2023 NHL Playoffs: 6 Storylines to Watch for the Conference Finals
At long last, we're down to the final four teams in the race for the Stanley Cup. It will be the Carolina Hurricanes against the Florida Panthers in the East and the Dallas Stars against the Vegas Golden Knights in the West, and we're already tired of hearing about ratings because these matchups are ripe for exciting hockey and plenty of drama.
The hockey speaks for itself. Carolina rumbled through two of the tri-state area's best teams to get here, while Florida knocked off the NHL's best (Boston Bruins) and fourth-best (Toronto Maple Leafs) teams from the No. 8 spot. In the West, Dallas disposed of the Minnesota Wild and fought the Seattle Kraken and won in seven games. Vegas, meanwhile, took out the Winnipeg Jets and then sent Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and the Edmonton Oilers home without a shot at the Cup once again.
How these matchups play out will be fascinating, and there are a lot of layers to both of them. You can have luck on your side to get this far, but you can't be fully lucky to do it. These teams are good, and how fate chooses to smile upon them (or not) is what makes playoffs unpredictable.
We love the drama and can't get enough of it, so we'll take a look at six different storylines to watch out for as we await the start of the conference finals Thursday in Raleigh and Friday in Las Vegas. The story of how teams got here helps set up how they'll square up on the ice.
Can Vegas Slow Down Roope Hintz?
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When breaking down how the Dallas Stars were likely going to beat a team coming into the playoffs, the first names that came to mind were Jason Robertson or Joe Pavelski. But it's the other guy on that line, Roope Hintz, who's been going off in a big way.
Hintz haunted the Seattle Kraken in the seven-game series with four goals and three assists. What's more, his effort against the Kraken was just a continuation of what he started against Minnesota. Through 13 games, Hintz has 19 points (nine goals, 10 assists), and he's an advanced stats monster on top of all that. According to Moneypuck.com, he's outperforming his expected goals tally by slightly over three goals (5.8 to 9) and is driving play with a 63.9 percent Corsi percentage, per Hockey Reference.
When you look at Hintz's efforts alongside Pavelski's (eight goals against Seattle) and Robertson's (hasn't scored a goal since Game 5 against Minnesota but has 12 points in 13 games), his impact is obvious. Dallas' top line is devastating to go up against, and those stats show that if a team can keep one guy mostly in check, someone else in that trio is going to step it up to make them pay.
But Vegas is going to have to have its eye on Hintz most of all, which means Mark Stone is likely to be on the ice as often as possible against him and his line. It will be a real test for Vegas, Stone and his ailing back because Hintz has shown he's not letting up anytime soon.
Will Adin Hill Match Jake Oettinger Save for Save?
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When Adin Hill stepped into the starting job in goal for Vegas in place of injured Laurent Brossoit in Game 3, the assumption was it would be the end of the line for the Golden Knights, particularly against the Edmonton Oilers' vaunted offense.
You know what they say about making assumptions, and Hill was more than happy to make everyone look bad for counting him out. Looking over Hill's career led many to think this wasn't going to end well, but in the process, they looked past what he's done this season in Las Vegas.
The catch with Hill in this upcoming series is he won't have rookie Stuart Skinner minding the opposing goal. Instead, he'll have Jake Oettinger standing up against his teammates at the far end of the ice. Oettinger had an excellent season and was a major reason why Dallas has been so good. He was tied for sixth in the league with a .919 save percentage and recorded 37 wins during the regular season.
In the playoffs, however, Oettinger has looked mortal, as the Stars went six games against Minnesota and seven against Seattle. The 24-year-old's save percentage has gone down slightly and is at a pedestrian .903 during the playoffs.
Hill's been a guy eager to find a landing spot for a while, and if this keeps up, he won't have to worry much about it. His 38-save effort in Game 6 against Connor McDavid and company was a terrific performance, and he's sporting a .934 save percentage in five games played. It's a small sample size but impressive nonetheless.
But he's going up against Oettinger, who is seemingly on a different planet of goaltending. Despite having his struggles in the Kraken series, Oettinger is building a reputation as a clutch goalie with a solid 22-save effort in Dallas' Game 7 win to move on to the Conference Finals.
Goalies don't necessarily compete head-to-head against each other, but the pressure will be on Hill to match Oettinger in a series where pedigree in net favors the Stars.
What's Teuvo Teräväinen's Status?
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Teuvo Teräväinen's ability to pull off all kinds of offensive magic at breakneck speeds is what helps set him apart from most other players on the Hurricanes' roster. He's also a player who hasn't been able to demonstrate those abilities since Game 2 against the New York Islanders when he broke his hand.
That may be about to change because Teräväinen skated in a regular practice on Monday and said he'll be ready when coach Rod Brind'Amour needs him to play. Teräväinen's raw stats this season weren't eye-popping (12 goals, 25 assists), but while Carolina is without Andrei Svechnikov as well, any extra help is a good thing to have.
