By Shayna Goldman, Dom Luszczyszyn and Sean Gentille
Before the season started, not many people expected either of the Vancouver Canucks or Nashville Predators to make the playoffs.
Now, here they both are, ready to face each other. What a difference a year makes.
Both teams deserve massive credit for putting in the work to get to this point, emerging as real threats in the West. Unexpected, but deserved.
Unfortunately for one of these teams, only one storybook season can continue.
The odds
The Canucks enter the series as the favorites to keep their magical season going, something that should surprise no one considering that Vancouver finished second in the West.
Early in the season, there were plenty of legitimate reasons to doubt the Canucks’ process, but those reasons have evaporated with the Canucks proving their mettle as a legitimate contender.
They’re the real deal, and that means earning a very real edge in the opening round against the Predators. No underdog status, no coin flip series — this is flat-out Vancouver’s series to lose.
That doesn’t mean it’ll be easy. The Predators have proven to be a formidable foe — especially down the stretch after a canceled U2 concert revitalized the players. Nashville will pose a worthy challenge for Vancouver in the opening round, but it’s still clear who the better team is.
The numbers
Two numbers stood out for Vancouver all season: its shooting percentage and save percentage.
The Canucks looked like a good team out of the gate, but had to prove their standing wasn’t just a result of a PDO bender. That really started to happen when the calendar turned to 2024. In those 45 games, Vancouver earned approximately 55 percent of the expected goals share, which was more in line with its results.
From Jan. 1 on, the real standout thing for Vancouver was how much the team tightened up defensively. The Canucks gave up 51 shot attempts per 60 and just 2.18 expected goals against when accounting for the quality of those shots — both of which rank second in the league.
With the Predators, the season as a whole doesn’t tell the full story, either. Nashville earned 53.5 percent of the expected goals share, which isn’t far off Vancouver’s season-wide numbers. The difference really comes down to finishing and goaltending.
While Vancouver’s best hockey was played after December, the Predators’ best came after a disastrous loss to Dallas and a canceled team outing to see U2 in Las Vegas. Since Feb. 16, the Predators have been one of the best five-on-five teams in the league, with 58 percent of the expected goals. Nashville has peppered opponents with one of the highest rates of shots and scoring chances in the league, with 3.26 goals per 60 to match. On the other end of the ice, the team tightened up defensively and got better goaltending to back them up.
Special teams have been a strength for the Predators since their turnaround, too. But on the season as a whole, Vancouver has more firepower on the power play if its shooting can pick back up. The Canucks’ penalty kill has also been slightly better, giving them the edge on both ends of the ice.
The big question
Will Vancouver’s sleepy power play wake up in time?
The Canucks have a ton of weapons at their disposal. Quinn Hughes headlines the group, scoring 91 points from the blue line, but there’s also J.T. Miller putting up 100-plus points, Elias Pettersson almost netting 90 and Brock Boeser scoring 40 goals. Four incredibly dangerous offensive players should make for the foundation of a terrifying power play, right? Not quite.
The Canucks finished the season scoring just 8.1 goals per 60 with the man advantage, 13th in the league and just narrowly behind their opponent in this series. “Slightly above average” is not ideal for a team with this much star power on it, though. Vancouver should be flirting with the top five, not glancing at the top 10 from a distance.
A lot of power plays go through ebbs and flows throughout the season, but it did feel like Vancouver’s was especially streaky this year.
The Canucks scored 12.6 goals per 60 to start the season off with a bang, but then went into a 25-game funk, scoring just 4.5 goals per 60. They got back on track for their next 10 games, scoring 13.3 goals per 60, only to immediately go back into a 20-game slump, scoring just 4.2 goals per 60.
Vancouver looked better with the man advantage to close the season, but the major ups and downs throughout the year create a vulnerability that the Predators can potentially exploit. When the Canucks’ power play is on, it’s among the best in the league and can win them a series on its own. But it also spends a lot of time off — more than half the season. That’s enough to create a straightforward avenue to victory for Nashville.
The other issue for Vancouver is just how dependent the Canucks are on their top unit. That’s to be expected for a team loaded with stars that eat up 70 percent of the power-play time. Still, the discrepancy between the top unit and not is much larger in Vancouver than it is elsewhere.
That’s not usually a facet of roster construction that carries much weight, but when the second unit is especially anemic, it can make a difference.
