Lapsed fan's guide to the Stanley Cup playoffs: The NHL's second season begins

But mostly, these Panthers had just played a lot of hockey over the past three seasons -- please recall they lost in the Stanley Cup Final to Vegas in 2023 before their consecutive championship runs. There will still be raucous parties at the Elbo Room in Fort Lauderdale this June. They'll just have significant less hockey hardware this time.

Other playoff teams last season that lost their invitations to this season's party: the Toronto Maple Leafs and New Jersey Devils, who both fired their general managers this season; the Washington Capitals, in what could be Alex Ovechkin's last season; and the St. Louis Blues and Winnipeg Jets in the Western Conference.

With Florida out, who is the Stanley Cup favorite?

The Colorado Avalanche have been an absolute juggernaut this season.

They boasted the best record in franchise history (.738 points percentage) while finishing first overall in the NHL. They led the NHL in most goals per game, thanks to Nathan MacKinnon's league-leading 53 goals, winger Martin Necas (38 goals), center Brock Nelson (33 goals) and the continued dominance of star defenseman Cale Makar (1.05 points per game). They also had the fewest goals-against per game in the NHL, including the league's best penalty kill and team save percentage thanks to goalies Scott Wedgewood and Mackenzie Blackwood.

An elite team got even better at the trade deadline, as Colorado added center Nicolas Roy from Toronto and old friend Nazem Kadri from Calgary, a key center on their 2022 Stanley Cup team.

The Avalanche are the favorite to win the Stanley Cup entering the postseason at +300 on Draft Kings, ahead of the Carolina Hurricanes (+475). But to win the Cup, the Avalanche will have to overcome one of the NHL's most reliable hexes: the Presidents' Trophy curse. Since 1985-86, there have been 39 teams to finish with the NHL's best record. Only eight of them went on to win the Stanley Cup -- and an equal number of them lost in the opening round of the playoffs. Spooky.

Colorado draws the Los Angeles Kings in the first round. The Kings do avoid having to play the Oilers for the fifth straight first round, having lost the previous four series. But drawing the Avalanche might leave them not sighing for relief but gasping for air.

Can Connor McDavid make it back to the Cup Final?

McDavid and fellow superstar Leon Draisaitl carried the Oilers to back-to-back Stanley Cup Final appearances, losing both times to the Panthers. Last October, McDavid gave the Oilers a clear window to win with him still on the roster, foregoing potential free agency to sign a two-year contract extension through 2027-28.

It could be argued that this season's Oilers aren't as good as the two teams that played for the Cup. Edmonton finished with a .567 points percentage, their lowest since 2018-19, but the Oilers were without Draisaitl (65 games) and McDavid's winger Zach Hyman (58 games) for large portions of the season. GM Stan Bowman sought to improve their goaltending -- the Achilles heel of those Cup finals teams -- by acquiring Tristan Jarry from the Penguins and Connor Ingram from Utah, the latter move having worked out better than the former.

The Oilers open with the Anaheim Ducks, who returned to the playoffs for the first time since 2018 thanks to first-year head coach Joel Quenneville. If they get past the Ducks, the Oilers could face the Pacific Division-leading Vegas Golden Knights ... and the coach they hired with eight games left in the season.

John Tortorella is coaching Vegas now?

The Golden Knights shocked the hockey world by firing head coach Bruce Cassidy with just eight games left in the regular season. The Knights were spiraling after the Winter Olympic break, posting the league's second-worst record ahead of only the moribund Vancouver Canucks.

As usual, expectations within the organization were astronomical, especially after Vegas landed winger Mitch Marner, the prize of last offseason, and veteran defenseman Rasmus Andersson, acquired in-season from Calgary. Management felt the team needed a kick in the pants. Few are better at delivering one than Tortorella.

