NHL Playoffs 2018: Schedule, Stanley Cup Bracket Format and Predictions

The Pittsburgh Penguins and Philadelphia Flyers have been facing off since both were part of the NHL's great expansion in 1967-68. While each team has had its share of success and failure, the one consistency is their mutual dislike.

Those two teams will get the Stanley Cup playoffs started against each other Wednesday night, as the Penguins host the Flyers in Game 1 of their first-round matchup.

The Flyers are hoping to reprise the 2012 playoff series between the two teams when they blitzed the Penguins in six games, scoring 30 goals in the series, including 18 in the first three games.

Two other series will get underway on Wednesday, including the Winnipeg Jets hosting the Minnesota Wild and the Vegas Golden Knights taking on the Los Angeles Kings.

All first-round series remain best-of-seven matchups, as they have since the 1987 playoff season. In order to win the Stanley Cup, as the Penguins have done the last two years, the winning team is going to have to be successful in four best-of-seven series.

Here's a link to the full schedule of the first round, per NHL.com.

The Penguins earned home-ice advantage in this series by a narrow margin, as they had 100 points during the regular season, while the Flyers were right behind with 98. The Penguins gave up 250 goals this year, seven more than the Flyers, and opponents have regularly been able to find the range and score key goals against the Penguins.

That has to be music to the ears of Claude Giroux, Jakub Voracek and Sean Couturier, who are the Flyers' three leading scorers. Giroux had a brilliant year with 102 points, while Voracek scored 85 and Couturier added 76 points.

While the Flyers should be able to unleash their offense against the Penguins, Pittsburgh should be able to do the same against Philadelphia. The Flyers' goaltenders gave up an average of 2.83 goals per game.

Gene J. Puskar/Associated Press

Superstars Evgeni Malkin, Sidney Crosby and Phil Kessel are certainly capable of finding the back of the net on a regular basis, and this series could mimic the 2012 series because both sides should be able to score a boatload of goals.

The Penguins don't appear to have the strength that they did in either of the past two years, so look for the Flyers to register a six-game upset.

Pittsburgh brought home the Stanley Cup last year by taking down the Nashville Predators in six games. The Predators have been on a mission all season to get back to the Stanley Cup Final and win the championship.

Jeffrey T. Barnes/Associated Press

They proved themselves in the regular season by earning the Presidents' Trophy, and they begin their run towards a potential title with their series against the Colorado Avalanche.

The Avs gained the No. 2 wild-card spot in the Western Conference when they defeated the St. Louis Blues in the last game of the regular season.

The Avs are led by Nathan MacKinnon, who scored a team-high 97 points this season. Mikko Rantanen followed with 84 points and Gabriel Landeskog with 62. However, if the Avs are going to have any chance to push the Predators hard, goaltender Semyon Varlamov is going to have to be at his best. Varlamov had a 2.68 GAA this season along with a .920 save percentage.

The Predators are loaded with skilled players, including Filip Forsberg, Viktor Arvidsson, Ryan Johansen and P.K. Subban. The Preds are all about spreading the scoring around. Forsberg had 64 points, Arvidsson scored 61 and Johnsen had 54 points, while Subban had 59 points from the blue line.

Goalie Pekka Rinne is a legitimate Vezina Trophy candidate, as he had a 2.31 GAA and a .927 save percentage.

We expect the Predators to take care of business in routine fashion, winning the series in five games.

Here's a look at our predictions for the other first-round series:

Tampa Bay over New Jersey in seven.
Boston over Toronto in seven.
Washington over Columbus in five.
Winnipeg over Minnesota in four.
Los Angeles over Vegas in seven.
San Jose over Anaheim in seven.