A broken hand is no joke for hockey players, considering the amount of work players do with shooting, passing and everything else in a sport in which using a stick in elite ways is a necessity. But there's perhaps another hiccup involved in bringing Teräväinen back into the lineup: The Hurricanes haven't missed a beat without him (or Svechnikov).
Ideally, it shouldn't take too long to get Teräväinen up to speed and able to slip back into the lineup seamlessly, but injury updates can always be a bit foggy in the postseason. The Hurricanes made it known he broke his hand, and we're not quite a month from that injury. They would no doubt benefit from having him back in the lineup, but with how they're playing, they don't have to step on the gas to make it happen.
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Is Sergei Bobrovsky for Real or a Mirage?
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The duality of Sergei Bobrovsky is rather incredible.
Bobrovsky's play early this season was, to be quite honest, brutal. He struggled mightily, and so did Spencer Knight. It took Bobrovsky roughly two months of action to get close to the form we've seen from him the rest of the way this season.
Bobrovsky's up-and-down performance is something we've gotten used to seeing from him since he signed in Florida, which makes us wonder how long his postseason form is going to last. He had a fairly mediocre 3.07 goals-against average and a .901 save percentage during the regular season. During the playoffs, his numbers have improved— a 2.82 goals-against average and a .918 save percentage
Questioning that also seems out of place because he's won the Vezina Trophy twice in his career, and he's been the reason why his teams can be an absolute nightmare to deal with in the postseason. A hot goalie can win a lot of games and series, and you don't have to look any further than Florida taking out the Bruins and Maple Leafs to understand that.
Still, Bobrovsky has faced the third-most shots in the playoffs, and he's played just 10 games. Only Philipp Grubauer and Jake Oettinger have seen more rubber in these playoffs, and Grubauer played in two seven-game series and Oettinger has 13 games played. In short, Bobrovsky's been really busy in his starts, and he has the eighth-best save percentage in the postseason. He's battle-tested, he's been there before, but it feels like there's a fall coming, and it wouldn't be a huge surprise.
All of that said, he was incredible in stymieing two of the NHL's better offenses, and if he does it to Carolina, he'll be a hero in South Florida for years to come.
Jaccob Slavin and Brent Burns vs. Matthew Tkachuk's Line
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These are the kinds of matchups that every hockey-mad analyst and fan salivates over.
Carolina's pairing of Brent Burns and Jaccob Slavin have been incredible in these playoffs. Their 5-on-5 play has been out of this world, with both guys north of 60 percent in expected goals, and they've gotten the call to face off against the opponents' top lines every game.
It wouldn't be fascinating if the trio of Matthew Tkachuk, Sam Bennett and Nick Cousins were getting run over by opponents in the playoffs. Thankfully, that hasn't been the case, and perhaps more importantly, their 5-on-5 numbers are on par with Burns and Slavin.
It's hockey's version of the unstoppable force against the immovable object but in terms of puck possession, and it should be awesome.
The style of hockey we've seen from Tkachuk's line throughout the postseason is equal parts skill, goal scoring, irritation and physicality. Burns and Slavin are like a buddy-cop-movie duo, with Burns a tenacious attacker and competitor while Slavin stays cool and just plays incredibly in his own end.
How coaches Rod Brind'Amour and Paul Maurice handle those matchups will be fascinating. The temptation will be to try to not have those groups face each other a lot because it will force them to expend a lot of effort to work the matchups from the bench. Both coaches want their guys to have success with the puck and create offense as well as try to stuff opponents.
But do they create a potential stalemate or open things up and out of their comfort zone? If Carolina has done its homework (and it has), it will know that Florida will pressure them all over the ice, led by Bennett and Tkachuk laying thunderous hits.
Pete DeBoer's Revenge
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What a difference a year makes.
This time last year, the Vegas Golden Knights had just missed the playoffs, and because of that, their then-head coach Pete DeBoer was fired.
Vegas had loads of injury issues during their doomed hunt for the postseason, but it was enough for Golden Knights management to part ways with a coach who took them to the playoffs the two previous seasons.
It wasn't too much longer after that the Dallas Stars put the call into DeBoer to ask him to be their head coach after Rick Bowness stepped away from the job. It might be a bit awkward now that the two parties are facing off against each other in the Western Conference Final.
Weirdly enough, this isn't totally new territory for either the Golden Knights or for DeBoer when you consider they went through a similar situation in 2019-2020 when DeBoer was fired by the San Jose Sharks and hired immediately by Vegas when they parted ways with Gerard Gallant. DeBoer had just led the Sharks to a seven-game series victory over Vegas in 2018-2019, a series in which Joe Pavelski shined for San Jose.
The entanglements run deep, but for DeBoer, running up against Vegas a year after he was unceremoniously dispatched by them offers him the opportunity to haunt a former team yet again—only this time after he's coached them.
Curiously enough, the previous three times a DeBoer team made the playoffs, they reached the third round before bowing out—twice with Vegas and once with San Jose. There's nothing DeBoer would love more than to show his former employers they made a mistake moving on from him.
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