THE PLAYOFF SKINNY
PITTSBURGH AT NEW YORK RANGERS Game 1: Thursday, 5 p. m., CBC Season series ( regulation wins, regulation losses, OT/ SO losses): Rangers 3- 0- 1; Penguins 1- 2- 1. The skinny: The Penguins won just four of their final 15 games, which is how they went from being 14 points up on ninth place to making the playoffs on just the final day of the season. And so they arrive, a bit discombobulated, at a sixth straight playoff appearance since their 2009 Stanley Cup title, a huge underdog. The 2014 Cup finalist Rangers, after all, mowed through the regular season and won the Presidents’ Trophy. It happened with excellence at every position — from goaltending, where backup Cam Talbot had to step in for an injured Henrik Lundqvist for a long stint, to every other facet of the game, where the Rangers were among the league leaders. Seems like unfinished business for coach Alain Vigneault, twice a finalist in the last four seasons.
DETROIT AT TAMPA BAY Game 1: Thursday, 5: 30 p. m., Sportsnet Season series: Lightning 3- 0- 1; Red Wings 1- 2- 1. The skinny: It didn’t take long for Steve Yzerman, as a young Red Wing, to turn heads in the NHL. Thirty years later, he’s the GM of the Tampa Bay Lightning, who had their best- ever regular season and feature a whole boatload of young guys who turn heads like Yzerman did: Steven Stamkos, Tyler Johnson, Nikita Kucherov, Ondrej Palat, Victor Hedman, Jonathan Drouin. The list goes on. The Red Wings, meanwhile, have made the playoffs in 24 consecutive seasons, and head coach Mike Babcock is a future Hall of Famer. But he’s also entrusting Game 1 to 23- year- old goalie Petr Mrazek, who has a grand total of 40 NHL games under his belt. The good news: Mrazek just shut out Tampa two weeks ago. The bad news: In January, the same Bolts shelled him for five goals on 15 shots.
MINNESOTA AT ST. LOUIS Game 1: Thursday, 7: 30 p. m., Sportsnet 360 Season series: Wild 2- 1- 1; Blues 2- 2. The skinny: For the last three months, the Wild have been the hottest team in the league. Not surprisingly, that coincides with the debut of Devan Dubnyk, deemed so expendable by the Arizona Coyotes that they sold him to Minnesota for a third- round pick. Sweet deal for the Wild, who’ve gone 28- 9- 3 since. The previous two Wild goalies, whose names we can barely remember, have played exactly two of those 40 games. So we know who the second- half Hart Trophy winner is. And we also know that Ken Hitchcock’s Blues have translated impressive regular seasons into zippo the last two years — first- round flame- outs. But the Blues also have plenty of depth at defence, including a now- healthy Kevin Shattenkirk and Alex Pietrangelo. They’ll need them in form, considering the Wild — led by Zach Parise, Nino Niederreiter and Thomas Vanek — can score in bunches.
WINNIPEG AT ANAHEIM Game 1: Thursday, 8: 30 p. m., Sportsnet Season series: Ducks 3- 0- 0; Jets 0- 1- 2. The skinny: Late in the winter of 1995- 96, the Jets traded the young, spectacular and devoted- to- Winnipeg star Teemu Selanne to the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim. Selanne wasn’t pleased. The people of Winnipeg were outraged. A few months later, the Jets were gone, to Phoenix. Selanne got over the disappointment, and in 2007, he helped lead the Ducks to the Stanley Cup. Selanne retired 11 months ago, but wouldn’t that have been something to see him in this game tonight? Without Selanne, the Ducks have been fine. They’ve won a ton of one- goal games and pretty much led the Pacific Division wire- to-wire. Any team featuring Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry is to be feared, and Ryan Kesler has done the job as one of the NHL’s top two- way men. As for the Jets? Well, it was a season- long battle to get here. They’re big, they have talent, and their move to get rid of Evander Kane and bring in Tyler Myers and Drew Stafford paid off. Will they be wowed by the experience or be able to bear down?