NHL Playoff Pool: Players to Target on the Top 8 Contenders

It's time for the NHL playoff pools. Jason Chen goes through the top eight Cup contenders for players to pick and reasons why they will or won't win it all.

It’s time to think about your NHL playoff pool. With the regular season coming to a close on Friday, the second season of fantasy hockey will begin. The playoff version is very different from its regular-season counterpart because the player pool diminishes as the NHL crowns its champion.

The league is flush with talent; 38 players finished the season averaging a point per game, and 11 players scored at least 100 points. That means there’s at least one very good player on each team, but if they’re on a team that can’t get past the first round (ahem, Leafs) or even the second round (ahem, Canes), they’ll end up playing fewer games to potentially accumulate points.

Though the format of playoff pools varies, one golden rule rings true through all of them: pick players from the team you think will go deep. The safest route is to whittle the brackets down to four teams, and a reminder going with the obvious teams may not allow you to separate yourself from the pack. It’s a survival of the fittest, and sometimes the most daring are the ones who reap all the rewards.

For example, getting seven games out of Nikita Kucherov – and no way Leafs-Lightning doesn’t go all the way for peak drama – is still potentially better than getting, say, three rounds of Evan Rodrigues or two rounds of Chris Kreider.

If you missed it, check out a review of the BetMGM Cup odds and the final power rankings of the season.

Here’s a list of the playoff teams and players to target. Players in bold are top picks. (* denotes injured player)

Why they’ll win: Public models, including sportsclubstats.com (51 percent) and hockey-reference.com (24.5 percent), have the Bruins’ current odds of winning the Cup higher than the historical rate of teams winning both the Presidents’ Trophy and the Stanley Cup (8-of-37, 21.6 percent). But the truth is, we’ve never seen a team this good. Making the safe play also means going with the crowd, so make sure you pick the right team to come out of the West. If you really want to put all your eggs in one basket, the Bruins have a lot of good options.

Why they won’t win: Health. Linus Ullmark may not start Game 1, and their top two centers have plenty of miles and have been nursing minor injuries down the stretch. The playoffs are another beast, and they won’t run the table like they did all season.

Why they’ll win: How can we count out the defending champs? After hanging around the cut-off line all season, the Avs got (relatively) healthy and tore through the second half of the season with a .723 points percentage pace since Jan. 1, third-best in the league. They’re well-coached with talent at every position, and they’ve done it all before.

Why they won’t win: Health, and also the Oilers. Gabriel Landeskog will miss the playoffs, Makar is nursing an injury, and it’s been just one injury after another like clockwork this season. In the cap era, MacKinnon (1.33) and Rantanen (1.22) rank third and fourth in points per game in the playoffs. The two players ahead of them? Connor McDavid (1.49) and Leon Draisaitl (1.59). The Oilers hold a 1-0-2 edge in the season series, and all three games went to overtime, so it’s going to be really close.

Why they’ll win: Shesterkin is an elite goaltender, Fox is a perennial Norris candidate, and they have one of the deepest forwards in the entire league after adding Kane and Tarasenko. They have an edge over the Devils in experience and – knock on wood – have had a healthy roster for most of the season. Kane is one of the most prolific playoff scorers in the cap era, with only Nikita Kucherov ahead in total points (154 versus 132) among players headed to the playoffs. The ‘Kid Line’ broke out in a big way in the playoffs last season, and if you’re loading up on the Rangers, don’t forget about them.

Why they won’t win: Too many mouths need feeding, so chemistry suffers. Gerard Gallant can’t push the right buttons. Shesterkin, who had a 3.23 GAA and .907 SP against the Devils during the season, is mortal again.

Why they’ll win: The Oilers will be a popular pick because of McDavid, and they head into the playoffs with tons of momentum with nine straight wins. Their offense is deep, adding Ekholm was a real game-changer, and between Stuart Skinner and Jack Campbell, they should have the requisite goaltending to make a deep run. After Kane, picking Yamamoto, Foegele and Bjugstad in your pools is only worthwhile if you’re convinced the Oilers are going to play at least three rounds since their scoring is so concentrated at the top.

Why they won’t win: The depth isn’t good enough to help push them over the edge because they’re overly reliant on McDavid to do everything, and their goaltending implodes. Both are possible because it’s happened multiple times before.

Why they’ll win: Because it’s time to break through, and teams less talented than the Leafs have gone further. Despite being oft-criticized for turning invisible in big games, Marner, Matthews and Nylander have all put up very good numbers during their playoff runs. Ilya Samsonov manages to hold the fort, and the Leafs’ awkward rotation on defense settles itself over the course of the playoffs.

Why they won’t win: Backing the Leafs means picking against the Lightning. That’s hard. The easy way out is to avoid both teams because the winner will have to eventually face the Bruins, which means picking the most likely team to come out of the Metro – the Rangers? – would be the safer option. All bets are off if Samsonov is not healthy, even with a red-hot Joseph Woll.

Why they will win: Because there’s still belief they can flip the proverbial switch, and every time they looked cooked during the season, they came back and reminded everyone they could still be a dominant team. They’re talented at every position with still arguably the best goalie on the planet.

Why they won’t win: Fatigue will be a big issue since the Lightning have played more playoff games than any other team over the past three seasons, and Hagel and Cirelli missed games late in the season due to injury. Prized trade-deadline acquisition Tanner Jeannot is already expected to miss part of the first round. All good things must come to an end, and Father Time is undefeated.

Why they’ll win: Elite scorer, elite defenseman and an elite goalie. The Stars have all the pieces, and that’s why they’re a good dark horse. If all three of Robertson, Heiskanen and Oettinger are at the top of their game, they’ll be tough to beat, and don’t forget the Peter DeBoer bump: in three of his four previous stops, he has led his team to at least the conference final in his first season with a new club.

Why they won’t win: Still not quite enough experience, and it remains to be seen if Domi and Dadonov can provide the requisite depth scoring.

Why they’ll win: Their defense is probably the deepest in the league, and they have three goalies who can get hot at any moment. They’ve got a good mix of skill, size and grit, and Cup winners tend to be teams who dominate puck possession. The Canes finished first in CF% and xGF% at 5-on-5 this season.

Why they won’t win: Injuries to Max Pacioretty and Andrei Svechnikov are just too big to overcome. They have zero players averaging over a point per game, and the scoring drops off a cliff after Aho and Necas. The late-season fade is also a worry, which makes the Canes difficult to commit to in a playoff pool. For a team that finished first in 5-on-5 possession analytics, it’s a tough call against the Islanders, who have a history of upsets and a tough out in the playoffs. Even if they get past the first round, all roads will also have to go through Boston. 

Stay tuned on THN.com on Sunday for the next eight teams looking to defy the odds and go deep in the playoffs, featuring players who can pile up points in a round.