The 2024 NHL regular season has come to an end, and what a ride it was. A plethora of records were broken, achievements secured, long-time rivalries renewed, and one of the closest wild card races in recent history. This postseason is full of uncertainty, so let’s get straight to it and knock these predictions out of the park.
Starting in the Eastern Conference, we’ll first take a look at the Metropolitan Division matchups. The New York Islanders, who finished third in the Metro, will be traveling to Raleigh, to take on the Carolina Hurricanes, who finished second in the Metro.
The Hurricanes are one of the best defensive teams in the entire league while having a forward core of Sebastian Aho, newly acquired Jake Guentzel, Andrei Svechnikov, and Teuvo Teravainen. They will be matched up against the Islanders’ Mat Barzal, who recorded his first PPG season since his rookie year in 2015, Bo Horvat, and Brock Nelson, who notched his third straight 30-goal season.
The biggest question mark in this series will be the goaltending for the Islanders. Last year Ilya Sorokin was a Vezina finalist, however, this year has been quite the opposite. His GAA over 3.00, combined with a SV% of just over .900 has forced them to turn to backup veteran Semyon Varlamov.
The Canes’ superb defensive structure coupled with their forward depth will more than likely be enough to come out on top. The Islanders will have to stay out of the penalty box if they want a chance in this series, ranking dead last in the league in PK%.
Official prediction: Carolina Hurricanes in 6 games
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The other Metro matchup is certainly an interesting one. On one side, you have the President’s Trophy-winning New York Rangers, facing off against the Washington Capitals, who took literally the entire season to clinch a playoff spot.
All of the numbers point to this series being over in a max of five games, but the Stanley Cup playoffs have brought wonders year in and year out. The Rangers rank top 5 in both power play and penalty kill percentage. The Capitals, on the other hand, secured a playoff spot despite owning an abysmal -37 goal differential, the worst mark for a playoff team in several decades.
The Rangers top 6 of Chris Kreider, Alexi Lafreniere, Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibanejad, Vincent Trochek, and Jack Roslovic are among one of the most well-rounded top 6s in the entire league. Having elite-caliber goalie Igor Shesterkin between the pipes makes them that much more of a contender. The high-powering special teams play previously mentioned for the Rangers is not equivalent to that of their 5 on 5 play, where they rank near the middle of the league.
However, the Capitals overall don’t possess many threats, with a shaky defense, to say the least, and a mediocre forward core doesn’t offer goaltender Charlie Lindgren much support, who has had a solid campaign with a 2.67 GAA and .911 SV%. Future Hall of Famer Alex Ovechkin began the season on a historically bad pace, and despite a great backend of the season, he alone cannot bring Washington to a second round.
Official prediction: New York Rangers in 5 games
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Heading down to South Florida, we have an all-Florida matchup as the Florida Panthers will play host to the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Cats finished first in the Atlantic Division, and the Bolts finished first in the Wild Card race.
The Florida Panthers have been arguably the best 5-on-5 team in the entire league, allowing just 200 goals on the season, only 3 more than the Winnipeg Jets. That defense has in part been supported by their stellar goaltending, split between Anthony Stolarz and Sergei Bobrovsky, where they both rank top 5 in the league in GAA, and Stolarz leads the league in SV%.
The Panthers’ offense deserves their flowers too, in a season where Sam Reinhart notched 57 goals, along with both Matthew Tkachuk and Aleksander Barkov having over PPG seasons, logging 88 and 80 points respectively. The icing on the cake this season has been defenseman Gustav Forsling, who made his mark on the league this season with a league-leading plus-minus rating of +56.
The Lightning is no team to write off though. Nikita Kucherov became just the fifth player in NHL history to pot 100 assists, only the second player this season to do so. Veteran Steven Stamkos and Brayden Point, along with Kucherov, have combined to make the league’s best powerplay, at a remarkable 28.6%. Tampa is also solid on the defensive offense side of the puck.
A deep Lightning team is backed by one of the most electric goalies in recent playoff history, Andrei Vasilevskiy. Vasilevskiy, or Vasy as fans call him, has been absolutely lights out in the playoffs since 2020.
In the past 4 trips to the playoffs, Vasilevskiy has a complete stat line of 50-27-0, .915 SV%, and a 2.47 GAA. Truly sensational. All things considered, this Tampa team isn’t the same team that went back to back in 2020 and 2021, but they’ve got the pieces for a run.
Official prediction: Tampa Bay Lightning in 7 games
The 2021 Lightning pose with the cup as they go back to back, this time defeating the Montreal Canadiens in 5 games.
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Our final matchup is an original 6 classic, where the 2-seeded Boston Bruins will face off against the 3-seeded Toronto Maple Leafs. This will be their seventeenth meeting against each other, another chapter in the long book of their rivalry.
After a historic season of a record-setting 65 wins, just to fall off of a cliff and ultimately be defeated in 7 games by the Florida Panthers, the Bruins are looking for a longer run this time around. They weren’t expected to compete at this level, however.
Long-time vet and future HoFer Patrice Bergeron retired in the off-season, as well as tenured teammate David Krejci, the B’s were expected to perform worse than the season prior. That was not the result, in which Boston finished just 1 point behind the Panthers for the Atlantic division title, tallying 109 on the year.
David Pastrnak led the Bruins to the postseason with his 47-goal, 63-assist season. Pastrnak led the team in scoring for the third time in four years.
On the other side of the matchup, we have the Toronto Maple Leafs. They were truly the laughing stock of the playoffs for the past 17 years as they could not make it past the first round, despite 7 postseason berths over that span. That streak finally came to an end, however, as they took down the Lightning in 7 games last season, with John Tavares scoring the clinching goal.
Auston Matthews had a historic season in which he put home 69 goals, the most in a season since Mario Lemieux in the 1995-96 season. However, the Maple Leafs have had a bad trend of poor goaltending, and this season is no exception.
Toronto’s 3 goalies, Joseph Woll, Martin Jones, and Ilya Samsonov have been middle of the pack at best this year. Combined, they have an average GAA of 3.18 and average SV% of .898. This is simply not playoff contender stats. All things considered, the Leafs’ heavy reliance on their top 6 along with the Bruins’ tight defensive structure seems to prove to be a lopsided battle.
Official prediction: Boston Bruins in 6 games
Bruins’ goalie Tim Thomas embraces the cup as the 2013 squad was the first Boston team to win the cup in 39 years.
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