Tampa Bay Lighting (1) Vs. Columbus Blue Jackets (8)
Tampa Will Win If: They do what they've done the entire regular season, which got them 62 wins. Nikita Kucherov had a league-leading 128 points, but that was merely one reason the Lightning scored a league-leading 325 goals. Their goaltending was excellent, too.
Columbus Will Win If: A) They can steal a game from Tampa early, and hang in there. B) Sergi Bobrovsky stands on his head. His capable, mind you. Alas, his playoffs GAA has never been below 3.18. Sergei must be a lot better than that.
New York Islanders (2nd In Met Division) Vs. Pittsburgh Penguins (3rd In Division)
New York Will Win If: Common thread here, but if their goaltending holds up. And it was one of the reasons the Islanders not only won 48 games in 2018/19, but also put up 103 points. To put that in perspective, that's the most points by them since 1983/84 (They made the finals for the 5th straight year that year). The team overcame the loss of John Tavares, and has great coaching by first-year man Barry Trotz (Who guided the Caps to the Stanley Cup last year). I'm not sure who really is the #1 netminder for New York. Robin Lehner played well in the regular season, but has only 2 games of playoff experience in his career. Thomas Greiss was also good. Although he appeared in less games (43 to Lehner's 46) his S% was almost as good (.927 to .930). Greiss has a .923 career S% in the playoffs, although he has not appeared in the postseason since 2016.
Pittsburgh Will Win If: Their big guys come to play. It was just two seasons ago that the Pens won back-to-back Stanley Cups. Three of their big gunners, Crosby, Malkin and Kessel were their usual selves in 2018/19. Their goaltending is good enough, although the Isles have the edge. Pittsburgh is in a situation where despite their 100 regular season points, their starting on the road. Obviously, they are going to need to steal one on the island.
Winnipeg Jets (2nd In Central Division) Vs. St. Louis Blues (3rd In Central)
Winnipeg Will Win If: They play better than they did in the closing days of the regular season. They lost 4 of their last 6 games and looked poor, even at home (Losing 3 straight). This is one of those series where there is a hot team facing a cold team.
St. Louis Will Win If: Craig Berube makes the right decisions. Well, he's got line matchups and goaltending questions. Craig made very few mistakes behind the Blues' bench in the regular season (38-19-6) after a coaching change. Now who do you go to in net? Jake Allen wasn't his usual self in the regular season, but generally has played well in the postseason. Then their is Jordan Binnington (24-5-1, 1.89, .927). Binnington has no postseason experience and all of 33 career regular seasons to his name, however.
Nashville Predators (2) Vs. Dallas Stars (7)
Nashville Will Win If: Pekka Rinne wins the goaltending duel. The Preds need to look out for Ben Bishop! He's been excellent in the postseason in his career, and just led the NHL in S% (.934). He also posted a GAA of 1.98. However, Pekka Rinne wasn't too bad himself this year (30-19-4, 2.42, .918). And he got the Preds all the way to the Stanley Cup finals 2 years ago. Rinne has 43 playoff games won to his name. His backup, Juuse Saros has a career S% of .920 in the regular season and .915 with a 1.76 GAA in 6 playoff games.
Dallas Will Win If: Bishop wins the above scenario!
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