"Torts," who won a Stanley Cup with Tampa Bay in 2004, last coached the Philadelphia Flyers for three seasons (2022-2025) before rejoining ESPN as a studio analyst. This is his first playoff appearance since taking Columbus to the postseason in 2020. The Knights are Tortorella's sixth NHL team, in a coaching career that spans all the way back to 2000.

Vegas went 7-0-1 in those eight games and looked like a Tortorella team, leading the NHL in that span with a 1.88 goals-against average. He has agreed to coach the remainder of the season -- someone hired for the present, for a team that needed a short-term boost.

(Please note that Vegas might have started a trend here, as the New York Islanders replaced coach Patrick Roy with Peter DeBoer with just four games left in their season. Alas, it was too late to get the Islanders into the postseason.)

The Golden Knights open the first round with the Utah Mammoth.

We're getting playoff hockey in Salt Lake City?

Indeed. In just the second season for the NHL's newest franchise, the Mammoth qualified for the Stanley Cup playoffs as the first wild card in the Western Conference. Coach André Tourigny's team improved just three points in the standings season over season, but Utah feels like a different team -- and not just because they have an actual mascot instead of being referred to as the "Hockey Club."

Young stars like Dylan Guenther (40 goals), Logan Cooley (0.80 points per game) and JJ Peterka (25 goals) will get their first tastes of playoff action. Veterans like Clayton Keller (88 points) and Nick Schmaltz (33 goals) return after long playoff absences. Backstopping all of it is goalie Karel Vejmelka, who appeared in an NHL-high 64 games this season for Utah.

The future is bright in Salt Lake City, as the Mammoth have one of the NHL's robust prospect pipelines. But they're acting like the future is now, having acquired high-profile defenseman MacKenzie Weegar from the Flames at the trade deadline.

What's the most anticipated playoff matchup?

It's easily the Central Division opening-round slugfest between the Dallas Stars and the Minnesota Wild.

It's the kind of series that stokes debate about the fairness of the current playoff system: Should the No. 3 team in the entire NHL (Dallas) be forced to play the seventh-best team (Minnesota) after all that regular-season success they had? And their reward is to potentially play the No. 1 team in the league? However, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman believes the playoff format is successful precisely because it delivers matchups like this in the early rounds.

The Stars have reached the Western Conference finals for three consecutive seasons, losing to Vegas once and then the Oilers twice. This time they have a new head coach in Glen Gulutzan but much of the same cast as last year's run. That includes two 45-goal scorers in winger Jason Robertson and center Wyatt Johnston, as well as star winger Mikko Rantanen (1.20 points per game) who was winning playoff series seemingly on his own last season.

The Wild, meanwhile, took the season's biggest swing on the trade market: landing Quinn Hughes from the Vancouver Canucks in a December blockbuster. Hughes had a transformative effect on the Wild, who went 17-5-5 heading into the Olympic break -- where Team USA, constructed by Minnesota GM Bill Guerin and featuring a handful of his players, won Olympic men's gold for the first time since 1980.

While Hughes generates offense from the back end, the Wild were led by a pair of star scoring wingers up front: Kirill Kaprizov, who scored 45 goals after signing a record-setting $136 million contract last September; and Matt Boldy, who was right behind him with 42 goals this season.

Whether or not it's "fair" that they meet, these two titans will clash in Round 1 to earn the right to potentially play Colorado in Round 2.

Meanwhile, in the East: Are the Buffalo Sabres for real?

The Sabres snapped their NHL-record 14-season playoff drought with one of their best regular seasons in franchise history: a .665 points percentage that earned Buffalo its first division title since the 2009-10 season, a team also coached by current Sabres bench boss Lindy Ruff in a previous stint.

The turning point in Buffalo's season, coincidental or not, was when the team replaced general manager Kevyn Adams with senior advisor Jarmo Kekalainen, who was previously the general manager of the Columbus Blue Jackets. From that moment in December until the end of the season, the Sabres had the NHL's best record (36-9-5) and were second overall in team offense and defense.

