Tampa Bay vs. Florida

The Panthers enter the battle for Florida off another stellar regular season, winning the Atlantic division and allowing the fewest goals against in the Eastern Conference, 200, while sporting the best plus/minus in the NHL at +68. While last year’s team was defined by offense, this year’s team is a well-rounded juggernaut that has an exceptional home-ice advantage.

They are also playoff-tested after their deep run last year, eventually losing in the Stanley Cup Finals to the Golden Knights.

The Lightning come in with the same core that won back-to-back Stanley Cups, but this team is a few years older and more reliant on first-line scoring than ever. That would have been fine if they hadn’t regressed defensively and in the net. The once-stingy Lightning gave up the most goals during the regular season of any team to make the playoffs in the East and Andrei Vasilevskiy is sporting his highest goals against average of his career.

Florida has the advantage all over the ice in this series and should be able to advance quickly. I priced this series out at -220 for the Panthers, so the -170 offers a boatload of value.

NHL Playoff Best Bets: Florida -170, Florida -1.5 Games +115

Nashville vs. Vancouver

Vancouver jumped out to a hot start and was the darling of the NHL early, vastly outplaying expectations.

Nashville was the exact opposite. This team disappointed from the jump but stormed home since mid-February, including 6- and 8-game win streaks, to play themselves into the playoffs. They turned a corner defensively and have been able to get timely goals and consistent goaltending.

While I respect this Vancouver team, they feel slightly ahead of schedule and lack the third- and fourth-line scoring depth that tends to match so much come playoff time.

NHL Playoff Best Bets: Nashville +135

Dallas/LA Thoughts

This series was built for the under, especially first-period Unders.

Dallas Stars +850 to Win the Stanley Cup

The Dallas Stars finished in second place in the NHL standings, just one point shy of the President’s Trophy-winning New York Rangers. Dallas has looked like one of the most complete teams that there are in the entire league, and one thing that sticks out is their depth at forward.

The Stars have eight different players who scored 20+ goals this season: Wyatt Johnston (32), Roope Hintz (30), Jason Robertson (29), Joe Pavelski (27), Tyler Seguin (25), Matt Duchene (25), Mason Marchment (22), and Jamie Benn (21).

What’s scary about this is that the Stars’ third line consists of a 30-goal scorer (Johnston) and a 20-goal scorer (Benn), which makes it very difficult for the opponent to fully shut them down offensively.

Dallas had a very strong end to their season as they went 18-6-1 over the course of their last 25 games of the season and they were clicking in all facets of the game. As a team, they were scoring 3.36 goals per game over that stretch, only allowing 2.40 goals against per game and their special teams looked elite. The Stars’ power play had converted at a 26.7% rate, while their penalty kill was at 81%.

There aren’t many concerns on the backend as well. The team went out and acquired Chris Tanev, who has really strengthened their blue line physically. They also had a breakout season from the 22-year-old Thomas Harley, who had 15 goals and was a +28.

If you think this all sounds scary, their goaltending could possibly even be their biggest weapon. Jake Oettinger had a phenomenal season and finished strong as well with a record of 18-5-2 in his last 25 starts while skating to a .906 save percentage and a 2.44 goals against average.

Oettinger’s playoff numbers are impressive as well. In 28 starts, he is boasting a 2.64 goals against average and a .917 save percentage. He can carry this team to a Stanley Cup.

There aren’t any weaknesses for this team and that’s what makes them scary.

Dallas could very well be crowned the Stanley Cup Champions.

Toronto at Boston
In what should be the most exciting first-round series, it is time for the Toronto Maple Leafs to exorcise some demons. The Boston Bruins are Toronto’s kryptonite, but this year feels like the year where the Leafs might actually be the better team.

Boston certainly has the edge in goal with Jeremy Swayman and Linus Ullmark. They probably have the better blue line as well, but Toronto’s depth at center and with their forwards might be the difference maker in this series.

The Maple Leafs’ top-six forwards are much scarier than Boston’s outside of David Pastrnak and Brad Marchand, but over the last 30+ the Bruins haven’t played very consistently. In their last 33 games to end the season, Boston went 16-11-6, which is below .500 hockey if you think about it, and they have struggled to put teams away offensively. Over the course of those games, the Bruins were only averaging 2.79 goals per game, while their power play was at 16.1%.

Aside from this past week, the Leafs were playing some pretty solid hockey down the stretch. In this same span, they went 21-12-2 and were scoring 3.89 goals per game. That said, this feels like it’s Auston Matthews time to shine. After tallying 69 goals in the regular season and 107 points, Matthews has become a very dangerous, complete player. I think he is going to put this team on his shoulders. He and John Tavares are much better down the middle than Pavel Zacha and Charlie Coyle, who are Boston’s top two centers.

Ilya Samsonov will have to step up in goal and play his best hockey to compete with Ullmark and Swayman, but Matthews, Tavares, William Nylander, and Mitch Marner finally feel like they can break through.