Buffalo, N.Y. (WGR 550) – The 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs get underway on Saturday with two games scheduled in the Eastern Conference.
Up first, the New York Islanders visit the Carolina Hurricanes, pitting the No. 3 team in the NHL (Carolina) against the No. 15 team (Islanders).
What helps make the Hurricanes such a hard team to play against is their special teams. Carolina is the best penalty killing team in the league at 86.4%, while their power play is second at 26.9%.
Freddie Andersen missed quite a bit of the season with blood clots, but when the goaltender got back in the nets, he was stellar. He’s played 10 games since his return from the blood clots and had a .951 save percentage.
In 16 games this season, Andersen was 13-2-0 with a 1.84 goals-against average and a .932 save percentage.
Carolina made a huge acquisition at the NHL Trade Deadline, acquiring Jake Guentzel from the Pittsburgh Penguins. In 17 games with the Canes, Guentzel had eight goals and 17 assists for 25 points.
Their offensive leader is Sebastian Aho. In 78 games this season, he had 36 goals and 53 assists for 89 points.
The Hurricanes also have two other 30-goal scorers on the roster in Seth Jarvis (33) and Guentzel (30), who did it in only 67 games
Carolina finished the regular season with five wins in six games.
Against the Islanders this season, the Hurricanes were 2-1-1, with the road team winning all four games.
These two teams faced each other last year with Carolina winning in six games. They also played in 2019, and the Hurricanes earned a sweep in four games.
You can’t talk about the New York Islanders without talking about Patrick Roy.
Back on Jan. 20, the Islanders fired head coach Lane Lambert and replaced him behind the bench with Roy. At that point, New York was 19-15-11.
Under the tutelage of Roy on Long Island, the Islanders proceeded to go 20-12-5.
The Hurricanes didn’t have an answer for Mat Barzal this year, as he had eight points in the four games the two teams played against one another.
Barzal is New York’s leading scorer this season with 23 goals and 57 assists for 80 points.
The Islanders got 30-goal seasons from Brock Nelson (34), Bo Hovat (33) and Kyle Palmieri (30). Palmieri is on a seven-game point streak, scoring 10 goals and 13 points.
In reality, this team lives and dies with goalie Ilya Sorokin. He is good enough to steal a series at any time.
While Sorokin's numbers weren’t great this season, he is the backbone of this team with a 25-19-12 record, a 3.01 goals-against average and a .909 save percentage.
If Sorokin gets hurt or is ineffective, Semyon Varlamov is right there behind him, finishing the season 8-1-1.
The Islanders block a lot of shots on defense, which can frustrate any opposing team.
Noah Dobson’s career-high for assists had been 38, but he recorded 60 this season, giving him a career-high 70 points. His career-high for points had been 51.
However, Dobson missed the final three games of the regular season due to injury, and his team needs him. He was listed as day-to-day.
Considering the Islanders are 19th in the league on the power play and are dead last at 32nd in penalty killing, the Hurricanes have a huge advantage there.
New York earned its playoff spot by being red-hot to finish the season. The Islanders won 8-of-9 games, and got points in all nine. They were 16-7-2 in their last 25 games.
As for the second playoff tilt on Saturday, it pins the Toronto Maple Leafs against the Boston Bruins for the 17th time in the playoffs. So far, the Bruins and Maple Leafs have split their playoff matchups in half.
Last season, the Maple Leafs beat the Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round of the playoffs, 4-2, marking the first time they had won a series since 2004. It didn’t do them much good, as they then lost to the Florida Panthers in the next round in five games.
Now they’re back to playing the Bruins, who has beaten Toronto in the last six series between the two teams. The last three matchups in the Stanley Cup Playoffs have gone a full seven games.
The Bruins also lost to Florida in last year's playoffs, losing in their first round series in seven games after a historic regular season.
This series features the league's seventh-ranked team in the Bruins against the 10th-best team in the Maple Leafs.
We all know Toronto can score goals. The Leafs are second in the NHL, scoring 3.63 goals per-game. The problem is they’re up against the fifth-stingiest defense, as the Bruins' goals-against average with Jeremy Swayman and Linus Ullmark in net is 2.70.
The biggest question mark is in goal and on defense for Toronto.
Can Ilya Samsonov hold up? Samsonov was so bad earlier this season, he was put on waivers and nobody claimed him. However, he did manage to come back from the Toronto Marlies as a new goalie.
Overall, he finished this season with a 23-7-8 with a 3.13 goals-against average and a .890 save percentage.
What a season Auston Matthews had for the Maple Leafs. He led the NHL with a career-high 69 goals, and was sixth in the NHL with 107 points.
Will Nylander added 98 points for Toronto this season.
Mitch Marner suffered through some injuries, but still had 26 goals and 59 assists for 85 points in 69 games.
At 33-years-old, John Tavares isn’t what he used to be, but still put up 29 goals and 36 assists for 65 points.
With nothing to play for, Toronto finished the season on a four-game losing streak. Before that, they had won 6-of-7.
In four games against Boston this season, Toronto was 0-2-2.
Boston was battling Florida for first place in the Atlantic Division, but they failed thanks to three losses in four games to finish the season.
The Bruins were a perfect 4-0-0 against the Leafs this season, with David Pastrnak getting seven points in four games. Swayman only gave up four goals in three of those games.
Swayman played 44 games this season for Boston, while Ullmark played 40. Their numbers were almost identical, with Swayman going 25-10-8 with a 2.53 goals-against average and a .916 save percentage, while Ullmark went 22-10-7 with a 2.57 goals-against average and a .915 save percentage.
We may get a chance to see both goalies in this series.
Boston was 13th in goal scoring, and are led by Pastrnak, who was seventh in the league with 47 goals. Pastrnak’s 110 points was fifth overall in the league.
Bruins captain Brad Marchand also chipped in with 29 goals.
This series will boil down to if the Leafs can get good goaltending, and if their offense can break through.
Ullmark was a shell of himself in the playoffs last season, and that’s why I think he and Swayman will both play. Boston went against what had worked for them all year, and it cost them the series against Florida.
