A Brief Faceoff with the NHL Playoffs

After the wayward and hilarious elimination of the Toronto Maple Leafs by the Columbus Blue Jackets, my city - a whole city enchanted with ice hockey - has completely lost their faith in their NHL franchise. In fact, it's been difficult striking up a conversation in Etobicoke about hockey without it devolving into pessimism or despondence. 

Congratulations to the Columbus Blue Jackets, who, after beating the Tampa Bay Lightning in round one of last year's Stanley Cup Playoffs, were met with discourteous remarks like "If the Leafs got past the Bruins, they would have slaughtered the Blue Jackets" or "If only we could have got past the first round, our path to the Finals would have been easy". Today, no self-aware Toronto fan could make that claim, for if they did their face should turn beet red. The Toronto Maple Leafs are probably the most disappointing major sports team in the world - either that, or Columbus, bereft of any league-leaders in scoring or high-salary players, with the oscillation of Elvis Merzlikins and Joonas Korpisalo in net, are a supremely coached club and capable of reaching heights that a team featuring John Tavares, Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner are not. Their lost last night puts them behind the Lightning 3-1, so CBJ will require three sequential wins in order to stave off elimination. 

The St. Louis Blues looked to be another major disappointment these playoffs - that is until they replaced starting goalie Jordan Binnington with Jake Allen after going down 2-0 to the Vancouver Canucks to start their series. Binnington, if you remember, was the rookie sensation who got hot goaltending during the Blues' 2019 Stanley Cup playoff run, and who was awarded a huge raise by arbitrators last off-season. Had he been left in net for the remainder of round one, who knows what public perception of Binnington would be. For now it looks like they've corrected the ship. Ryan O'Reilly is playing the best hockey of anyone in the series, though Quinn Hughes is already becoming a household name with his excellent play from the point. The series is now tied up at 2-2, so if this is the end of Vancouver's surprising run, it's been as exciting as the Leafs' was a letdown. 

The Colorado Avalanche look like the best team on the ice. It helps that last night they poured in seven goals on 39 shots against the Arizona Coyotes, while only giving up 15 shots. Commentators on the NHL Network have been joking about how Toronto could use a player like the Avs' Nazem Kadri, "if only the Leafs could find someone like that." The former Maple Leafs cog tallied two goals and an assist in last night's demolishion of the Yotes.

It will please me greatly to see the Chicago Blackhawks turn their series completely around and comeback from a 3-0 deficit against the Vegas Golden Knights. Coincidentally, both teams took part in a trade that saw Robin Lehner go to Vegas and Malcolm Subban get picked up by the Hawks. Only Lehner has made an appearance through the first four games, and he might have closed out the series had it not been for an impeccable Corey Crawford making almost 50 saves last contest. They play Game 5 at 10:30pm tonight -  if Vegas wins, they advance. 

The New York Islanders look like the best team that had to play a best-of-five series before the playoffs (really) began. There aren't too many people out there who thought that they would be manhandling Alexander Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals as they have been. The Isles are up 3-0 in the series - Game 4 starts at 8 p.m.

It has been a joy to watch the Montreal Canadiens play. First, they usurped Sidney Crosby's Pittsburgh Penguins by beating them in the Wild Card (to the complete dismay of Sportsnet contributors), and now they're managing to stay competitive against Pennsylvania's other hockey town. The Philadelphia Flyers are playing perennial 30-goal players Jakub Voracek and James van Riemsdyk on their bottom two lines, allotting the orange-and-black viable scoring options on any given shift in their strategy to wear out and beat MTL's Carey Price. They play their fourth game in the series today at 3 p.m. (EST).

I think the Flames will pull out their series against the Stars - they are tied at 2 wins each heading into today's game (on at 5:30 p.m.). If not, well, this has been the most tense series insofar and will probably go the full seven games.