1. Tkachuck's hit on Scheifele: Despite Coach Maurice's response, I agree with the league that the hit wasn't dirty, per se. However, we can't ignore the fact that Scheifele is WPG's best player and Tkachuck is GCY's most antagonistic (to be nice). It's impossible to know what he was thinking, but I believe Tkachuck's intent was to target WPG's star player to rough him up, but not necessarily take him out of the series. I guess the Flames just got lucky. You know, like the Rangers got "lucky" when Kreider ran Carey Price about 5 years ago in the Conf. Final.

2. EDM needs to wake up defensively. I still think they're gonna win the series though. They couldn't have played worse 5on5 and still had a chance to win at the end. They can't lose games when McDavid and Draisaitl combine for 7 points.

3. Rangers should/must go to Shesterkin in game 2 if they have any hopes of winning their series w/ CAR. Henrik was solid, but they need elite goaltending to prevail.

4. The round robin games are essentially meaningless warmup games. How many of the leagues top 4 seeds reached the 2nd round last season? Zero.

5. TOR is in the most trouble of any of the so-called favorites in the play-in round. CBJ absolutely locked it down defensively and Jonas was money in the bank. Torts' game planning ability should be the difference in this series.

6. The majority of games have been low scoring. I find this very surprising b/c teams usually struggle defensively early in the season when scores are high. I expect this trend to continue though. Goals will be tough to come by.

7. Goaltending was pretty spectacular overall this past weekend. Price was amazing against PIT. It took a ridiculous bank shot by Sid to finally beat him. But, Korpisalo was my 1st star of Sunday. He made several highlight-reel saves against the Leafs, including a great stop on Matthews from point blank range.

8. EDM needs to bench Mike Smith in favor of Koskinen ASAP. Smith has the higher upside, but he's too inconsistent. CBJ, ARI, and MIN absolutely made the right choices in net for game 1. NSH should stick w/ Saros in game 2. He's earned the opportunity to bounce back.

9. Fleury will end up starting game #1 for Vegas in the Playoffs. Lehner would probably have to play lights out in the prelims to steal the #1 job.

10. COL and PHI are definitely the real deal. I expect both teams to make deep runs this season.

11. This format, with 5-6 games a day, is w/o a doubt the most entertaining hockey experience in history. I love it!

Here's where my head is at after the first games:

1. Tkachuk hit could or couldnt be dirty, its right on that gray area. if you take the players out of the equation and put in brad marchand and auston matthews would the league have called it a suspension? The angle he goes in at with his skate off the ice like that is borderline freak accident and dirty play. To counter... similar play happened in bruins flyers, where raffl and lauzon went hard to the boards. Commentators immediately said thats a hard hockey play where both players are crashing the boards hard but lauzon might have gotten a slight slew foot in there. again, tough to watch sped up and slowed down to know where the contact happens and everything.

2. EDM will be fine, they play fast and the ice conditions are kind of not allowing that. You need to play controlled and take it down a notch, cant rush anything because the ice is just awful right now being used so frequently.

3. Rangers arent ready as a team to face a stacked carolina squad. Even if shesterkin goes in i dont think they win the series. maybe steal a game but thats all i see them getting.

4. The round robin games have looked quite underwhelming and as ive said a couple times to different people, there isnt a sense of urgency really in those games. not nearly as physical, not nearly as gritty. Bruins flyers for example, i saw alot of extra unnecessary moves being made, a lot of checks that werent finished that would be in a real playoff scenario.

5. Toronto is 100% in trouble, ive said all along columbus is a solid team. Look at all the injuries they dealt with this year. No coincidence they look strong in the playoffs. I think columbus wins in 4.

6. Low scoring games because puck control is going to be tough due to the ice conditions. Puck is sticking to the ice alot more, bouncing and not skidding as far. I think theres going to be more greasy goals this year than finesse goals.

7. Goaltending was pretty solid. Habs had a solid game plan vs pitt. same with toronto vs cbj. will be interesting to see the remainder of both series.

8. Arizona and minnesota had pretty easy decisions to make, stalock was real good down the stretch and its showing on the ice. Keumper was a vezina candidate until he got hurt. Pretty easy decisions there. I think Smith should get game 2 but have a short leash. Koskinen was money in KHL playoffs. I think NSH should actually go rinne in game 2.

9. Fleury should start lehner was brought in as injury insurance.

10. Agree 100% i would put them both as favorites as of right now.

11. Again agree. But, it would be even better if we had 4 games a night on their own home ice with fans in seats. Since ice degrades, we could see a real sloppy product in 2 weeks. who knows what ice conditions are going to be like after the prelims. The ice looked horrible at 3pm after what maybe 6 games on it? Not ideal conditions to say the least. I wonder if Americans had all taken it seriously and not been completely useless on this front if the virus would be so contained that we could see games in our own buildings...

Columbus is a nightmare matchup for the Leafs. They're probably the team TOR wanted to play least of all. Maybe the NYI would be tough as well.

although after going 0-3 against the Habs in the regular season, a Leafs-Habs series would have been interesting....