Unlike last year, where the first round started off rather slowly and only ramped up at the end, the 2025 first round felt exceptional from start to finish. Even though six of the eight teams we projected to win their series did so, the storylines were immense. While the league continues to struggle with a playoff schedule that captivates potential fans (ok, Winnipeg / St. Louis beginning and ending the first round may have actually been genius design), viewing availability that might make even the most-subscribed-streaming-service-enjoyer mad, and refereeing that hardly resembles the rulebook, I’d be lying if I didn’t give Hockey credit here. After years of working here (this site, the one that we made, consider subscribing!), it’s easy to let the work sort of strip your love for the game. Minnesota Wild losses don’t put me in a terrible mood for 24 hours anymore, and I don’t wear “lucky” clothing for the next game that clearly made the Wild win the last game, so it’s fun to be back in an environment where Luke and I actually jumped off our couch screaming at Perfetti’s game tying goal in game 7 yesterday. What a sport.

Toronto broke the curse (let’s just be honest Leafs fans, there isn’t a curse anymore), Carolina did their statistics thing again, Vegas maybe didn’t put me in a terrible mood but they sure made my Dad mad, two Florida teams played, Edmonton and Los Angeles made a mess, and Mikko Rantanen told all of us who doubted him that Dallas was absolutely right to spot-sign him to a full-term $12M contract (even if there maybe are still some doubts). The first round is always the most entertaining, but this year felt special. Let’s hope that carries into the ensuing rounds. Things are shaping up for a great spring, let me tell ya what, and we deserve it given the current state of the world.

Let’s recap:

Eastern Conference

Toronto Maple Leafs (A1)     vs.     Florida Panthers (A3)

33.3%                         66.6%

No one believed in the Toronto Maple Leafs. I heard no one talking about them at all, and I definitely didn’t have to mute words and/or accounts on my timeline during the first round. While we were pulling quite heavily for Ottawa partly because we cheer for our models and partly because I kind of liked that Senators team, Toronto has had a very solid team for several years now, and it is legitimately fun to see them sort of shake off their various hexes and summon several new ones to turn Max Domi and Simon Benoit into pivotal skaters in their lineup. Special teams were their main strength in six games against Ottawa: more than doubling their opponent’s goal total (while also allowing the most goals while they were) on the powerplay, the Leafs made do with the fourth lowest time with the extra skater (23.3 minutes) and took advantage of that bias. Their weak links here likely won’t be continuous providers like they were in the first round, but it doesn’t hurt when Max Pacioretty is a contributing member of your roster. One somewhat obvious weakness here is their blue-line: their three main pairs all held sub-50% shot attempt differentials while on the ice with only the Carlo/Rielly pair passing above this threshold in xGF%. While Ottawa may have been an underrated opponent in the first round despite their game 5 hiccup, the defending Stanley Cup champions will most certainly not be. I have a hunch the Panthers may expose by either sheer will or the virtue of luck a few of Toronto’s weaknesses. The Passion, however, is strong. It might finally be unleashed.

The closest series by our numbers, even if it only went 5 games, it’s hard to glean much from a series that saw another Vezina trophy winner allow multiple goals above expected while neither team stuck out much aside from their physicality (only Colorado registered more hits in a series with two extra games played). Florida had a plan with their approach, and it wouldn’t surprise me if the ’24-25 leader in total hits keeps throwing those big bodies around. With the return of Matthew Tkachuk and Aaron Ekblad to their roster, this team feels like they’re trying their best to recreate last year’s Cup roster with a little more dirt stirred into the mixture. I mean, can you blame them? (yes, actually, you can) With the shot attempt and quality metrics being the closest of any first round series, goaltending was the difference here. While Bobrovsky was just barely above expected in GSAx through five games, his track record is daunting. The one disadvantage here will be the Leaf’s home-ice advantage. While Montreal fans are crazy, there are way more Leafs fans out there. That’s maybe even scarier. Even without this advantage, the Panthers head into round two behind only Carolina in our projected win percentage.

