Every year, I have a tradition of posting my Stanley Cup Playoffs brackets ahead of opening night. Usually, this involves an honest-to-goodness bracket and a bracket created through the art of randomness. This year, I will add one more bracket to the mix, just for fun, with a quick explanation for all three paths.
For those who are on this site for the first time, welcome. I do not use this space very often, nor do I really know what I want to do with it, but I don’t have a hockey platform set up at the moment, and I have little interest in chopping this up into social media threads on platforms I want to spend less time on.
The Coin Of Destiny Bracket
The coin is ready to fire up Gloria once again. The real-life Blues are hot, with a 20-4-3 record dating back to February 8th, and that tear seems to have carried over to the loonie in my drawer, as it took the Blues to win the Western Conference in 4, 5, and 5 games respectively.
Over in the East, the Toronto Maple Leafs start off similarly hot, winning their first-round series in five and sweeping Tampa Bay before hitting a wall against the Hurricanes in a five-game defeat. The Canes prove to be the Blues’ toughest opponent, bringing them to seven games but ultimately losing the winner-take-all.
The Plot Armour Bracket
The Plot Armour bracket backs a run full of fun narratives. The first round is full of them. That scrappy Blues team shuts down the surprisingly strong Jets. The Kings finally snap their curse against the Oilers, as do the Senators against the Leafs. Montreal gives us a throwback to 2010 as they upset the Capitals as the lowest seed – will Montembeault or Dobes be this year’s Halak?
Montreal has one of the biggest subplots in this run. Every few years, a relatively weak Canadiens roster finds a way to capture the national attention span for a couple of weeks. They’ll add some juice by beating their offer sheet-driven pseudo rivals in Raleigh.
The headliners, though, will be the battle of tough decisions in the final, as both the Avalanche (Rantanen) and Lightning (Stamkos) get rewarded for holding firm on their process in the face of losing core players. Every narrative arc needs a tiebreaker, though, and this year it’ll be the inspiration of Gabriel Landeskog that wins Colorado their 2022 Stanley Cup Final rematch.
My Main Bracket
Firstly, don’t ask why this one is a different shape – I don’t know what’s up with the NHL website. I just import the exports.
Interestingly, this doesn’t look too far off from the narrative arc bracket, down to an identical final. Had every team been healthier, I think this would change, as I like the depth of the Dallas Stars, and I think the New Jersey Devils could do a lot of damage at full strength. Alas, the latter have been missing pieces pretty much non-stop for the past two seasons, and the Stars received massive early blows in the absence of Jason Robertson and Miro Heiskanen that will be tough to recover from with such a strong first-round opponent in Colorado.
I take the first-round Maple Leafs a little big longer here than the narrative bracket, but still don’t love them to go deep. Despite finally winning the Atlantic Division, their in-game performances this year have left a lot to be desired, often squeaking out tight wins through great goaltending. Maybe one of Anthony Stolarz or Joseph Woll can continue that into the spring, but neither has proven themselves to be a safe prolonged bet at this point in their careers.
A fair argument is to be had that Toronto has also spent much of the season with a core piece or two on injured reserve. With everyone seemingly game-ready to start the playoffs, perhaps they’ll control play to a more familiar degree. Maybe the lessons learned from previous playoff failures help guide them. One area that they’re better in is their blue line, which is more capable of moving pucks than previous years, but they still aren’t particularly creative or mobile. There are still question marks around just how healthy players like Chris Tanev, Jake McCabe, and Oliver Ekman-Larsson are. “Healthy” and “playoff healthy” are two different beasts, after all.
Toronto likely has a better chance against Tampa Bay, particularly due to their success against Andrei Vasilevskiy. Still, I do think the latter group are deeper on the skater front and made strides at the trade deadline to get better. Florida was already a tougher matchup for the Leafs. If Brad Marchand can add a jolt of adrenaline and distraction, their odds of getting through may be even lower, even if I think Tampa Bay is ultimately the best overall team of the three.
The Leafs are in a weird spot where I think they can beat any team in a series, but are favourites against very few. Even the Ottawa series feels more like a measurement of paper than of process, with the Senators controlling play better over the course of the year, creating more off the rush, and having a very strong goalie of their own in Linus Ullmark. I guess we’ll find out!
Back to the rest of the league, the Oilers are the most successful “underdog” here on paper, but as long as you have Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Evan Bouchard and a stack of other talent beneath you, it’s hard to bet against them early on. The Kings will be tougher than ever in this repeated first-round rivalry, but the result will likley remain the same. Carolina will enjoy a little pocket run that feels better than expected at the start of the year.
Ultimately, though, the 2022 rematch carries over from the narrative arc to the rational arc.
Tampa Bay’s top six feels about as good and versatile as any in the league – able to make dynamic plays while having defensive weapons that can clamp you down. The forward group tapers off as you go, but not to a degree that other teams are likely to meaningfully exploit. Every defensive pair is capable, and while we did just bring up Vasilevskiy’s history of struggle specifically against Toronto, they would be just one potential opponent, and he’s had a hell of a year outside of those games.
Colorado doesn’t feel quite as deep as it did a few years ago, but their top six still has weapons, led by the mega-gamebreaker in Nathan MacKinnon. Their defence doesn’t quite come at you in waves like it once did, but that first pair of Cale Makar and Devon Toews remains the class of the league, especially when it comes time to throw a changeup at a playoff opponent. They will likely be in an excellent spot if they can get competent goaltending out of the woods (Blackwood or Wedgewood).
I ultimately take the Avalanche in that series, though I could see it going either way, or not happening at all. The league continues to be more talented than ever, and just as influenced by fortune in the spring season, so it would be no surprise if we catch a curveball or two along the way!