The Canucks’ top unit scores 10.4 goals per 60 when together, right in line with the average of other playoff teams. What the Canucks offer there matches up well with the league’s best. When they’re off the ice, things get dicey. With none of Hughes, Miller, Pettersson or Boeser out there, the Canucks have scored just 2.2 goals per 60 in 84 power-play minutes. Only Colorado is lower with its stars off the ice, at 1.8 goals per 60, and those two are the only teams below 3.5. The average among playoff teams is six goals per 60.
Essentially, if the top unit gets cold — as it has during several stretches this season — the Canucks can’t count on the next guys up to help out in any way, as other playoff teams can. That little detail could hold enormous power in this series if PP1 doesn’t live up to its talent level.
Vancouver has the talent to win by other means, and Nashville’s penalty kill isn’t exactly imposing, but it is a potential crack in the armor that could make things go sideways quickly for the Canucks.
The X-factor
Does Juuse Saros have the juice to make this a close series?
Plenty of things started going right for the Preds in mid-February, but Juuse Saros’ return to form was one of the most important. From the start of the season to Nashville’s loss to Dallas on Feb. 15, Saros put up a .901 save percentage — .003 below the league average and .015 below Saros’ career mark — and 2.6 goals saved above expected. In the 21 games that followed, Saros returned to form with a .916 save percentage and 5.3 additional goals saved above expected. That’s also including three straight sub-par outings once the Preds were locked into the West’s No. 1 wild-card spot.
Overall, Saros certainly is capable of closing the gap in this series. He’s gotten votes for the Vezina Trophy in three consecutive seasons, and he’s deserved them. It’s worth noting, though, that he hasn’t played in a playoff series since 2021, thanks in part to a foot injury ahead of Nashville’s first-round matchup against Colorado in 2022. The year before, in a first-round series against the Hurricanes, he had a four-game stretch of .935 play. If he pulls off something similar against the Canucks, Nashville has a real shot.
The rosters
The average playoff team’s center group has a collective Net Rating of plus-14. Vancouver has that and more in Elias Pettersson alone. Go down the middle between Pettersson, J.T. Miller, Elias Lindholm and Teddy Blueger, and it adds up to a plus-31 Net Rating.
That center depth gives Vancouver a huge advantage and a lot of lineup options in case the team needs to shake things up. Pettersson, Lindholm or Miller could all slide to the wing, and someone like Pius Suter could shift back down the middle.
Pettersson already showed that he could handle playoff pressure in his first experience in 2020. Since then, he’s ascended to superstar status in Vancouver. He drives that top line, which allows the Canucks to spread the wealth around the lineup. Nils Hoglander has been a strong fit on his wing; the two have earned a 60 percent expected goals rate in their shared minutes and have outscored opponents 23-13. The coaches have experimented with who is going to round out that wing, but in each small sample of options — whether it’s Ilya Mikheyev, Conor Garland or Boeser — the Canucks have controlled play.
There’s a reason why Miller has stayed at center, even after Vancouver traded for Lindholm. Miller has added some oomph behind his production with better play on both ends of the ice and more even-strength scoring. He does all that while also taking on Vancouver’s toughest minutes. Before the season started, Miller looked like an empty-calorie scorer — his glow-up as a big-time difference-maker is an underrated storyline in Vancouver’s emergence as a contender.
The real surprise is that Lindholm is playing 3C. At the time of the trade, he seemed like a perfect fit for the Canucks on paper, but it has taken him some time to find his form. Playing between Dakota Joshua and Garland should help. The two have been excellent sources of secondary support in Vancouver all season; they bring an element of tenacity and can help carry the weight of the line to help maximize Lindholm.
The average playoff team’s third line adds up to a minus-4 Net Rating. Vancouver’s, in this current form, is a plus-9. That depth should be a real advantage for the Canucks, with Garland specifically being a nice luxury who can make any of the top three lines better.
On the back end, Filip Hronek may be the best partner Quinn Hughes has had at the NHL level — granted, that’s not the highest bar to clear. The two have earned approximately 54 percent of the expected goals share in their minutes, and 61 percent of the goals. The pair takes on the toughest assignments and grades out as one of the league’s best combos — mostly thanks to Hughes.
A stronger second pair wouldn’t hurt Vancouver, but Tyler Myers and Carson Soucy can eat minutes and start in the defensive zone so that the Hughes pair doesn’t have to. Ian Cole is fine as a depth defenseman and Nikita Zadorov could use a bit more discipline in his game. None of them are ideal top-four defensemen, but they’re at least passable.
