NHL playoffs: How Kings have contained Oilers star Connor McDavid

There is nothing like playoff hockey.

With every series through the first two games, and six of eight being tied 1-1, it's time to dive into some insights and observations from the NHL playoffs.

How Kings have contained Connor McDavid

There are many differences between the Edmonton Oilers and Los Angeles Kings this year compared to last season's first-round matchup.

Edmonton's starter is Stuart Skinner, not Mike Smith. L.A.'s starter is Jonas Korpisalo, not Jonathan Quick. The Oilers added Mattias Ekholm. The Kings added Vladislav Gavrikov. Drew Doughty is healthy and so is Viktor Arvidsson, which is noteworthy. Other than players on the Dallas Stars and Minnesota Wild, who went to double overtime in Game 1, Arvidsson leads all playoff forwards in time on ice per game and the forward he has spent the most even-strength minutes matching up against is Connor McDavid.

Phillip Danault is an excellent checking center — one of the best in the league, in fact. Yet McDavid still had a ludicrous 14 points in seven games against the Kings last playoffs, only four of which came on the power play. Through two games so far, McDavid has one assist on the power play. Danault will always grab headlines because he is so good at what he does, but what Arvidsson offers beyond good defensive instincts is speed.

You cannot stop McDavid, you can only hope to contain him. But with a defensive anchor in Danault down the middle and two speedy wingers on either side in Arvidsson and Trevor Moore, the Kings can at least squint and say they have a unit that has the instincts and speed to reasonably contain him. So far, they are doing so.

The Leafs-Lightning chess match

The 82-game regular season is long and gruelling and teams are typically focused on their game more than anything else. Sure, teams will pre-scout faceoffs and special teams to avoid giving opponents any layups, but by and large they are looking inwards. Once the playoffs arrive, the emphasis on your opponent really dials up and with that, so does the focus on matchups.

Heading into the Leafs-Lightning series, Sheldon Keefe said he was confident with his best line going head-to-head against Tampa's best line.

“In general, because [Auston] Matthews and [Mitch] Marner are two of our best defensive players, I don’t get too concerned about going best-on-best with them,” Keefe said.

He actively chased the matchup in Game 1. The Lightning started with their checking line and Keefe responded with his second line. When the Lightning put out their fourth line, he didn’t counter with his top line, choosing instead go with his fourth line. Toronto's fourth line gave the puck away early and got scored on.

In Game 2, it was a much different story. When the Lightning started with their checking line, Keefe put out the Matthews line. They drew a power play that shift then scored on the ensuing power play. More interesting is that throughout the game, the line the Leafs used to match up against the Steven Stamkos-Brayden Point-Nikita Kucherov line the most was actually the Zach Aston-Reese-David Kampf-Sam Lafferty line.

The Lightning will surely look to flip those matchups around as the series heads to Tampa, but if the Leafs can put out a checking line against the Lightning’s top line and in the process free up the Matthews line as well as the John Tavares and Ryan O’Reilly lines to play against Tampa’s other three trios, they will feel really good about it.

Panthers playing fearless

The Boston Bruins had an NHL record 135 points this season. The Florida Panthers made the playoffs with just 92 points, the lowest total of any team in the postseason. In fact, the Calgary Flames had 93 points in the West and didn’t make it. The gap on paper was massive, but when you are such a big underdog you really have nothing to lose. And when teams have nothing to lose, they are genuinely free to just go for it. That is what the Panthers are doing.

In Game 1, they probably pushed the envelope a little too far, taking two early penalties and the Bruins made them pay. But they have kept up the aggression.

You will often see the Panthers with two men in deep on the forecheck despite the Bruins having arguably the best defense in the league. They are relentlessly pressuring them trying to create turnovers. You see it on this goal, with two guys in deep and Matthew Tkachuk supporting high. Florida was realistically caught if Boston just chipped it off the wall, but the Panthers pressured and played on their toes and forced the Bruins into a mistake.

Look at their fourth goal. Carter Verhaeghe is a dog on the puck and all over Charlie McAvoy, and when the Bruins defenseman spins off of him, Sam Bennett comes screaming in and finishes him, resulting in a turnover and a quick 3-on-2 goal.

When teams are outgunned they often resort to trapping and trying to counterattack, dulling games right down. The Panthers are playing fearless and tied 1-1 in a series that is becoming quite fun.

Can Avalanche stars trump Kraken's depth?

When you look at the Colorado Avalanche-Seattle Kraken series, the first thing that stands out is the star power on one team compared to the other.

Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar and Mikko Rantanen are the three best players in the series. After that, you can argue who the fourth is. Devon Toews? Vince Dunn? Maybe big Valeri Nichushkin, or 40-goal man Jared McCann? But for everything the Kraken lack in star power, they make up for in depth. Seattle had the fourth-most goals in the league as a team this season. The Kraken had 13 scorers in double digits and six players hit 20-plus goals. By comparison, the Avalanche had 11 players hit double digits in goals, with three topping 20.

Early in the series, three of the Kraken’s lines have chipped in goals to just two for the Avalanche. The Kraken's depth has been noteworthy as the Avalanche have three forwards playing over 20 minutes per night to the Kraken’s one. Two of those Avalanche players, MacKinnon and J.T. Compher, are over 21 minutes and Colorado's fourth player (Nichushkin) is two seconds under 20 minutes. The Avs' seventh-ranked forward in time on ice, Lars Eller at 10:31 per game, would rank 11th on the Kraken.

One team is rolling three lines while the other is rolling just two. But if there is a time to do that, it is the first round. The wear and tear of the playoffs has not set in yet. Losing players like Nazem Kadri and Andre Burakovsky in the summer plus Gabriel Landeskog missing the entire season is something you will never be able to replace. Can the Avs' star players, of which there are plenty, outlast the Kraken’s depth? This series has been more interesting than most originally thought it would be.

Scoring off the draw

There have been 104 goals scored so far in the playoffs and 12 of them have come off offensive zone faceoff plays, be that an actual set play or a won battle leading to a chance. That’s nearly 12% of goals so far. Of the 12 faceoff goals, seven of them have come on the power play.

Faceoffs and their importance always seem to be hotly debated, and early on we are seeing teams generate goals off them. Everything is heightened in the playoffs and space to create offense is often nonexistent. Faceoffs present the only real opportunity where the play is static and you can somewhat control the situation if you’re a coach. You can move guys around and draw something up, trying to manipulate the defense in a very structured and set way.

Here’s the first goal of the playoffs, where the Carolina Hurricanes use the man advantage wisely. The New York Islanders have two penalty killing forwards and they have to front the defenders at the blueline. They can’t allow Brent Burns to just walk in freely and tee off. But with two players moving up top off the draw and the penalty killing defensemen tracking the wingers, the center has some time where he’s unmarked to move around and get open. Easy goal.

That play is becoming more popular and the Islanders almost scored on the Hurricanes doing the exact same thing in the same period.

This is another popular one.

The faceoff is won to the point man close to the boards and the winger lining up on the inside hashmark pops up to the top of the circle to get a shot off. The rebound worked out well, but the concept and foundation of the play is what builds it. Lots of teams love pulling a winger high to create confusion. The defenseman is supposed to cover the winger off the draw, but he’s not going to follow him to the blueline. If a team isn’t ready for it and the defenseman and winger don’t communicate, he will be wide open.