NHL Playoffs: Third Round MVPs

Two teams remain, at 18 skaters and two goalies apiece.

Here are the players who have led the way so far...

Tuukka Rask, Boston Bruins: the single most dominant player on the ice in almost every game he's suited up for in these playoffs. It's not even close. There's Rask, then there's a list we have to make of the rest.

Jordan Binnington, St. Louis Blues: oh, he's for real, for now. As long as the season doesn't end, neither will his fairy tale.

Brad Marchand, Boston Bruins: urgh. Next.

Colton Parayko, St. Louis Blues: the best skater on the Blues in these payoffs. He saved the team's behinds many a time when Binnington was feeling a bit overwhelmed.

Charlie McAvoy, Boston Bruins: played without mentor Zdeno Chara in the deciding game against the Carolina Hurricanes and showed everyone that he was actually the guy making the back end work on the best defense still standing.

Jaden Schwartz, St. Louis Blues: he's about to break Brett Hull's team record for single-season playoff goals. Then again, Hull never even made it to the Conference Finals in St. Louis...

NHL Playoffs Predictions 2018-19: The Stanley Cup Final

It's all come down to this...

Two teams that have consistently finished among the top-10 in the regular season for most of the past decade in wins, overall points, goals against, even hits...

Two teams that usually boast at least a half-dozen Olympians on their rosters (though the boys in blue are usually of the Team USA choking kind while Boston employs Canadians, Finns and over-achieving Slovaks)...

So... here we are.

Boston Bruins vs St. Louis Blues

THIS SEASON
Each time has won a game against the other in the regular season.

The Bruins were safely installed in second place in the Atlantic Division pretty much all year and finished with a 47-30-5 record, while the Blues, last overall in January, fought tooth and nail just to make the playoffs, replacing both their head coach and starting goalie in the process to finish third in the Central Division with a... 45-28-9 record. Just two wins fewer.

OFFENSE
On offense, the Bs can now roll four lines without fear of looking outmatched at any point, but the bulk of the scoring comes from the first unit, comprised of Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron and David Pastrnak. For those keeping tabs, that's the best two-way center in the world for the past decade flanked by two 40-goal players. Luckily, one of them has a temper and can be sent to the penalty box.

The Blues can counter that with Brayden Schenn flanked by Vladimir Tarasenko (a 40-goal man once thought to be the heir to Alex Ovechkin, before we realized Ovie would just never stop scoring) and Jaden Schwartz, who is one goal away from tying Brett Hull for the team's single-season playoff record. Yeah, just throwing those all-time snipers' names out there.

The second and third lines are also tightly matched, slightly favouring Boston:

Jake DeBrusk / David Krejci / David Backes
Marcus Johansson / Charlie Coyle / Danton Heinen
                vs
Samuel Blais / Ryan O'Reilly / David Perron
Patrick Maroon / Tyler Bozak / Robert Thomas

Each team has a rejuvenated hometown boy (Coyle and Maroon), some sandpaper (Backes, Johansson, Heinen, Maroon, Blais), two-way acumen (Krejci and ROR) youth (DeBrusk and Blais), and players who are no longer the top guys they once were (Backes and Bozak).

St. Louis has better fourth-line depth, though, with players like Ivan Barbashev, Alex Steen and Oskar Sundqvist ready to take on bigger roles if needed, while the Bruins are content keeping Joakin Nordstrom, Sean Kuraly and Chris Wagner at just over 10 minutes apiece.

DEFENSE
Zdeno Chara / Charlie McAvoy
Torey Krug / Brandon Carlo
Matt Grzelcyk / Connor Clifton
     vs
Joel Edmundson / Alex Pietrangelo
Jay Bouwmeester / Colton Parayko
Vince Dunn / Carl Gunnarson

At first glance, this also looks like an even matchup with a slight advantage for Beantown. However, while Pietrangelo has played the most minutes in these playoffs (by far_, he's also the second-most exposed defenseman this season after Erik Karlsson. Something's just terribly off in the way he misses passes, turns the puck over, doesn,t backcheck quickly enough and constantly fails to clear the zone safely in the dying minutes of a period, instead provoking icings that cost his teams goals and games. The Blues should be playing Parayko (perhaps the best defender still standing) a lot more and Pietrangelo a lot less.

Chara's no longer a true factor for the Bs, meaning even if he sits a few games out with an injury, whoever takes his palce will be able to provide the same defense he can. But no one has his blast from the blue line. McAvoy's the real star of this blue line (perhaps very close to Parayko as the best still playing), but Krug - while he makes a lot of defensive mistakes - can also create a lot of offense.

Also, never underestimate "it" factors, like the fact that the Blues are handicapped with two former Toronto Maple Leafs players (Bozak and Gunnarson), who are known to avoid winning a Stanley Cup at all costs.

COACHING
Hey, I'll admit Craig Berube has done a hell of a job with his Blues, matching what Bruce Cassidy has been able to achieve with a Bruins team that was supposed to have to go througha  rebuild after the Claude Julien years. It's dead even here.

GOALIES
Jordan Binnington's faced better goalies than himself in two of three rounds (Connor Hellebuyck of the Winnipeg Jets and Ben Bishop of the Dallas Stars) and came out on top, and he also put the San Jose Sharks' Martin Jones back in his place. His name can now be uttered in the same sentence as Patrick Roy, Ken Dryden, Ron Hextall, Cam Ward and Steve Penney (in that order) as the best rookie goalies OF ALL TIME in the playoffs. As a matter of fact, should the Blues win the Stanley Cup and he be in nets for all of his team's Ws, he'd break Roy's record of 15 wins as a rookie goaltender (1985-86).

