By JIM MATHESON, Special to Postmedia Network
With that, here’s a playoff primer with the best and the rest of Cup contenders:Will there be a scene of a pileup, or will it move along, nothing to see here? Anything’s possible for a crash and burn. Back in 2006, Detroit had 124 points and was plus-96 goals for and against. The Oilers surprisingly trotted out the trap and knocked them off in six games in Round 1 — the first step to getting to Game 7 of the Cup final against Carolina.
That’s a testament to Nate MacKinnon, who has the second most points to McDavid after the all-star break, Mikko Rantanen and his 50-goal season, inspired role players and superior goaltending from Alexandar Giorgiev, who carried the load in 61 games. GM Kyle Dubas traded for a guy with a Cup ring in Ryan O’Reilly to be a top-six forward because they need somebody who’s won something. But it falls to the usual suspects — Mitch Marner, Auston Matthews, William Nylander and John Tavares who had close to 150 league goals.It took them 54 years to end their Cup curse with the Mark Messier-led win in ’94, and they’re on another 28-year drought but they’ve got most of bases covered now.
They also have the NHL’s second-best skating D man Miro Heiskanen , who will be out in shutdown situations, too. And goalie Jake Oettinger can win games by himself if he gets in a zone.Article contentYou roll the dice with the Golden Knights. They’re the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference, holding off the Oilers, even though they’ve used five different goalies, and career backup Laurent Brossoit is holding the fort because No. 1 Logan Thompson has played three games since late January .
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