Breaking down the eight series for Round 1 of the NHL playoffs

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Gentlemen, start your playoff engines.

With the Montreal Canadiens grabbing the second wild-card slot in the Eastern Conference with their 4-2 win over the visiting Carolina Hurricanes on Wednesday night, all eight first-round series are set for the 2025 National Hockey League playoffs, which are set to begin this weekend.

EASTERN CONFERENCE

Toronto Maple Leafs (second in East, first in Atlantic)                                                          vs. Ottawa Senators (first wild card)

FIRST GLANCE: Considered the most playoff-ready Toronto entry in its NHL-longest nine consecutive years of qualifying, the Leafs still carry the albatross of one series win since 2017 and the league’s longest Stanley Cup drought of 57 years … Both teams had new coaches this year who changed team mindset, Craig Berube forging the Leafs tougher and more defensively oriented, Travis Green making believers of a team that missed the playoffs for seven straight seasons.

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SEASON’S SERIES: An Ottawa sweep of all three games, out-scoring the Leafs 9-3.

ALL-TIME PLAYOFFS: Leafs won all four series between the teams in the early 2000s.

DID YOU KNOW: Green played in the 2002 series for Toronto against Ottawa with Max Domi’s father, Tie.

PLAYERS TO WATCH

Toronto: Centre Auston Matthews, leader of the Core Four Leafs’ pack, has struggled to turn great regular-season numbers into playoff success.

Ottawa: Goalie Linus Ullmark has a record of 11-3 since March 5, but is only around .500 career against the Leafs and lost a playoff game to them last year with Boston.

Tampa Bay Lightning (second in Atlantic Division)                                                               vs. Florida Panthers (third in Atlantic)

FIRST GLANCE: A repeat of last year’s opening round, after which the Panthers went on to their first Stanley Cup … The assumption has been Florida has another gear it can get to after weeks without a full lineup. But the Lightning emerged as a solid contender in the last month of the schedule and were close to catching the Leafs for first place.

SEASON’S SERIES: A split of four games, Tampa winning Tuesday’s finale quite handily, 5-1.

ALL-TIME PLAYOFFS: Three meetings since 2021, the first two with the Lightning on top, including a second-round sweep in ‘22, which the Cats avenged last spring.

DID YOU KNOW: Russian goalies Sergei Bobrovsky (Florida) and Andrei Vasilevskiy (Tampa) have combined for more than 200 NHL playoff games.

PLAYERS TO WATCH

Tampa: Winger Nikita Kucherov is about to wrap up his second straight Art Ross Trophy.

Florida: It paid heavily for Brad Marchand at the trade deadline from Boston, but he’ll need to work with a healthy Matthew Tkachuk and Sam Bennett to truly get under Tampa’s skin.

Carolina Hurricanes (second in Metropolitan)                                                                       vs. New Jersey Devils (third in Metropolitan)

FIRST GLANCE: The two have been in on a post-season collision course for a while … The Hurricanes management methods have been questioned, but coach Rod Brind’Amour always has his team in playoff mode and this will be a tight series … New Devils coach Sheldon Keefe, whose playoff failures doomed him in Toronto, gets a fresh spring, but several key players led by Jakob Markstrom and Jack Hughes are out.

SEASON SERIES: They split 2-2 in games played back in early autumn.

ALL-TIME PLAYOFFS: This rivalry goes back to 2001. Carolina twice beat the Devils on its way to appearing in a Cup final and beat them again in ’23.

DID YOU KNOW: Canes defenceman Jaccob Slavin is a two-time winner of the Lady Byng Trophy with only eight penalty minutes in each of the past three seasons.

PLAYERS TO WATCH

Devils; They don’t have a top-20 league scorer, but Nico Hischier notched 35 goals and plays well at both ends.

Hurricanes: Sebastian Aho is among those who will test the Devils defence with his 71 points.

Washington Capitals (first in East, first in Metropolitan)                                                       vs. Montreal Canadiens (second wild card)

WESTERN CONFERENCE

Winnipeg Jets (first in Wes, first in Central)                                                                              vs. St. Louis Blues (second wild card).