The Canucks have a cornerstone at each position, which has helped get them to this point. Back in goal, that’s Thatcher Demko. Through 50 games, he’s saved approximately 26 goals above expected, which is good for fourth in the league. It’s the bounce-back Demko needed after last year’s rough season. Health was a concern for Demko, who missed about a month of action. But he returned on Tuesday and delivered a quality start in his first game back.
To counter Demko, the Predators have Saros. Vancouver has Hughes, Nashville has Josi. And up front, it’s Filip Forsberg versus Pettersson, whose plus-18 Net Rating perfectly matches his Swedish counterpart.
But what separates these two teams is the depth surrounding their elite core — especially down the middle. Between Ryan O’Reilly, Colton Sissons, Tommy Novak and Michael McCarron, the Predators’ centers simply don’t hold up.
The one positive at center is O’Reilly, who has answered any questions about what he had left in the tank. Not only is he putting up points, but he has put up some of the best on-ice offensive numbers of his career. He has thrived this season with his new team, alongside Forsberg and Gustav Nyquist.
Forsberg is the driver of that line. With 48 goals and 94 points, he’s had a career year as the team’s leading forward. In his minutes at five-on-five with O’Reilly and Nyquist, the Predators have created a lot of quality chances in the net-front area and outscored opponents 46-31; Forsberg’s volume shooting and play in transition has a lot to do with it.
On paper, that second line is far from inspiring, but Jason Zucker has had a positive influence on the team’s five-on-five offense since arriving in a trade from Arizona. Mark Jankowski also has been a bright spot on both ends of the ice in 32 games.
The third line adds some pop with a youth infusion between Novak and Luke Evangelista. Novak started to make a name for himself in the second half of last year, and has continued that as one of the few Predators who generates a lot off the rush. One interesting caveat with the trio is that they’ve been heavily sheltered during the season and there may not be many places to hide them in this series.
Opposite Josi is Ryan McDonagh, who is showing what a workhorse he still is. McDonagh can eat tough minutes and does a really good job of keeping opponents out of the net-front area. Plus, Nashville still generates a lot of quality offense in his minutes — and playing with Josi obviously boosts that. The pair earned a 61 percent expected goals rate in their minutes and outscored opponents 29-15.
Behind them, Jeremy Lauzon and Alex Carrier shoulder the workload of facing top competition in Nashville. Despite their workload, the pair is around break-even in expected and actual goals — with Carrier earning a majority of the credit for that.
The third pair of Luke Schenn and Spencer Stastney has exceeded expectations lately, with a 59 percent expected goals rate in 126 minutes of play. If that’s a level they can continue, Nashville’s defensive depth could give them an edge.
The Predators’ roster, especially over the last two months, has been a lot greater than the sum of its parts. If they can carry that into the playoffs, this series might have some disruptor potential, considering how many players have stepped up.
The key matchup
Quinn Hughes vs. Roman Josi
Ahead of the season, we placed Hughes a tick or two below Josi in our NHL Player Tiers project. Part of the reasoning: Both players carried heavy loads for their teams in 2022-23, but Josi — as had been the case for several years — has done the job on a transcendent level, peaking with a 96-point season in 2021-22.
Hughes, after a regular season that’ll likely net him a deserved Norris Trophy win, is now officially on par with Josi, who has two of his own. Probably not coincidentally, though, Josi will also show up on plenty of 2023-24 ballots. Offensively, he may even have the edge; after a second-half push, he finished with more goals (23 to 17) and primary assists (38 to 24) than Hughes. Hughes had six more points (91 to 85), an advantage that hinges on how much stock you place in secondary assists and surrounding talent. Call it a coin flip.
On defense, though, Hughes plays tougher minutes and earns stronger results by both expected and actual goals against. Ultimately, that’s what made him the best defenseman in the league this season, the best defenseman in this series and a candidate to take several upward steps in our next set of Player Tiers.
The bottom line
This series is a star-studded showdown between two teams that few expected to get this far at the start of the season. With how both teams play, the entertainment should be sky-high for what will likely be a sneaky-fun series.
Both teams have a real shot in this series, but only one can prevail. That’s probably the Canucks — PDO merchants no more.
References
How these projections work
How these projections performed last season
Resources
All Three Zones Tracking by Corey Sznajder
(Photo of Vancouver’s Quinn Hughes and Nashville’s Cole Smith: John Russell / NHLI via Getty Images)