There are reasons to believe this is not a fluke. Buffalo has balanced scoring, led by star center Tage Thompson (40 goals) and forward Alex Tuch (33 goals), a pending free agent. The Sabres have one of the league's top defensemen in Rasmus Dahlin, and they finished tied for third in the NHL in team save percentage (.899) thanks to goalies Alex Lyon and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen.

That said, some of their underlying numbers have been troubling this season and their roster lacks the playoff experience their opponents, like the Boston Bruins, have. But as one NHL coach told ESPN recently about the Sabres: "Who knows? Sometimes it's good to be young and dumb."

Can the Bruins make a run?

It's possible. Boston is a well-balanced team under first-year head coach Marco Strum. Superstar winger David Pastrnak (100 points), and centers Morgan Geekie (39 goals) and Pavel Zacha (30 goals) have provided top-end offense, but Boston had 10 players in double-digits in goals.

However, it's their defensive foundation that could make the Bruins tough to beat. Charlie McAvoy brings his win-at-any-costs mentality to a blue line that features veterans like Hampus Lindholm and Nikita Zadorov.

In goal, Jeremy Swayman has been one of the best in the NHL, finishing second overall in goals saved above expected (28.8). The Bruins are dangerous as they seek a return to glory, having last made the Stanley Cup Final in 2019.

Speaking of returns to glory, is the Tampa Bay hype legit?

In theory, yes.

The Lightning were the fourth-best offensive team in the NHL, powered by MVP favorite Nikita Kucherov, who led the league with a 1.71 points-per-game average; as well as goal-scoring aces like Jake Guentzel (38 goals) and Brandon Hagel (35). They even found a new scoring force on the blue line, as fifth-year pro Darren Raddysh had obliterated his career highs with goals (22) and points (70) this season -- which, to the surprise of no one, is a contract year.

They're also the league's third-best defensive team thanks to star goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy, who led the NHL in wins (39) and is the favorite to win his second Vezina Trophy as the league's top netminder.

But there are question marks. The Lightning were hit hard by injuries all season: How many of them are still lingering? Most of all, what's the status of defenseman Victor Hedman, who took leave of the team for personal reasons after Tampa's March 19 game? The Lightning will need him to challenge for the Cup (after winning in 2020 and 2021) -- if they can get past Montreal.

Is Montreal's Juraj Slafkovsky, Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield the best line in hockey?

When it comes to a combination of offense and defense, this line is the NHL's top trio when coach Marty St. Louis decides it's time to put them together.

In close to 534 minutes together this season, Slafkovsky, Suzuki and Caufield have a goals-for percentage of 69.9% at 5-on-5. That's thanks in part to a stellar 1.6 goals-against per 60 minutes. Credit there should go to center Suzuki, whose strong defensive play has him as the favorite to win the Selke Trophy as the NHL's best defensive forward.

But they also average 3.7 goals per 60 minutes together, and full marks to Caufield here: He scored 51 goals for Montreal in the regular season, second only to MacKinnon's 53.

What's scary about the Habs is that they're not a one-line team. Rookies Ivan Demidov and Oliver Kapanen have helped fill out the team offensive, while Lane Hutson (78 points in 82 games) continues to thrive from the back end.

Will Rod Brind'Amour finally coach in the Final?

Brind'Amour is in his eighth season coaching the Hurricanes. They've qualified for the playoffs in all eight seasons. But they've never broken through to play for the Stanley Cup, losing in the conference finals three times, including twice to the Panthers who, as a reminder, failed to make the postseason this year.

Why they could play for the Cup: Despite not having a star game-changing offensive player like Jake Guentzel or Mikko Rantenen -- to name two players Carolina acquired in the past few seasons -- this might be the deepest goal-scoring roster that Brind'Amour has had. The usual suspects remain atop the team scoring list, like Sebastian Aho (80 points), Andrei Svechnikov (31 goals) and Seth Jarvis (32). But players like Jackson Blake (22 goals), Logan Stankoven (44 points), K'Andre Miller (37 points) and Alexander Nikishin (33 points) have all contributed.

