Before each season, I predict who will win the Stanley Cup. I predict who they will defeat for the Stanley Cup.
Both the champion and the runner up from those preseason predictions for 2023-24 qualified for the 2024 Stanley Cup playoffs. Rather than hedge or waver against that prognostication, I actually see a path for both of them in this tournament. Call it delusional, call it stubborn, call it hubris — I’m sticking with them.
Here is how the Stanley Cup playoffs will play out, from the opening round through the last game of the Final. I apologize in advance for spoiling the next two months for you, as obviously all of this is going to happen exactly to script and none of these picks will be incorrect.
Please enjoy the best postseason tournament in all of sports, no matter how it actually plays out.
EASTERN CONFERENCE FIRST ROUND
The Battle of Florida has been lopsided in the postseason, with the Lightning winning both previous meetings in 2021 and 2022, winning eight out of 10 games between the teams. But those were different Lightning teams.
This Lightning team is more top-heavy than ever: There’s a 29-point gap between the team’s fifth and sixth leading scorers. They don’t have injured defenseman Mikhail Sergachev, a key to their blue line. They haven’t had the same Andrei Vasilevskiy they’ve relied on for years to carry them. He missed two months with injury and posted a minus-10.84 goals saved above expected.
If Vasy is Vasy again, there’s always a chance that Tampa Bay’s collection of stars — MVP candidate Nikita Kucherov, defenseman Victor Hedman, center Brayden Point and forward Steven Stamkos — can control a seven-game series. But I think this is where that diminished supporting cast gets exposed.
Sure, the Panthers are a bit top-heavy, too. But they’re deeper down the lineup and significantly better defensively (first in goal-against average) than Tampa Bay (21st).
Winner: Panthers eliminate Lightning in five.
This is going to go one of two ways. The Leafs could skate out for Game 1, see the Spoked-B across the ice, think about the three first-round seven-game series wins the Bruins have against them in the last 11 years, and crumble. Or this series becomes like the one back in 2018, when the Washington Capitals finally overcame their own postseason tormentors, the Pittsburgh Penguins, and that momentum carried them all the way to their first Stanley Cup win in franchise history.
The goaltending matchup is going to get the most attention here, and rightfully so. The Bruins have it; the Leafs might not. The real intrigue is Boston finding a way to stop Toronto’s offense, which was second in the NHL this season (3.63 goals per game).
If they load up with Charlie McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm in an attempt to stop Auston Matthews (69 goals), that’s asking a lot from the other pairings against the Leafs’ other lines. While Charlie Coyle and Pavel Zacha have done a more than admirable job in the middle this season, it’s in the postseason where not having Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci anymore is finally going to be felt.
So, in summary, it’s the latter: The Leafs exorcize their demons, and away they go.
Winner: Maple Leafs eliminate Bruins in six games (because if it goes seven, they’re in trouble).
The only reasons we’re even humoring the Capitals here: Goalie Charlie Lindgren was fifth in the league in goals saved above expected (12.97) and won four of five games down the stretch; and Washington has had an uncanny habit of subverting expectations, making the playoffs after an aggressive bit of selling at the trade deadline.
Yes, the Rangers carry the hex of the Presidents’ Trophy: There have been 37 previous winners for having the league’s best record. Eight of them won the Stanley Cup. Eight of them didn’t make it out of the first round.
But losing to the Capitals — who don’t have the matchup…
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