There is nothing quite like playoff hockey.

The Stanley Cup Playoffs are upon us, which means the National Hockey League’s (NHL) best teams are set to compete through a playoff bracket for the Stanley Cup trophy.

The Stanley Cup Playoffs consist of 16 teams competing in rounds through a playoff bracket. Each round is decided by a best-of-seven game series.

Below is a quick overview of some terms I will be using:

During the regular season, teams earn two points for each win and one point for each overtime loss. The more points, the better.

Points, in the context of individual players, are an addition of how many goals and assists that player accumulated throughout the season.

When a player commits a penalty, they are sent to the penalty box and their team must play at a man-disadvantage known as a penalty kill. The advantaged team’s situation is called a power play.

Let’s dive into some of the NHL playoffs’ interesting contenders and discuss how and why they might make a run for the Stanley Cup this postseason.

The New York Rangers

The New York Rangers finished the regular season with 55 wins, 23 losses and four overtime losses, earning 114 points. The Rangers won the President’s Trophy, which is awarded to the team with the most regular season points.

The Rangers finished the regular season strong with a 7-3-0 record in their last 10 games. This season, New York posted a 30-11-0 record in their home arena, Madison Square Garden, where they will be hosting the Washington Capitals in the first two games of the first round.

Led by left winger Artemi Panarin, who posted 49 goals and 71 assists in a 120-point season, the Rangers are bringing lots of talent into the offseason. Mika Zibanejad, Chris Kreider and Vincent Trocheck help propel the Rangers’ offense while the team captain, Jacob Trouba, and 6’ 7” center Matt Rempe bring the physicality to the ice. Igor Shesterkin, the Rangers’ goaltender, had the 11th highest save percentage at .913%.

The Rangers are ranked third in the league in both power play and penalty kill. Don’t be surprised to see them fly to the second round after five or six games.

The Boston Bruins

The Boston Bruins won the President’s Trophy in 2023 but fell to the eventual Eastern Conference Champions, the Florida Panthers, in the first round of last year’s playoffs. This season, they earned 109 points and finished 6-4-0 in their last 10 games.

Boston will play their longtime rival, the Toronto Maple Leafs, in the first round. Leafs’ center Auston Matthews led the league in goals with 69 this season. The offense-focused Maple Leafs scored the second-most goals in the league this year (303), only trailing the Colorado Avalanche (304).

The Bruins are led by one of the best goalie-pairings in the league: Jeremy Swayman and Linus Ullmark are both top 10 in the league in Goals Against Average (GAA) and Save Percentage (SV%).

The series will be a game of goals for Toronto, as Matthews tries to lead his team by putting pucks behind the Bruins’ top-tier goaltenders.

The Bruins, fueled by underperformance in last years’ playoffs, should shut down the Maple Leafs offense and move swiftly past the first round.

The Florida Panthers

After upsetting the President’s Trophy-winning Boston Bruins and winning the Eastern Conference Championship last year, the Florida Panthers fell short of the Stanley Cup in the finals against the Vegas Golden Knights. The Panthers have returned to the playoffs after another impressive season and heaps of momentum. The Panthers secured the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference with 110 points, a 52-24-6 record, and a four-game winning streak to end the regular season.

I mentioned that the Boston Bruins had one of the best goalie pairings in the league. In my opinion, the Panthers have the best.

Anthony Stolarz led the league in Goals Against Average (2.03) and Save Percentage (.925%). Sergei Bobrovsky had the third-best GAA (2.37) and ninth-best SV% (.915%). Bobrovsky also tied for first in the league with six shutouts. The Panthers are hard to score on. They only let up 200 goals this season, the second lowest in the NHL.

The Panthers can score, too. Sam Reinhart had the second-most goals in the league with 57 this season. With the best goal differential in the league at +68, the Florida Panthers are one of the strongest teams in the playoffs and will both light the lamp and shut teams down.

The Tampa Bay Lightning

The Tampa Bay Lightning are electric and they are winners. The Lightning were back-to-back Stanley Cup Champions in 2020 and 2021 and also visited the finals in 2015 and 2022.

Right wing Nikita Kucherov led the league with 144 points this season. According to NBC Connecticut, this year was the first time since the 1990-91 season, when Wayne Gretzky had 122, that a player has posted 100 assists.

The Lightning goaltender, Andrei Vasilevskiy, had a disappointing year, averaging 2.90 goals against (28th) and a .900 SV% (33rd). Regardless, the 29-year-old could shine this postseason. In 2021, Vasilevskiy won the Conn Smythe Trophy, awarded to the most valuable player in the playoffs, after helping the Lightning win the Stanley Cup in back-to-back years.

The Lightning have the best power play in the league and the fifth-best penalty kill. They are experienced, skilled and they know how to win.

So, who will win?

Will the New York Rangers break the President’s Trophy Curse and steamroll to the Cup? Will the Boston Bruins remedy last year’s early exit with a deep playoff run? Will the overall excellence of the Florida Panthers translate to the postseason, or will Kucherov’s Lightning dominate instead?

I think the Florida Panthers are the strongest contenders. If the Panthers play to their potential, they can win the championship.

Every team in the playoffs is capable of making a run for the Stanley Cup. Upsets happen, teams fizzle out and underdogs surge past stronger opponents: that is the beauty of hockey.

I’m excited to sit back and enjoy the action and excitement of playoff hockey.

I hope this article has given you some insight into the teams that might make a run so you can follow along and enjoy the playoffs, too.

Jacob Freshly is an opinion writer. Contact him at [email protected].