A lot of folks don't like the NHL's current playoff format, which tries its best to sequester teams within their own divisions for the first two rounds before matching up the winners in the conference final. The goal is to deliver more rivalries and repeat match-ups in the early stages, which is noble (unless you're a Kings fan). But it can look kind of ridiculous in a case like this year's Western Conference, where the Anaheim Ducks lead the Pacific Division but would sit a distant fourth if they were moved into the Central. As it stands, the three best teams in the West—the Avalanche, Stars, and Wild—will have to fight it out amongst themselves. And then the conference final would begin.
This isn't exactly fair to the best teams. But here's a counterargument: I am very impatient to see the Central's terrible trio face each other in best-of-sevens, and the NHL will not make me wait.
In the three games that have involved these three teams this month—Stars-Avs, Avs-Wild, Stars-Avs again—fans have been exclusively treated to overtime stalemates that needed shootouts to determine a winner, and thus have no predictive relevance for the eternal OT of the postseason. On March 6, it was the Avalanche who scored an equalizer with 15 seconds left in the third and eventually stole the extra point. A few days later, with yours truly in attendance, Minnesota and Colorado played to their full potential with a 3-2 Avs win that had fans on the edges of their seats for over 65 minutes of action. And on Wednesday, with the Stars traveling to Denver in a contest of teams trying to avoid third-place Minnesota in the opening round, it was second-place Dallas who gained a point on the Avs with a 2-1 win that, once again, required a post-OT tiebreak.
Cale Makar scored in the first for the home boys on the power play, and Jason Robertson matched it in the second with his 37th on the year. But the guy who mattered most was Stars goalie Jake Oettinger, who seems to be rounding into postseason form. Dallas is currently missing two injured studs in Roope Hintz and Mikko Rantanen, and overall they're a little thinner than they were last season, without guys like Evgenii Dadonov and Mason Marchment. Even though the Avs outshot them 34-18, Oettinger dominated play with 33 saves to earn his fourth straight win allowing two goals or fewer.
Otter's been the only goalie that Dallas has started across 56 playoff games in the last three years, and even though back-up Casey DeSmith is putting up similar numbers for the second straight season, Oettinger is making the decision to put faith in him much easier with this recent run. Doing his most difficult work with the score 1-1, Oettinger continually made himself big against some of the Avs' most challenging shooters. I especially liked this save he pulled off on a scary Colorado charge where he suddenly had to switch his focus from the right faceoff dot to the slot. He didn't just protect his net by moving two-dimensionally from right to left; Oettinger also went forward, to the front of his crease, to shrink the amount of open space that Nathan MacKinnon could aim for.
Both the Wild and the Avalanche boast great netminders with significantly better stats this season, but none of them can even sniff Oettinger's big-game experience. What will that turn out to be worth? We can only guess right now. I look at Minnesota and see an impressive team by most standards that nonetheless might need a Conn Smythe–type run from Quinn Hughes to hang with their rivals. (Their big midseason blue-line add logged 31:17 of ice time in a regulation loss to the Leafs the other night.) In Dallas I see a roster lacking some crucial pieces from previous years but with enough firepower to handle practically anyone. And in Colorado I see a near-flawless group that is still going to have to worry about the threat of the Cold Goalie.
That's not to mention the fact that five other teams from the West are going to be in the playoffs. But for the time being, this is a three-team conference. Until it's down to one.
