While the Bruins were beating the Maple Leafs 2-1 in overtime Thursday night, their three most likely first-round opponents were posting impressive wins of their own.
Bruins beat Leafs in overtime; McAvoy leaves with injury
The Panthers scored a touchdown for the second time in three games, beating the Senators 7-2 for their fifth straight win. The Islanders took advantage of a rest night for Andrei Vasilevskiy and lit up the Lightning in a 6-1 beatdown. And the Penguins beat a good Wild team, 4-1.
Two of those three teams will make the playoffs as Eastern Conference wild card teams. One will miss out and have its season end next week. As of Friday morning, the Panthers and Islanders are tied at 89 points, and the Penguins are right behind at 88. All three have three games remaining. The Sabres haven’t been eliminated yet, but they have a lot of ground to make up even with two games in hand, as they currently sit six points out of the eighth spot.
Leaving Buffalo out of it until or unless something crazy happens over the next week, the Bruins’ first-round opponent will be whichever of the Panthers, Islanders or Penguins finishes in the second wild card spot. The one that gets the first spot will face the winner of the Metropolitan Division, which remains up for grabs between the Hurricanes and Devils.
The Bruins will and should be heavily favored against any of them, and they obviously won’t say if they have any preference between them. But that’s why we’re here! Let’s rank Boston’s potential first-round opponents from easiest to hardest:
Easiest: Pittsburgh Penguins
The Penguins aren’t just the easiest opponent of the three, but this was also the easiest spot to rank. The Panthers and Islanders both offer at least some reason for concern for the Bruins. It’s hard to find one with the Pens.
Yes, Sidney Crosby (88 points) and Evgeni Malkin (81) are still playing at a high level into the twilight of their careers. It’s an indictment of general manager Ron Hextall that he’s put a team around them that not only isn’t a Cup contender, but may not even be a playoff team.
The Penguins rank 16th in team offense, 19th in team defense, 17th on the power play, 17th on the penalty kill, and 19th in 5-on-5 goal differential. They are the definition of mediocre -- or, as the kids say, mid.
Goalie Tristan Jarry has struggled mightily since returning from injury on Feb. 20, posting an .886 save percentage in 17 appearances. There just isn’t anything here that should scare the Bruins.
The Penguins face Detroit on Saturday and then finish up with two of the worst teams in the NHL in Chicago and Columbus, so they may very well find a way to squeak in. That won’t suddenly make them more formidable than the Panthers or Islanders, though.
Medium: Florida Panthers
It’s close between the Panthers and Islanders. The debate is basically which worries you more: The high-end talent and offensive firepower of the Panthers, or the elite goaltending of Ilya Sorokin for the Islanders. For what it’s worth, my two Skate Pod co-hosts, Brian DeFelice and Bridgette Proulx, both opposed me on this one and said they’d rather face the Islanders.
Who would be the toughest first-round matchup for the B's?
After a slow start to the season, the Panthers since the All-Star break have looked a little more like the team that won the Presidents’ Trophy last season. Over the last two months, they rank second in the NHL in scoring (3.78 goals per game) and first in 5-on-5 scoring (3.34 goals per game).
Matthew Tkachuk is fourth in the NHL in points (105). Aleksander Barkov is having another great two-way season. Carter Verhaeghe quietly has 40 goals. Brandon Montour is tied for fourth among defensemen with 71 points. Radko Gudas is tied for the league lead in hits (297). Aaron Ekblad is actually healthy.
But the Panthers still rank 22nd in goals against and 24th in expected goals against. Sergei Bobrovsky, long removed from his Vezina Trophy years, has an .892 save percentage over his last 15 games and is basically league-average on the season at .901. Veteran journeyman Alex Lyon has actually been better recently, but would the Panthers really start him over their $10 million man in the playoffs?
The Panthers’ wide-open style of play didn’t hold up in the playoffs last year, as they got swept by a much more well-rounded Lightning team in the second round. They got a little nastier with the trade for Tkachuk, but they still don’t play enough defense and still don’t have the goaltending. It’s hard to see that being a winning formula against a team as talented, as deep and as structured as Boston.
The Panthers have the toughest remaining schedule of the three, facing the Capitals on Saturday before finishing up with the Maple Leafs and Hurricanes.
Hardest: New York Islanders
The Islanders edge out the Panthers for toughest matchup for one reason and one reason only: Ilya Sorokin.
Sorokin is the only goalie who conceivably has a case to steal some Vezina votes from Linus Ullmark. While making 11 more starts and facing 300 more shots than Ullmark, Sorokin ranks third in save percentage (.924) and fifth in goals-against average (2.38). Sorokin tops Ullmark in Evolving-Hockey’s goals saved above expected (49.2 to 37.1) and ranks just behind him in the same metric from MoneyPuck (41.3 to 38.6).
The Islanders are admittedly not very scary outside of Sorokin. They do have a big, mobile defense led by the likes of Adam Pelech, Ryan Pulock, Scott Mayfield and Noah Dobson that can present some problems, and has in postseasons past.
At the other end of the ice, though, they struggle to score. The Islanders rank 23rd in goals per game, 16th in 5-on-5 scoring, and 30th on the power play. The return of Mathew Barzal, who has been out injured since Feb. 18, would help, but it remains unclear if that will come in time for the start of the playoffs. Big midseason addition Bo Horvat has not made the impact many anticipated, posting 13 points through 27 games in New York after having 54 in 49 games with Vancouver to start the year.
It's hard to get too worried about a matchup with the Islanders given their offensive struggles, but we all know great goaltending can steal a couple games and possibly a whole series, and Sorokin is a great goalie. He alone makes them the least ideal matchup of the Bruins’ three potential first-round opponents.
The Islanders close out the regular season with three non-playoff teams, facing the Flyers, Capitals and Canadiens.
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