Welcome to the Most Wonderful Time of the Year, NHL Fans

As the NHL's Stanley Cup playoffs began on Monday, Adam Proteau delves into what makes the first nights of post-season hockey so thrilling for any fan.

For hockey fans, this is the most wonderful time of the year. 

For one reason or another, this part of the calendar is a time of hope for fans of all NHL teams, even the ones that haven’t qualified for the Stanley Cup playoffs. Fans of those 16 teams are trying to look on the bright side of their predicament, including the half-dozen teams – Calgary, Pittsburgh, Anaheim, Philadelphia, Washington and Nashville – whose management structure will feature new GMs or coaches (or both) for the 2023-24 campaign. And the other non-playoff teams have hope that they’ll win the NHL draft lottery and come away with a cornerstone talent to star for them in many years to come.

That said, Monday night’s post-season action showed us why the first days of the first round are the most thrilling time of the year in the NHL.

For starters, two of the eight teams in Monday’s games upset their higher-seeded opponents: The Minnesota Wild needed double-overtime to defeat the series-favorite Dallas Stars – and double-OT is one of the defining parts of playoff action. There’s no shootout for fans to gripe over – it comes down to which team can make the fewest mistakes, and this is why three of the four games were decided by a single goal. There was little margin for error, as evidenced by Game 1 of the Edmonton Oilers and Los Angeles Kings showdown.

Indeed, while the Oilers had a one-goal lead in the final minute of regulation, their defense crumbled before Edmonton’s fans, and the Kings sent the game to OT. From there, L.A. got the game-winner at 9:19 of extra time, with star center Anze Kopitar generating his third assist of the night to help the Kings eliminate home-ice advantage for the Oilers.

Similarly, the series between the Carolina Hurricanes and New York Islanders was won by just one goal in a 2-1 win for the Canes.

Carolina scored its two goals of the game in the first 22:27 of action, but the Islanders struck back just 24 seconds after the Hurricanes’ second goal to keep the matchup tight for the remainder of the game. 

Isles star goalie Ilya Sorokin turned aside 35 of 37 shots for a stellar .946 save percentage. But in the end, Hurricanes netminder Antti Raanta stopped 25 of 26 Islanders shots for a .962 SP and the victory.

Meanwhile, the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Boston Bruins did not have it easy taking on last season’s Presidents’ Trophy-winners from Florida. The Panthers never led the game, but after Boston scored its second goal of the night at the 3:41 mark of the second period, Florida finally answered back. Star forward Matthew Tkachuk scored at the 6:34 mark to cut the Bruins’ lead in half. The game stayed 2-1 until late in the second when Boston’s Jake DeBrusk scored at 17:32 to put the Bruins ahead by two goals again. There were no goals scored in the third period, and while the Panthers did not defeat the Bruins, they didn’t let Boston walk all over them.

And let’s go back to that Minnesota-Dallas tilt: The Wild scored the game’s first goal, but that was all the offense the teams produced in the opening period. The Stars answered back in the second frame, scoring two goals in the first 4:13 of action to take a 2-1 lead. But Wild forward Sam Steel – playing in his first NHL playoff game in his sixth season in the league – netted the game-tying marker at 14:25 of the second.

That was the final goal of regulation, as the Wild and Stars played delicate, careful hockey to the best of their ability. It took two overtime periods to get the game-winner, which was scored by Minnesota forward Ryan Hartman after a bad deflection on a clearing attempt by Stars defenseman Colin Miller sent the puck to Hartman. Dallas can take some consolation in the fact they outshot the Wild 26-12 in extra time, but Minnesota goalie Filip Gustavsson made an amazing 51 saves Monday to give his team a shot at getting to OT in the first place.

Tuesday’s action promises to be just as competitive, but in the opening night of the playoffs, no team came away with a result that was demeaning or indicative there was going to be a sweep in any series. All four games featured exactly the type of low-risk, high-reward hockey we’re accustomed to seeing in the playoffs, and it’s very likely we’ll see close games time and again in the next few days and weeks.

Every still-active team still believes in itself, and no team is probably going to roll over its opponent. NHL parity has given us this ferocious level of play, and the fans are the ones who benefit from the excitement NHL playoff games produce.