FIRST GLANCE: The Presidents’ Trophy winner (first overall in points) has sometimes carried a playoff curse and the Jets have been early casualties the past couple of years. But new coach Scott Arniel’s bunch play top-notch defence behind Vezina Trophy-winner Connor Hellebuyck … Blues were an improbable playoff entry who turned it on after the trade deadline and will be a tough out for the Jets.

SEASON’S SERIES: A 4-1 win in Winnipeg nine days ago gave Winnipeg the set with three victories in four games.

ALL-TIME PLAYOFFS: This is the second dance between the Blues and newest incarnation of the Jets, with St. Louis winning in 2019 en route to the Cup. The Wild are looking to get past the first round for the first time in a decade.

DID YOU KNOW: Arniel played for the original Winnipeg Jets and coached the 2.0 Jets’ farm team, the Manitoba Moose.

PLAYERS TO WATCH

Jets: Hellebuyck stayed busy all season working on his .924 save percentage and has help such as 96-point left winger Kyle Connor working for him at the other end.

Blues: St. Louis is getting vintage goaltending from 4 Nations Face-Off winner Jordan Binnington of champion Team Canada.

Vegas Golden Knights (2nd in West, first in Pacific)                                                                vs. Minnesota Wild (first wild card)

FIRST GLANCE: Expect Vegas to be a pain to beat at its show palace home, where it lost just nine times in regular season … Wild were missing Kirill Kaprizov due to surgery for half the season and had a couple of slumps after the 4 Nations Face-Off before finally securing their berth this week.

SEASON’S SERIES: It was dominated by the Knights, with three wins by a combined 12-4 score.

ALL-TIME PLAYOFFS: One opening-round series that went seven games in 2021 as the Knights advanced.

DID YOU KNOW: Marc-Andre Fleury, Filip Gustavsson’s backup for the Wild, will retire this year as the last NHLer active since before the 2004-05 lockout.

PLAYERS TO WATCH

Knights: Among those still contributing from their 2023 Cup year is Jack Eichel, who had five of his 93 points this year in two games versus Minnesota.

Wild: Kaprizov had 56 points in only 41 games and should be fit for the series.

Los Angeles Kings (2nd in Pacific)                                                                                            vs. Edmonton Oilers (third in Pacific)

FIRST GLANCE: Plenty of animosity from regular-season meetings will carry over in this fourth consecutive spring series between the two. Oilers come in with another impressive offensive arsenal, but defence and goaltending are question marks … The Kings broke 100 points, improved their scoring and blueline and will open at home, where they have a franchise-record 31 wins this season.

SEASON SERIES: Kings won 3-1, including a couple of shutouts.

ALL TIME PLAYOFFS: Among these 10-time foes, recent history favours the Oilers, with the past three series wins and requiring just five games to trounce the Kings last season.

DID YOU KNOW: This is Kings goalie Darcy Kuemper’s first playoff series since winning the 2022 Cup with Colorado.

PLAYERS TO WATCH

Oilers: Connor McDavid let Leon Draisaitl have the scoring headlines this year, but after his team got within a win of the Cup, the captain is hungrier than anyone else.

Kings: Looking for an edge, L.A. is getting good use from trade-deadline acquisition Andrei Kuzmenko up front with 17 points in his past 14 games.

Dallas Stars (2nd in Central)                                                                                                     vs. Colorado Avalanche (3rd in Central)

FIRST GLANCE: Another series that has been lined up for weeks, with little to differentiate. The Stars have winger Mikko Rantanen in their lineup, dealt from the Avs out of the conference in part to avoid a contract issue, only to return via Carolina to one of their greatest rivals. Rantanen says he never wanted to leave.

SEASON SERIES: Colorado won two of three, one in overtime. Defenceman Cale Makar had seven points in the set.

ALL-TIME PLAYOFFS: It’s their seventh clash, with Dallas winning four, including the past two with second-round successes in 2020 and ‘24.

DID YOU KNOW: Matt Duchene’s best playoff year was 10 points in 10 games for the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2019.

PLAYERS TO WATCH

Avalanche: Nathan MacKinnon, Makar and the offence moved on without Rantanen and now there is hope Gabriel Landeskog completes his improbable comeback from near-retirement a couple of years ago.

Stars: Don’t sleep on them with 80-point performers Duchene and Jason Robertson.

lhornby@postmedia.com

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