Stanley Cup Playoffs Round 3 Takeaways + Stanley Cup Final Preview
Photo from NHL.com
I’m not going to spend any time bragging.
I’m just going to point out that I picked the Stanley Cup Final correctly.
And am, therefore, a genius.
Let’s discuss the conference finals.
Tampa Bay defeats New York in 6 games
The Rangers, while extremely talented despite their age, probably overstayed their welcome a bit.
They got very fortunate in their first two rounds against the Penguins and Hurricanes in terms of the goaltenders they faced, and they actually started red hot against this Lightning team.
Unfortunately, they missed great opportunities in both game 3 and game 5 to steal one, and that simply won’t fly against the two time defending Cup champions.
The Lightning saw those missed opportunities, and made them pay for it.
As they often do.
This isn’t the last we’ve heard of the Rangers, however.
They are still incredibly young and have the best goaltender on the planet.
They are going to be around for a long, long while.
Colorado defeats Edmonton in 4 games
For all the memes about Mike Smith, he was actually an above average goalie in rounds 1 and 2.
He was less than that in round 3.
Colorado tore him to shreds, and did enough defensively to help out their own goaltending issues to have another sweep and go 12-2 in the postseason.
The Oilers season has to be considered a success, considering they were a final four team and had Leon Draisaitl basically playing on one leg.
But horrible goaltending being the reason to get smoked in the finals is going to leave a sour taste in the mouth of Oilers fans.
And in fairness, the fans aren’t wrong. They should maybe look at upgrading in that area.
As for the Avs, they ran through the Western Conference as expected.
The East was going to be a bloodbath. The West just screamed for an Avalanche coming through.
Get it? Do you get what I did up there??
Cause that’s the name.
Stanley Cup Final Preview
We have the Colorado Avalanche and the Tampa Bay Lightning.
I don’t think we need to talk about the Lightning too much. They are back to back Cup champs and are attempting to be the first team since the New York Islanders who won 4 Cups in a row from 1980-1983.
It’s a very hard thing to do!
They’re pretty good!
But so are the Avs.
The Avs are so good, in fact, that they went 12-2 through the Western Conference. Tied for the least amount of losses going into the Cup Finals with the 2012 LA Kings, who also won the Cup.
But that 2012 Kings team had Jonathan Quick, putting up one of the best postseasons ever.
The Avs goaltending…has not been as good.
All the jokes about Mike Smith, and the Avalanche had a worse “goals saved above expected number” than them, and by a long way.
That’s how dominant the offense has been.
The goaltending sucks? Who cares? We can score at will.
The issue is, they were scoring at will against backups and Mike Smith. Not exactly a murderers row.
After they swept, they knew they’d either be facing Andrei Vasilevsky from Tampa, who is very good, or Igor Shesterkin of the New York Rangers. who is having one of the best seasons a goalie has ever had.
And here is the weird thing.
If the Avs were playing the Rangers, I’d still pick them to win despite Shesterkin being as good as he’s been.
Shesterkin would do whatever he could, but the Avs would have too much fire power compared to a young Rangers team to be able to make a difference.
But they’re facing the “worse” goaltender with Tampa.
But Vasilevsky is still incredible.
And the Lightning are not young. They have been here before. They will continue to be here in the future. They have no sign of stopping any time soon.
The Avs won’t be shutdown. They’re too good not too.
But they’re going to need better goaltending than Pavel Francouz and Antti Raanta to be able to shut down an experienced team like the Lightning.
Tampa Bay defeats Colorado in 6 games