The reason that won't happen will be facing him for at least 60 minutes per night, though.Tuukka Rask's name is thus far alone in the hat for the Conn Smythe trophy as the playoff MVP, win or lose. His performance is reminiscent of former Bruins star Tim Thomas (2011) in how dominant he's been relative to the competition. Not that there haven't been other examples in recent memory (Corey Crawford in 2013 and 2015, Jonathan Quick in 2012 and 2014), but to have two goalies from the same team be so much better than the competition in the same decade is something I don't remember seeing before, let alone Boston's. Even in the years of Grant Fuhr, Andy Moog and Bill Ranford with the dynasty Edmonton Oilers, so many other players were better than their peers by position that the goalies didn't matter as much. After all, we're talking about an era (now) where a team is lucky to score three goals per night, and where most games finish 2-1. Ain't no Wayne Gretzky, Jari Kurri, Glenn Anderson, Paul Coffey or Mark Messier playing in this day and age.

MY VERDICT
This one goes to Boston. The Blues have played too many games for the week-long break to matter and give them an advantage over Boston. Rask will be Rask, he's shown us the good stuff for nearly a decade at this point, but there is a legitimate risk that Binnington might get cold with the time off. With the Bruins carrying a small advantage everywhere else, Rask tips it in their favour.

Bruins in 5 6 5 6 5 6.

NHL Playoffs: Second Round MVPs

The picture's getting clearer as to who means what to which team in these playoffs. Here are the most valuable players so far...

Tuukka Rask, Boston Bruins: reminiscent of recent dominating playoff performances in front of the crease, in particular those of former teammate Tim Thomas (2011) and Jonathan Quick (2012 and 2014).

Logan Couture and Tomas Hertl, San Jose Sharks: the word "clutch" doesn't even do these guys justice. A ton of points at the most opportune moments led a team of perennial underachievers to victories they probably didn't deserve.

Jaccob Slavin, Carolina Hurricanes: possibly the best performance by a defenseman in the 2019 playoffs, Slavin is showing part-time hockey enthusiasts just what fanatics and Canes fans have been enjoying for years, which is the best current-day imitation of Nicklas Lidstrom-esque perfection.

Jordan Binnington, St. Louis Blues: I always hesitate to put a rookie goalie in the mix, because as we've seen with Cam Ward, a state of grace can be fleeting. But without his daily heroics, the Blues never get through Ben Bishop and the Dallas Stars.

Let the third round begin!

NHL Playoffs Predictions 2018-19: Round Three

Here we are, with no team that really excites me in the third round, the Conference Finals. Chokers vs Chokers, Goons vs a Bunch of Jerks.

Western Conference Final:

San Jose Sharks (2nd in the Pacific Division) vs St. Louis Blues (3rd in the Central Division):

The San Jose Choking Sharks are trying to re-write History and perhaps using their talent and depth to win with a head coach, Peter DeBoer, who usually also likes to fail big. Former captain Joe Thornton would want nothing more than to face the other team he captained, the Boston Bruins in the Final, but has the ever-the-bridesmaids St. Louis Blues in his way in Round Three.

The Sharks needed the referees to cheat in their favour to defeat the Vegas Golden Knights, while the Blues outworked an exhausted Dallas Stars team to the point where they forced Stars goalie Ben Bishop to deliver a historic performance just to keep the series tight.

I may not like them, they probably should not have made the playoffs, but I feel the Blues at least somehow kind of deserve to be there, at least. I wouldn't mind if they made the Final, considering what the opposite means.

Blues in 7.

Eastern Conference Final:

Boston Bruins (2nd in the Atlantic Division) vs Carolina Hurricanes (WC1):

Sure, the Canes' story is cool. They pissed off Don Cherry, got seats in the stands, rallied each other through an overblown Team-Building Exercise. But I will never forget 2006, when Justin Williams tried to take Saku Koivu's eye out in the first round and some other asshole injured would-have-been playoff MVP Dwayne Rolosson when the Edmonton Oilers led the Cup Final. They bullied and injured their way into an undeserved Cup win, led by a goalie who would never play a single game as good as during that run in the 14 years since. I still refuse to count that Cup as legitimate, and will always root against them for as long as they remain in Carolina.

Don't get me wrong - I'm no fan of the Bruins. Goons to the core, with Brad Marchand (as dirty as ever in these playoffs, punching people in the back of the head after a whistle and ridiculing journalists after games) and Zdeno Chara leading the way, but Tuukka Rask is looking like a legitimate Conn Smythe winner in their net.

Rask is what you get when team management, the media and the fans are all honest about the way guys are playing, showing them their flaws instead of sugarcoating the truth (or outright lying about his performaces) to positively reinforce his mental game. Even with a Vezina trophy in tow, because he's not at his best against the Montréal Canadiens (particularly in the post-season), Rask scared his side so much that they went and acquired Jaroslav Halak to back him up this year, and both goalies split the games nearly 50-50 (46 to 40 for Rask with Halak having the best statistics out of the two, top-5 in the NHL where it matters most) in the regular season, which left Rask full of energy for the playoff run - and the Bs with an option should he falter.

I didn't think Boston would get through the Columbus Blue Jackets, but that's exactly what they did: they plowed through them, nice and slow, methodically, until it was over. They're now the top seed, the top team, and they very well might win their second Cup this decade.

Bruins in 6.