Now that the regular season is in the books, the Vancouver Canucks players have gone their separate ways.
On Monday, as expected, the team assigned Nikolay Goldobin, Tyler Motte and Ashton Sautner to the Utica Comets, in preparation for the playoffs.
With three games left to play this weekend, the Comets sit fourth in the AHL's North Division, two points behind the Rochester Americans. They have plenty to play for this weekend: moving into third place would let them avoid a first-round matchup against the league-leading Toronto Marlies.
That being said, the Comets played the Marlies tough in a home-and-home series last weekend. With Richard Bachman in net, Jalen Chatfield and Tanner MacMaster got the Comets out to a 2-0 lead before eventually falling 3-2 in overtime in Toronto last Thursday. Utica got revenge at home on Friday, when Thatcher Demko made 37 saves and stopped all three shots in the shootout as Cole Cassels scored the game-winning goal. Cassels and Lukas Jasek had the Comets goals during regulation.
The final three games are at home against Syracuse on Friday, on the road at Belleville on Saturday and back home to finish out the season against Binghamton for a Sunday matinee.
One other quick note on Ashton Sautner: if you missed it, his uncle is Kevin Garinger, the Humboldt Broncos president who has so ably shouldered the enormous load of being the face of the franchise—and in some ways, of the nation—in the aftermath of the terrible bus crash. He has been a pillar of strength in an absolutely devastating situation.
Some of the other players have already headed home. Michael Del Zotto's logging some beach time in Hawaii, while Bo Horvat and his trusty French bulldog Gus were enjoying 14 degree temperatures at Kits Beach on Tuesday.
Bo has said that he will be part of Team Canada at this year's World Championship. Darren Dreger teased that the rest of the roster would be finalized on Tuesday, but there hasn't been an announcement yet. I'm on the edge of my seat!
Tonight, of course, playoffs begin with three games. There has been a lot of grousing this year about the NHL's playoff format, with people saying it's unfair that teams aren't seeded one-through-eight in each conference, or even possibly one-through-sixteen. The Florida Panthers could definitely support that idea: they finished 16th overall with 96 points, one more than Colorado, but that wasn't enough to get them in on the Eastern side.
As someone who has fond memories of some mediocre Canucks teams sneaking in many times during the days of the "Original 21," I'd like to see the bracket expanded to 20 teams, especially when Seattle comes in to bring the total up to 32 teams. But I understand the complications. A play-in game just doesn't work in hockey; I remember when the playoffs were first expanded to four rounds and the first-round best-of-three eventually grew to a best-of-five before finally turning into a best-of-seven.
It'd be tough to add any kind of play-in without extending the season any longer than it already is. Also, if you do some kind of wild-card scenario, the top teams would end up sitting longer, which could cause them to come out flat when they did get into action.
So, here we are, with a scenario that works pretty well. I understand the NHL's desire to have a March Madness-style bracket, where we can see a team's path to the Stanley Cup Final right from the first round. And this year, when the dust settled, the matchups came out fantastically.
The first round is my favourite. It's so cutthroat that half these teams will be gone in a couple of weeks but for now, we get to immediately gorge on Pittsburgh-Philly, Boston-Toronto, Winnipeg-Minnesota and Vegas-L.A. I love it.
In these days of parity, it's pretty much impossible to make predictions with any sort of accuracy but I'll put myself out there. I submitted my entry to the NHL's Bracket Challenge this morning. Here are my first-round picks, including one giant upset call.
Nashville vs. Colorado - Nashville in 6
Winnipeg vs. Minnesota - Winnipeg in 6
Vegas vs. Los Angeles - L.A. in 5
Anaheim vs. San Jose - Anaheim in 7
Tampa Bay vs. New Jersey - New Jersey in 5
Boston vs. Toronto - Boston in 6
Washington vs. Columbus - Washington in 7
Pittsburgh vs. Philadelphia - Pittsburgh in 7
Looking at my upset picks, my guess is that the Kings spoil the party in Vegas tonight, earn a split, then take control of the series back in L.A. to end the Golden Knights' Cinderella season. But it's not outside the realm of possibility that Vegas keeps defying expectations. If they can blow out the best defense in the league in Game 1, they could steamroll their way to a series win.
In the East, I feel like the Lightning have just been too inconsistent through the last two months of the season. If the playoffs had come in December, they would have been a shoo-in but now, Steven Stamkos' health is a question mark, Andrei Vasilevskiy is tired and the Devils are firing on all cylinders after the push they had to make to get into the postseason. Again, I see a surprising road win for the underdogs in Game 1, which damages the confidence of a team that many predicted to be a Stanley Cup favourite at the beginning of the year.
Who ya got?
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