Rangers.
Hurricane.
Lightning.
Leafs.

Knights.
Jets.
Preds.
Kings.

NYR
Canes
Bruins
Flip a coin

VGK
AVS
NSH
LAK

Rangers
Islanders
Bruins
Panthers

Knights
Avs
Canucks (if Demko is healthy if not Preds win easy)
Oilers

NYR
CAR
TBL
FLA


DAL
AVS
VAN (if demko ready)
EDM

Car>NYR
FLA>TBL

COL>DAL
EDM>VAN

CAR>FLA
COL>EDM

CAR>COL

My second round looks like this:

NYR v CAR = NYR
FLA v TBL = FLA

EDM v NAS = EDM
WPG v VGK = VGK

NYR
CAR
TB
FLA

DAL
COL
VAN
LA

CAR > NYR
FLA > TB
DAL > COL
VAN > LA

CAR > FLA
DAL > VAN

DAL > CAR

Third times a charm for LA, eh?

LA is a much more deeper team and a hell of a lot better defensively than Edmonton is. Wouldn’t count them out so fast. Edmonton barely beat them before so it’s possible LA can overcome it this time

LA traded their depth for PLD, remember? They aren't as good as they were in previous years.

Nothing is guaranteed but the matchup favours Edmonton, especially when you consider how their best players elevate in the playoffs.

EDM's first 15 games are something to remember...

And LA's 1-3-1 is very effective... And the Leafs showed how to defend 97 and 29 which will limit their effectiveness and how the team preforms overall

Regular season is all Leafs fans think about....

LA has more depth now than they had last year..

Byfield - Kopitar - Kempe
Moore - Danault - Arvidsson
Fiala - PLD - Lafrerriere
Thomas - Lizotte - Lewis

That top 9 is miles better and deeper than Edmonton and not to mention that Kopitar and Danault are two of the most elite shutdown centres in the game.

Then their defence only got stronger this year.
Anderson - Doughty
Gavrikov - Roy
England - Spence

That gives them 2 shutdown pairs.

& LA goalies take some heat but they’re still better than Edmonton’s and Skinner completely $hits the bed in playoffs…

Wouldn’t call Edmonton a huge favourite at all.

Playoffs matter too... and EDM's track record vs good team in the playoffs is bad recently

So their track record vs LA means nothing to you... when we're looking at a potential series vs LA?

Your "logic" leaves a lot to be desired.

And losing to the Cup Champions is a lot better than whatever it is Toronto has done in the past 10 years.

You mean that Toronto frequently loses to the team that goes to the cup final or wins it?…
Panthers, Lightning, Bruins, Canadiens.. yeah Toronto are lost to bad teams that were able to beat their other opponents too..


Side note: aren’t you the Oilers fan that thinks Cody Ceci is a top 4 defender? That should tell you all you need to know about your hockey evaluation skills 😂

Kopitar is -9 in the past 2 playoff series (13 gp) vs Edmonton. He was owned by both McDavid and Draisaitl. Doughty is -5 (6 gp). You're overestimating them by a lot.

The past 2 years, Edmonton has lost to the Cup Winner. That's more than Toronto can say. And yet it has NOTHING to do with a potential EDM v LAK first round series.

Ceci has played top-4 consistently for 8 seasons, for 6+ NHL coaches and 4 NHL teams. The fact that you come to a different conclusion about him than smart people who are paid millions to assess talent and coach multi-billion-dollar sports franchises tells me everything I need to know about your hockey evaluation skills!

This is the dumbest take ever. It doesn’t matter that they lost to the cup champs, that literally means nothing. But again if you wanna play that game:
2023 - Leafs lost to Florida who went to the cup final.
2022 - Leafs lost to Lightning who went to the final.
2021 - Leafs lost to Canadiens who went to the final.
2020 - Leafs lost to Columbus.
2019 - Leafs lost to Bruins who went to the final.

See a trend here? 4 of the last 5 playoff seasons Toronto has lost to the cup finalist from the East. So whatever argument you have in your head is null by the fact that Toronto has lost to tougher competition more. Hell even before that they lost to Washington who were the Presidents Trophy winners that year.

Oh and Toronto is one of only a few teams to make the playoffs each of the last 8 seasons. Edmonton is not one of those teams. So clearly Toronto has been better than Edmonton in that span.




& no. Just because a guy plays top 4 minutes doesn’t mean he’s a top 4 guy. Even a peewee kid knows that. He’s there out of necessity because the Oilers defence is weak, it was the same situation he was in when he was in Toronto - Dubas even came out and said that they misused him in that role when he played.

Last time I checked coaches aren’t always right and stats don’t lie. He’s not a top 4 d-man 🤣😂

I wouldn't say that they have more depth, losing Iafallo, Vilardi, and Durzi hurt (Spence has nicely replaced Durzi tbh though), otherwise this is the same roster they had last year with a couple key people being a bit older, Doughty and Kop.
Also wouldn't say England brings more than what Edler did last season, maybe a personal preference.

My main worry for this series is Kempe who was very happy picking apart our RHD last playoffs, Desh and Bouch have both made defensive improvements but it's still a concern.

Kind of like you said too, the goalies will decide it.
Skinner is a year older and more experienced, he had a difficult outing last year but each year he gets better.
LA, imo, got better in net too. Korp was a disaster for them last year and Talbot is an improvement.

EDM is still probably the favourites vs. LA, we've handled them well this season and made better additions at TDL too.

Correct

LAK have been a pretty good team recently, they weren't as good the past couple of year

Do I remember asking about the Leafs? Why do crybabies keep doing this? every time they don't hear something they don't like, it's always becomes about the Leafs when it had nothing to do with them to begin with...

And btw, we have the same amount of RD 3 wins as you the past 15 years... So don't bring up EDM playoff success vs Leafs playoff success

LAK was better last year. And the year before.

23-24: .596
22-23: .634
21-22: .604

You can lie all you like, but everyone else here has access to this information so it's kind of pointless.

Now get rid of their 8 game losing streak, where they fired their coach during a weird stretch and:
23-24: .676

A whole .04 better

So we're cherry picking data now? What happens when you take 8 losses out of last year? Or heck, why not take ALL the losses out, then they're 1.000!! Best team ever!!

Hiller was hired February 2nd. Since then the Kings are .617, still not as good as last year. BTW, since Feb 2 the Oilers are .645.

😂 It's almost like this was in the middle of a very bad stretch for the Kings, they are usually a .674 win team... They just had 8 games of turmoil... They did not have that last year...

They are better this year and should beat EDM on the basis of getting up by 1, then 1-3-1