(1P) Vancouver Canucks vs. (1WC) Nashville Predators
Canucks: 50-23-9, 109 points
Predators: 47-30-5, 99 points
Season series: VAN: 3-0-0, NSH: 0-3-0
Game 1: Sunday, at Vancouver (10 p.m. ET; ESPN, SN, SN360, TVAS)
Six of the eight teams that made the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Western Conference last season are back this season. The two new teams, the Vancouver Canucks and Nashville Predators, will face each other.
It's the second time the teams will play in the postseason, after the Canucks won in six games in the second round in 2011.
Vancouver will host a playoff game for the first time since 2015, a six-game loss to the Calgary Flames in the first round. The Canucks' only trip to the postseason since then was 2020, when they lost in seven games to the Vegas Golden Knights in the second round, with all games played at Rogers Place in Edmonton because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"I think this group is a confident one and we have all the confidence we need headed into Nashville," Canucks forward Dakota Joshua said. "It'll be exciting to get them at home first and then see how the series goes from there."
Nashville returns to the playoffs after failing to qualify last season for the first time since 2014.
"We're the underdog," said Predators coach Andrew Brunette, who is in his first season with the team. "We've got our work cut out for us. Let's just go at them. It's kind of the same mentality that we've had all year, let's just go straight forward."
The Canucks began the season 12-3-1, moved into the Pacific Division lead Dec. 23 and won their first division title since 2012-13.
The Predators started 5-10-0, but as they began to better understand their new systems, they went 13-3-0 in their next 16 games. They cemented themselves as a playoff team with a team-record 18-game point streak (16-0-2) from Feb. 17-March 26.
The Canucks swept the three-game series against the Predators, outscoring them 13-6. But all three games came in the first half of the season, before Nashville got its game going the right way.
"That definitely helps. You can beat them, but at the end of the day you start back off 0-0," Joshua said. "They were a pretty hot team down the stretch here so they're feeling probably a lot better than the times we played them earlier in the season, and it should be a great series."