The NHL postseason stands in the exalted place it does because of two counterintuitive yet almost inviolable truths: that the regular-season standings and the achievements attached therein are an utter lie, and that the most fun is always found in the first round, when even the unworthy teams offer delicious levels of entertainment.
Proof of Truth 1: The last time the team with the best regular season record won the Cup in a regulation-length season was 2008.
Proof of Truth 2: The two best series for competitive and hate-based reasons will both begin this weekend.
Oh, and there is a third truth. Most likely, the nation that cares most about winning the Cup will not, and in a particularly ignominious way. Evidence: the last 32 years.
In this case truths 1 and 3 may provide the same author: the Winnipeg Jets. The Jets finished with the best record in the league, they allowed the fewest goals and have the best goaltender in Connor Hellebuyck, and the most lethal power play. Plus, for you schadenfreude aficionados, they are the smallest market in North America and cast the smallest cultural shadow, thereby raising the specter of Gary Bettman presenting the Cup through clenched teeth and muttered profanities. A Jets Cup would also delight many Canadians insofar as their least favorite team would not win (we see you here, Toronto).
But the payoff there wouldn’t come until mid-June, whereas Truth 2 kicks off imminently with two high-fevered series in which the hatred is deeply imbued in the citizenry: Ottawa at Toronto, and South Florida at Mid-Florida. Seven of the eight opening series pit teams that have played other within the last five postseasons, and the one that doesn’t, Washington-Montreal, last happened before Alex Ovechkin’s 275th goal. But Leafs-Senators and Lightning-Panthers especially have built-in geographical and cultural tensions that could easily manifest themselves with the same swiftness as the U.S. vs. Canada in the 4 Nations Tournament. It’s jingoism, it’s jealousy, it’s mutual contempt, and it’s a two-hander across the ankles for good measure. And that’s all potentially before the anthems, given that both series have Tkachuks involved.
The other series have their own mutant charms, to be sure. Edmonton, which scared Florida half-witless a year ago, still seems locked into an existential struggle with itself to figure out what it has after Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, while Los Angeles is all-in on a formidable defense (plus goalie Darcy Kuemper) that doesn’t entertain as much as it frustrates. Colorado has the emotional selling point of Gabriel Landeskog’s attempted return from a crushed knee that cost him nearly three full seasons, but having Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar probably counts for more against a more complete and fundamentally sound Dallas side that somehow has lost seven in a row immediately after winning seven straight. Vegas is the sneakiest division winner in years, which may speak to the Pacific Division’s essential meh-itude, while Minnesota has just been, well, persistently hanging around, assuring if nothing else that Kirill Kaprizov remains a secret. The other East series, Washington-Montreal and Carolina–New Jersey, should be brief and relatively pain- and moment-free, unless you think that watching Alex Ovechkin making Montreal goalie Sam Montembeault pull off his own head is something to call the kids into the TV room to watch. We’re rooting for Montreal to cheat the reaper here, but don’t see a reasonable path to anything other than five-gamers in both series.
But back to the Jets, who open against the red-hot St. Louis Blues, and the one final reason to want them to cheat all this accumulated history. Sure, Canada has not won a Cup since 1993, or until last year even reached a legitimate final series since 2011 (we are not counting Montreal in the COVID year because the NHL built an all-Canadian division out of travel necessity and eased the gantlet by which a team could advance). But Winnipeg has been particularly cursed in the postseason in two different iterations. The first Jets moved to Phoenix en route to Salt Lake City, and the second Jets happened because Atlanta failed, but between them Winnipeg has put up 43 teams and made the playoffs only 19 times. In those 19 years it has seen five series victories and only three series-clinching wins at home. That’s three nights of joy in the streets over 12,000 days of existence. Nobody is more due than Winnipeg.
Or, on the matter of dues, Canada. This is one of the few times in modern NHL history that five of the seven Canadian franchises have reached the postseason (and Calgary came close to being the sixth), so the odds for a Canadian team are much better than usual. The Leafs wrap themselves up in a cloak of failure that is now 58 years long, but all five have been watching other people buy drinks for each other for decades. Montreal’s last parade was in 1993, Edmonton’s in 1990, and Winnipeg and Ottawa are 0-for-the-history-of-the-universe. This is not cheery news for the people who gave us hockey, and worse, they all know what they had for dinner the night they watched Vegas, Carolina, Washington, St. Louis, Los Angeles, Anaheim, Dallas, Colorado, and lord help them, Sunrise, Fla., do the Cup dance for the first time. By now, the only way this could be less dignified for Canadian snobs would be if an expansion franchise in Tegucigalpa won. Don’t laugh: the Sun Belt is wide.
Against that litany of outworlder shame, the Jets may be the best single Canadian team since the 1989 Calgary team that won both the Presidents Trophy and the Cup. Their parade may be shorter due to the Winnipeg street map, but it will feel better than any others. That is, if a town can feel anything while on a four-day civic bender.
