3 reasons the Canucks will make quick work of the Predators in Round 1 of the NHL Playoffs
The Canucks play the Nashville Predators in Round 1 of the NHL Playoffs, and it looks like a favorable one for Vancouver.
The 2024 NHL Playoffs are one of those strange postseasons, especially in the Western Conference. While teams out East had no problem with drawing the mediocre New York Islanders and Washington Capitals, and even to a degree, the Tampa Bay Lightning, that wasn’t the case in the West. The Vancouver Canucks, for example, probably didn’t mind finishing second in the conference if it meant playing the top wild card team, the Nashville Predators.
This is because, barring a pair of sensational runs that saw the Preds go 13-3-0 at one point in the season and 17-2-2 in another, they weren’t a good hockey team. Let’s not be as brash as to assume the pedestrian Predators will show up, but if Nashville doesn’t bring the A-game that saw them go 30-5-2 in the aforementioned contests, there’s a good chance the team that went 17-25-3 over the course of its other 45 contests will show.
And that’s one of a few reasons the Canucks will get the best of the Predators, easily, might I add, in Round 1.
Vancouver’s scorers matchup well against Juuse Saros
Overall, Juuse Saros had a down year, and while he came around toward the end of the season - especially during that 18-game points streak, Saros finished the year with a 0.906 save percentage and a 2.86 GAA, although he still earned three shutouts.
Sure, Saros had quite the workload, with 64 games played this season. But that was no different from what we have seen from him over the past two years when he was a serious Vezina contender. He also allowed more goals than expected at even strength for the first time since 2018-19, and as a team, Nashville was just 13th in goals allowed, ranking near the middle of the pack.
Meanwhile, only six teams scored more than the Canucks, who had 279 goals this season, or 3.4 per game. Vancouver also has high-scoring players like J.T. Miller, Elias Pettersson, and Brock Boeser, while few have logged more assists than Quinn Hughes this season.
The Canucks are relatively deep, too, with seven players scoring at least 17 times and three posting 34 or more on the season. If they can keep this consistency up in Round 1 of the 2024 postseason, look for them to easily get the best of Nashville.
The Canucks are far more consistent than Nashville
Take away Nashville’s 18-game point streak, and it shows just how inconsistent the Preds were this season. Vancouver slipped up in February, but other than that, they had an incredible bounce-back month in March before they finished April with a respectable 4-3-1 record.
We need to remember that with Nashville, they started the new year 7-9-1 before embarking on that unforgettable points streak. Even before January, they weren’t that good, boasting a 20-16-1 record, good for just 41 points, and a 91-point season when adjusted to 82 games.
Add in the 7-9-1 record between January 2nd and February 15th, and you get 27-25-2, or 56 points in 54 games, or just 85 points in 82 contests. Following that 18-game points streak, they ended the regular season with a 4-5-1 record for just nine points.
Go back to what Vancouver did this year, and they had one bad month, but Nashville had plenty of poor stretches. Consistency is the only way to survive in the playoffs since if you don’t win four out of every seven games, you won’t last. One team has done that far more often than the other, and it gives Vancouver an advantage.
Thatcher Demko’s return to the crease will make a huge difference
Thatcher Demko completed this team, and when he went down with an injury, you couldn’t help but think about what it would have done to the Canucks overall. I didn’t see Vancouver being well off with Casey DeSmith in the net, and he went just 3-3-1 in his first seven starts following Demko’s injury.
DeSmith also lost his first two starts in April, and you can argue Arturs Silovs looked like the better goaltender at times. But overall, the Canucks were never in great hands with DeSmith in the net, as he finished with an 0.895 save percentage and a 2.89 GAA across 29 appearances and 27 starts.
He allowed a couple more goals than expected at even strength, which isn’t terrible, but he also faced just 26.17 shots on net per contest, and that’s where the red flag comes up. Meanwhile, Demko’s five shutouts, 10.7 saves better than expected in the same situation, and career-best 0.918 save percentage and 2.45 GAA haven’t just made him the Canucks most consistent goaltender but one of the most consistent in the league.
While the Predators finished 10th in the league with 269 goals, the overall number isn’t as impressive as it may look - their shooting percentage at 5-on-5 was 7.6 percent and nearly a half-percent below the league average.
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(Statistics provided by Hockey-Reference)