Washington Capitals (M1)     vs.     Carolina Hurricanes (M2)

24.4%                         75.6%

It’s the Capitals’ year, or at least it feels like the Gods want that. While they were heavy favorites in the first round (72.3% over the Habs here), Montreal made it interesting. Or, well, they got one game of the Bell Center Bump; they were legitimately fantastic, and the Canadiens fans reminded us why we’re all scared of them. While the series was a bit closer than most expected (even if it only was 5 games), the Capitals still controlled the expected goals in 4 out of the 5 games and more than controlled the actual goals in every game except the scary one where Habs fans probably made the Capitals players wish they had a tunnel to their hotel room. The Capitals, while not the strongest team still in the playoffs by the numbers, continue to perform with a surprisingly deep roster. When Alex Ovechkin is one of the ”worst” players in the lineup from a player evaluation model standpoint, you’ve done a pretty good job constructing said roster. While a possible injury was looming ahead of the series, Logan Thompson continued his dominance in net, posting the third best Goals Save Above Expected (4.7) among goalies in the first round. With a well-rounded team and quite the narrative from the regular season behind them, the Caps head into that strongest team from, also, said player evaluation model.

The Hurricanes. Everyone doubted the site (no one did), the haters said the Canes couldn’t score (they kind of still can’t from a statistical perspective), and everyone bought into that one game where the Canes looked like s**t (well, some did). Carolina moves onto the second round with a full week of rest (one more than their opponent here), and they do it with a convincing win over an injured Devils team who had at least one game where they made things interesting. The Hurricanes’ penalty kill continues to be incredible: after 5 continuous seasons of top-3 shot rates shorthanded, they achieved the rare feat of a 100% goals-for rate on the penalty kill this past series (CAR 2, NJ 0). Goaltending turned out to be a bit more uncertain for the Canes, with an undisclosed injury to Frederik Andersen after game 4 – he led all goalies in GSAx through 4 games. We have Kochetkov in net for this series because of this, but he’s more than serviceable per our models. With only the Avalanche managing a better EV CF % in round 1 (which is actually kind of depressing considering the outcome), the Hurricanes head into DC with one of the most well-rounded teams our models have ever evaluated, again. While the Canadiens bring a different kind of furor to their home arena, a round-2 Raleigh crowd might surprise/irritate even more people. I’m sorry, but the Gods will come around.

Western Conference

Vegas Golden Knights (P1)     vs.     Edmonton Oilers (P3)

46.6%                         53.4%

It’s hard to admit this after all these years of lost fandom, but I felt like a legitimate Wild fan last round. Not only do I not like the Golden Knights that much, but I was legitimately hoping my Dad would get to let out the loudest scream I’ve ever heard when the Wild scored that game 7 winning goal. Ah, well, another time (lol, sure). Despite some interesting roster decisions from Minnesota in the first round, Vegas’ depth really was the difference here. While much attention was paid to the underperforming Eichel line, the Dorofeyev/Hertl/Saad and Howden/Roy/Kolesar lines were among the best in the league at even-strength (among the top 15 lines in CF%, minimum 20 minutes) in the first round. With very solid performances from all three D pairs as well, the only real question for Vegas is Adin Hill. Our models still like him quite a bit, but I think it’s fair to say their round-2 opponent brings just a bit more firepower with them than their one-forward-line opponent from last week. Only Skinner and Vasilevskiy (and I guess Hellebuyck if the Jets move on since I’m writing this before I know what happened there) had a worse Goals Saved Above Expected in the first round among starters on teams who advanced, and let’s admit it even though I don’t want to: Kaprizov and Boldy aren’t McDavid and Draisaitl. Even still, with Jack Eichel and Mark Stone, it’s not too difficult to see another Vegas conference final appearance