But do they have enough goaltending? Brandon Bussi was a revelation for the Canes for most of the season, but struggled a bit after the Olympic break. Frederik Andersen has been inconsistent. Pyotr Kochetkov has gotten playoff time in the past, but never found his stride. Brind'Amour has yet to name his Game 1 starter against the Ottawa Senators, perhaps for good reason.

A word on Ottawa: They're quite good. From the Olympic break through the end of the season, the Senators had the third-best record in the NHL (.720 points percentage). Players like Tim Stutzle (83 points) have torn it up.

One NHL executive told ESPN earlier this season that if there's one team you don't want to face in the playoffs, it might be Ottawa, considering their underlying numbers and structure. That is, as long as they get their goaltending, and Linus Ullmark is 12-4-3 since the Olympic break. Beware, Carolina...

The Battle of Pennsylvania is on again?

The last time the Pittsburgh Penguins and Philadelphia Flyers engaged in The War of Sheetz vs. Wawa was back in 2017-18, with the Penguins winning to tie the all-time series at 4-4. That they're meeting again this postseason is a surprise on several levels.

Not many people had the Penguins returning to the playoffs this season for the first time since 2022. Most of the conjecture about Pittsburgh before the season surrounded whether veteran stars like Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Erik Karlsson would even be Penguins by the end of the season. Instead, all three players helped lead a young roster to the postseason, thanks in no small part to rookie head coach Dan Muse's strong structure, and the shrewd roster management of GM Kyle Dubas.

Even fewer people thought that first-year coach Rick Tocchet, a former Flyers star player who took over their bench after parting ways with Vancouver, would navigate this Philadelphia team into the playoffs. There have been fantastic developments, like young star Trevor Zegras recapturing the magic after arriving from Anaheim via trade last offseason; there have also been frustrations, such as the challenging relationship between Tocchet and young star Matvei Michkov, whose scoring fell by a dozen points year over year.

What has kept the Flyers on steady ground? Goalie Dan Vladar. Signed last summer as a free agent from the Calgary Flames, Vladar has nearly 14 goals saved above expected in 52 games this season, providing a remedy for the Flyers' biggest weakness in net.

The Flyers are young and talented, having added NCAA star Porter Martone after his season was done. The Penguins have a veteran core desperate for one last sip from the Cup together. All of that plays out in a series between two hated, heated rivals. That's the playoffs, baby.

Who are some of the other players worth watching in the Stanley Cup Playoffs?

Brent Burns. The Colorado Avalanche defenseman is the NHL's top "old guy without a Cup," having now played 1,579 games without lifting the Chalice.

Jackson LaCombe. He replaced Seth Jones on the Team USA Olympic roster, and had the hockey highlight of his life in Milan as they won gold. The 25-year-old Ducks defenseman might be the most underrated blueliner in the NHL. He'll have the spotlight on him against the Oilers' attack in that series.

Jake Oettinger. Please recall when the Stars were eliminated by the Oilers in last year's conference finals, and the Dallas goalie was not only pulled in the first period of Game 5 but called out by former coach Pete DeBoer for his inability to beat the Oilers in the playoffs. Oettinger enters this postseason with a chance to lead his team deeper than his former coach ever could.

Brady Tkachuk. He had a strong season with 0.98 points per game, but the Ottawa captain has been in a weird spot this season -- and not just because he's an American gold medalist playing in a Canadian capitol.

He came under fire when his father Keith Tkachuk complained about Brady's ice time, and called out Ullmark for deciding to rest in a key game during an appearance on the Tkachuk brothers' "Wingmen" podcast. As usual, trade rumors swirl around the only Tkachuk in the playoffs this season, even as he has vowed loyalty to the franchise.

All the players on Canadian teams. Finally, will Edmonton or Montreal or Ottawa finally break through to win the first Stanley Cup for a Canadian team since 1993?

Let's all find out, now that the games are set to begin.