th-ranked Andreescu fell in the round of 16 today to 14th-ranked Jessica Pegula, but it was nice to see the former U.S. Open champ back playing some good tennis ahead of the French Open, which starts in a few weeks. Both of the Canadian singles players still alive in Madrid are on the men’s side. Fourteenth-seeded Denis Shapovalov’s second-round match vs. Andy Murray was scheduled to start right around our publish time. Eight-seeded Felix Auger-Aliassime got a bye to the second round and will play tomorrow.
And finally…
It’s another big night for Mattea Roach. On last night’s airing of Jeopardy!, the 23-year-old tutor extended her Canadian-record winning streak to 20 games. That ties Roach with Julia Collins for the fifth-longest string ever, and puts her halfway to Amy Schneider’s women’s record of 40. A victory on tonight’s show would move Roach into sole possession of fifth place on the winning-streak list, though she’ll probably remain sixth in total regular-season winnings. At $476,985 US, Roach needs another $55,000 or so to reach fifth, and her per-game average is under $24,000. This feels like a good time to re-appreciate the fact that 2019 sensation James Holzhauer once won more than $131,000 in a single game and holds all 10 spots on the Jeopardy! Hall of Fame rankings for single-game winnings.
You’re up to speed. Talk to you tomorrow.
Reference-www.cbc.ca