What a mess Edmonton found themselves in against a quietly great team in Los Angeles. No series in the first round saw more goals scored (again, WPG/STL could challenge this with an extra game). I suppose there was a reason our models had this series marked as the most even. While it didn’t go to seven games, the Kings made things really interesting. But, ok. Can we just talk about the Leon Draisaitl, Connor McDavid, and… Corey Perrrrryyyyy line? I’m sorry, why did this work so well. Among the top 10 lines in both CF% and xGF% in the playoffs, these three played only 61 minutes together at even-strength in the regular season. I’m not tuned into the Edmonton media these days, so I’m clearly missing something. Maybe Knoblauch knows something we don’t? Maybe it was the secret weapon, maybe they wanted to finish third in the Pacific to require this previously unknown stealth force. Sorry, I just don’t get it. Either way it worked. Stuart Skinner though. I wrote about my “doubts” in the first round preview, and I think I was correct to point out the discrepancy between the model and very recent performance. The Oilers eventually went with Pickard for 5 games, and, just like the regular season, both goalies combined for sub-replacement level goaltending in the first round. We’ve put Pickard in net, but it really could go either way. As the only pure west coast game, a good chunk of hockey fans might go to sleep before these games take place, but this series is going to be a hoot.

Winnipeg Jets (C1)     vs.     Dallas Stars (C2)

44.9%                         55.1%

What a sport hockey is. The only two series to go to game 7s, back-to-back on a Saturday and Sunday, both teams who ultimately won were down two goals in the third period. You really can’t write something better, and we as spectators and appreciators reap the rewards. Let’s talk about Winnipeg. Or maybe specifically Hellebuyck. Or maybe the whole team – I think you (the Jets) finally remembered why you won the President’s trophy in that game yesterday. The main story out of this series, for obvious reasons, was the (Jets) goaltending. Pulled in three consecutive games before starting the last, Hellebuyck finished the first round with a -10 GSAx, easily the worst among all playoff goalies to this point. With only one game of above expected results (game 2), and three straight years of below-expected performance in the playoffs, things looked grim. To be fair, the Jets’ skaters weren’t doing him any favors, and with several key injuries (Morrissey, Scheifele), the outcome seemed almost forgone. Like the Golden Knights, the tipping point here may have been the Jets’ depth. The juggled depth-lines of Lowry, Appleton, Barron, and Namestikov proved to be their most effective from both a shot rate and goal scoring standpoint. There are still a lot of questions with this team heading into an equally powered-up group in Dallas, but at least Luke and I get to have a dog in this fight now. The jury is still out on whether Morrissey and Scheifele will miss significant time, but we’ve penciled them for the run here. I would still like to keep our streak of being nice to Winnipeg alive. Don’t make me hate you, Jets.

If Winnipeg’s comeback felt pre-scripted, I don’t know what the hell you call Rantanen’s 11 points in the final three games and a hat trick in the last period of game 7 against his longtime former team. After all the talk (definitely not from me) about how the Leafs or Wild were going to be the Just Win, Baby team, it was absolutely without question the Stars. Colorado finished the first round with the highest even-strength CF% and xGF% of all 16 teams (and, by the nature of how numbers work, Dallas the worst in both of those categories). The Stars’ only positive game came second, where they managed a 50.2% Corsi-For rate (albeit 68.3 xG%). Colorado took 123 more shot attempts all-situations than Dallas this series and scored 3 more total goals. It’s somewhat hard to even figure out how Dallas managed to win just looking at the numbers, but their powerplay came through with 7 goals, only behind the Kings with 8. Mind you, this was all done without Jason Robertson or Miro Heiskanen, who both seem likely to return for the 2^nd round. As I said in our round 1 preview, this Stars team with both of those players is a legitimate contender: without either, we’d project them about 12% lower. With the continued success of Playoff Jake Oettinger in net and a team about as healthy as any playoff team can hope to be, Dallas heads into the Great White North. And I won’t be cheering for them (ok, maybe specifically for Jason Robertson).