Stanley Cup Playoffs could be 'crazy' after record-breaking season

The Stanley Cup Final starts Monday.
OK, technically, the Stanley Cup Playoffs start Monday, but each of the 16 teams might as well treat each round like the last.

"You're going to have to win four, basically, Stanley Cup Final series to win this year," Boston Bruins forward Brad Marchand said March 24, already looking ahead to the best time of the season. "Every team is that deep, so it's going to be an interesting playoffs."
Who knows what's going to happen? The Stanley Cup Playoffs have become incredibly competitive and unpredictable.
There have been 120 seven-game series since 2014, and 80 of them -- a full two-thirds -- have gone six or seven games. Thirty-five of them -- more than a quarter -- have gone seven games.
The Tampa Bay Lightning have a chance to win the Cup for the third straight season, which would be the closest thing to a dynasty in the NHL since the introduction of the NHL salary cap in 2005-06. No one has won three straight championships since the New York Islanders won four straight from 1980-83.
At the same time, 13 teams have appeared in the Cup Final since 2014 -- six that are currently in the Eastern Conference, seven that are currently in the Western Conference.
Would anyone be surprised if that number grew to 14 or 15 this year?
The Florida Panthers became the sixth different team to win the Presidents' Trophy in the past six seasons, a first since the NHL began awarding the trophy to the top regular-season team in 1985-86. They aren't on that list.
Nor are the next five teams in the NHL standings: the Colorado Avalanche, Carolina Hurricanes, Toronto Maple Leafs, Calgary Flames and Minnesota Wild.

The playoff field was determined early in the East this season, and there was a massive gap between the second wild card into the playoffs from the East and the next best team -- 16 points between the Washington Capitals and New York Islanders.
But that was an anomaly in this era of parity, and each playoff team in the East reached 100 points. Never before had eight teams in the same conference reached 100 points in the same season. In the West, the last spots came down to the final days.
In each conference, each wild card team this season has made the Cup Final recently: the Bruins (2019) and Capitals (2018) in the East, the Dallas Stars (2020) and the Nashville Predators (2017) in the West.
"There's a lot of, a lot of, a lot of really good teams this year, and it's a little bit of a crapshoot," Marchand said. "I mean, every team in the East is a contender. There's a lot of really good teams in the West."
The NHL enjoyed an offensive renaissance in the regular season. The League averaged 6.3 goals per game, the most in a quarter century.
Maple Leafs center Auston Matthews led the NHL with 60 goals, becoming the first 60-goal scorer since Lightning forward Steven Stamkos did it in 2011-12.
Four players scored at least 50 goals: Matthews, Edmonton Oilers forward Leon Draisaitl (55), New York Rangers forward Chris Kreider (52) and Capitals forward Alex Ovechkin (50). This, after four players had reached 50 goals over the past 10 seasons combined: Draisaitl, Ovechkin (four times), Stamkos and Pittsburgh Penguins center Evgeni Malkin.
Three defensemen had more than 80 points: Roman Josi of the Predators (96), Cale Makar of the Avalanche (86) and Victor Hedman of the Lightning (85). That hadn't happened since 1993-94.
No wonder there were 716 lead changes, the most in NHL history, surpassing the 711 from 2005-06, and comebacks in 42 percent of games, third-most in NHL history, behind 46 percent of games in 1920-21 and 44 percent in 2005-06.

Offense will come harder in the playoffs, as always, because of the tighter-checking style and the better quality of competition. The top 12 offensive teams made the playoffs, while the bottom 13 defensive teams missed. In other words, the strongest won't get to beat up on the weakest anymore.
But that just makes players like Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon all the more impressive. Not only does he average more points per game in the playoffs (1.38) than the regular season (1.02), but among players who have played in at least 35 playoff games, he ranks third in NHL history behind Wayne Gretzky (1.84) and Mario Lemieux (1.61).
Who can raise his game when it matters most? Which team can win the Cup Final not just once, but basically four times?
"It's going to be a crazy playoffs this year," Marchand said. "I'm really excited for the playoffs this year. It's going to be a lot of fun. It's going to be an absolute war all the way through.
"And whoever wins this year, I think it's going to mean a lot more than other years, because the playoffs this year are so deep."
NHL Stats and Information and NHL.com staff writer Amalie Benjamin contributed to this report.