Ranking the 5 best first-round playoff matchups that are still in play

We’re just a few weeks away from the playoffs, and I have some good news: There are some good first-round matchup still in play. Like, really good. So good that part of me doesn’t even want to talk about them, because there’s still time for the hockey gods to yank them away from us. But let’s tempt fate by breaking down five tantalizing possibilities.

Of course, we have to define what it means for a matchup to be “still in play”. That gets tricky, and can lead to some wishful thinking. I’m going to use the odds from Sports Club Stats, and limit us to matchups that have at least a 30% chance of happening heading into last night’s games. That means no long-shot rivalries like Rangers vs. Islanders (3%) or Oilers vs. Canucks (1%), although if one of those miracle matchups does end up happening, I want credit for manifesting it.

No, we’re staying in the quasi-real world, insisting on pairings with 30% or better, with the added bonus of not re-using any team more than once so I can’t go full homer and just pick all the different potential Leaf matchups. Spoiler alert: That still sets the table for some really good matchups. Let’s count them down…

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Does Johnny Gaudreau have a bad contract? Pierre-Luc Dubois? Nazem Kadri? Cap Court returns

As NHL GMs have spent the last few years saying to the salary cap: Please rise.

Those GMs are about to get their way, and so are we. It’s time for another round of Cap Court, the feature in which we put contracts on trial. The last time we did this, it was with a twist: We were looking for great contracts, not the usual bad ones. That was a nice dose of positivity, so it goes without saying that we’re headed back to the negatives this time around.

As always, we’re looking at contracts as they stand right now – we don’t care if they were good deals or made sense at some point earlier, just about what they have left and how they’re likely to turn out from now on. That can be tough to predict, of course. Back in 2022, it looked like recent extensions for Jonathan Huberdeau and J.T. Miller were in similar territory, and it’s fair to say that those two deals look very different today.

That’s a nice reminder that we shouldn’t be as confident and we might be tempted to be when it comes to some of these deals. Still, we’ll do the best we can to give five contracts a fair trial. Court is now in session.

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Weekend rankings: Uh oh, Tampa's good again, and other stretch run stories

With three weeks to go in the regular season, let’s regroup on where we’re at in the wildcard races.

The Western race is pretty much down to one spot, and the Golden Knights have got it right now with only the Wild and Blues to hold off. In theory the Kings’ could be vulnerable too, but they’ve been holding serve lately, and we may not be far from declaring this one over.

The Eastern turtle derby keeps crawling towards a conclusion, with the Caps continuing to hold down the last spot after a two-win weekend. The Wings are right behind despite a tough 1-0 loss yesterday, while the Islanders are fading again and the Devils may have coughed up their last chance by losing to the Senators on Saturday. The Flyers are vulnerable too, and the Caps are technically just ahead of them on points percentage for third in the Metro.

But beyond those two races, is there anything else left to play for? Yes… and no. Let’s use our bonus five to break down some of what does and doesn’t matter over the next few weeks.

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Grab Bag: Captain controversies, scoring slumps, and old-school suspsensions

Man it’s been a long time since we did one of these. If you’re new to the Grab Bag, it’s a weekly monthly apparently annual? occasional feature in which we joke around about whatever’s happening in the NHL, remember some guys, complain about stuff, and spend way too much time breaking down obscure old YouTube clips. It’s fun. Or at least, that’s the idea. Let’s get to it.

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Remembering five big trades between eventual Stanley Cup finalists

I’m starting to get the sinking feeling that this season may come and go without one of my favorite types of trades.

That would be a deal between two teams that end up facing each other in the next Stanley Cup final, one where the player (or players) involved get to try to cost their former team a championship. There’s still hope – maybe Anthony Mantha gets a shot at the Capitals, or Sam Lafferty gets some payback against the Maple Leafs, or Sean Walker crosses path with the Flyers. But it doesn’t seem like Reilly Smith is going to get a crack at the Knights or that we’ll see Tyler Toffoli haunting the Devils, and it looks like we’ll have to wait until next year for the inevitable Bowen Byram/Casey Mittelstadt Stanley Cup showdown.

It's a shame. But it’s not unusual, because as you’d probably expect, big trades between eventual finalists are rare. Rare, but not unheard of. So today, let’s Remember Some Trades with a countdown of a five times that a trade between two teams ended up paying off in a Stanley Cup final matchup months down the line.

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