Leafs’ playoff minefield, photo finish for Hart Trophy, and the biggest NHL storylines to watch in April
In the world of baseball, April’s low stakes and mild weather make for early-season optimism and easygoing days at the yard. In hockey, however, the time for relaxation is long past. Every game, every shift and every shot can have season-altering consequences.
The Toronto Maple Leafs, who will fight until game No. 82 for home ice as a matchup with one of their hated rivals looms large, know that well.
So do the Los Angeles Kings, who desperately need an extra game in the friendly confines of Crypto.com Arena to knock off an Edmonton Oilers outfit that has had their number for three postseasons running.
Individual players like Leon Draisaitl and Connor Hellebuyck, embroiled in a furious Hart Trophy race, are also feeling the heat.
The final weeks of the regular season will be loaded with intrigue, and the hottest storylines to follow are mapped out below.
Is any team under more pressure to win its division than the Toronto Maple Leafs?
The Toronto Maple Leafs have spent their 2024-25 season changing many unflattering narratives that have plagued them in recent years. The goaltending is there; Anthony Stolarz and Joseph Woll are the best tandem the team has had in 20 years. So is the perseverance; despite a laundry list of injuries, no team has fared better in one-goal games. If Toronto is bounced in the first round once again, though? The Leafs’ long-suffering fans will revert to bemoaning the club’s lack of toughness faster than you can say “Wendel Clark.”
Should the Maple Leafs falter over their final nine games, a conference quarterfinal with the Tampa Bay Lightning or Florida Panthers beckons. No two teams in the Eastern Conference have as much playoff pedigree as the Lightning, who are vastly improved from the outfit Toronto bounced in 2023, or the Stanley Cup champion Panthers, who have added noted Leafs’ boogeyman Brad Marchand since they bullied Toronto out of the postseason two years ago.
The Maple Leafs have enjoyed an excellent season. Their combination of superstar talent and an injection of grit from head coach Craig Berube give them a puncher’s chance in any series. Still, the disappointment of squandering a lead in the standings, no matter how minuscule, and an early matchup with one of their biggest tormentors could prove too much to overcome. The Leafs’ best bet is a division win, even if it means a Battle of Ontario matchup against a tough Sens team with nothing to lose.
It’s not a phase: The St. Louis Blues are the real deal
In the pages of last month’s storylines column, I heaped praise on the Columbus Blue Jackets and touted them as a potential trap team. Since then, they’ve gone 3-8-1, a cold streak that could spell the end of their season. If superstitious Blues’ fans are afraid similar plaudits will yield similar results this month, they probably shouldn’t be; it doesn’t seem like a jinx or anything else will slow down their club, whose league-best record since the 4 Nations Face-Off (15-2-2) has brought them a six-point lead in the race for the Western Conference’s final playoff berth.
The break gave coach Jim Montgomery a well-needed opportunity to put his stamp on the team after an unexpected midseason takeover. ‘Monty’ has worked wonders on a lineup that impressed few in the St. Louis area (or anywhere else) to start the year. Their defense, led by the pair of Philip Broberg and Justin Faulk (58.18% high-danger chance share), is a top-three unit in both scoring (2.11 GAA) and shot suppression (24 SA/G) since Feb. 20 despite an injury to Team Canada’s Colton Parayko. That stinginess has led to plenty of opportunities on the rush for speedsters Dylan Holloway and Jordan Kyrou, who have formed an electric connection with captain Brayden Schenn on the second unit.
St. Louis goal!
Scored by Dylan Holloway with 10:08 remaining in the 3rd period.
Assisted by Jordan Kyrou and Tyler Tucker.
St. Louis: 3
Vancouver: 2#VANvsSTL #stlblues #Canucks pic.twitter.com/u9bS0THxjV
The first is centered by two-way ace Robert Thomas, whose status as the most underappreciated star forward in hockey is in jeopardy thanks to his recent scoring binge (10 P in last 4 GP). In goal, 4 Nations hero Jordan Binnington has been unbeatable (10-2, 2.09 GAA, .917 SV%) ever since returning from the tournament, and backup Joel Hofer is elevating his game to match. The names lower down the lineup might not jump off the page, but guys like Tyler Tucker and Nathan Walker have given Montgomery total commitment in thankless, physical roles. The division rival Winnipeg Jets likely would not be upset if St. Louis played its way into the seventh seed and became the Vegas Golden Knights’ problem.
How important will Hellebuyck and Draisaitl’s closing statements prove to the Hart Trophy race?
For months, the Hart Trophy has felt like a two-horse race between Connor Hellebuyck and Leon Draisaitl. If the oddsmakers are right, they have a wide lead on the field ahead of the home stretch. Hellebuyck is the top goaltender in the sport, and, if another skater were close enough to Draisaitl to make things interesting, his league-best record (43 wins), GAA (2.01), and SV% (.925) would surely make him the first MVP netminder since Carey Price won the Hart a decade ago.
No skater is particularly close to Draisaitl, though. The German has a nine-goal lead in the Rocket Richard race, and he’s 21 and 18 goals ahead of Art Ross frontrunners Nathan MacKinnon and Nikita Kucherov, respectively. ‘Neon Leon’ also leads the league in overtime tallies (six, tied for an NHL record) and game-winning goals (11). All this despite a “down” year for running mate Connor McDavid (90 P in 63 GP) and the Oilers’ eighth-ranked power play; 36 of Draisaitl’s tallies have come at even strength, and his play-driving metrics have never been better (60.27% expected-goal share).
So, what does each man have to do to make his case over the final handful of games? For Hellebuyck, it’s a matter of holding serve. He has to avoid any uncharacteristic implosions to keep Darcy Kuemper (2.10) off his tail in the GAA charts despite the analytics community’s disdain for the stat. If his Jets can hold off the Dallas Stars and Washington Capitals to claim the Presidents’ Trophy, the Hart vote could become a formality. Draisaitl needs some help from Hellebuyck, but reaching the 60-goal mark with a goal-a-game flurry over the final nine contests would make for a heck of a closing argument.
When will Miro Heiskanen return, and can the Stars win without him?
Miro Heiskanen is one of the best clutch performers in the NHL, a tireless worker and smooth skater who can play 30 minutes a night on either side of the ice. Still, the Stars have won without him. Their points percentage since the Finnish puck mover went down (.738) is higher than their mark before his knee injury. So, there is no problem, the Stars will win the Cup because they’re very good, and the Jim Gregory Award will become the Jim Nill Award. That’s all possible (well, maybe not the last part), but a peak under the hood shows that it could be presumptuous to assume Heiskanen will be back “after the first round.” The results have been there without him, but if the underlying numbers are anything to go by, they might not win a series in his absence.
It’s not as if the Stars have gone from a great defensive team to a merely average one in the wake of Heiskanen’s injury; they’ve gone from borderline elite to very bad. Before their top blueliner got hurt, Dallas was sixth in expected goal share (52.56%) at five-on-five. Since then, they’re 29th (45.7%); only the wretched Chicago Blackhawks have more expected goals against at even strength. Rising star Thomas Harley and plodding Russian Ilya Lyubushkin have just about broken even without Heiskanen around, but Esa Lindell’s unit with Cody Ceci is getting crushed (out-chanced 84-125) despite misleading ratings (combined +29 since 2/4).
The Stars’ hot shooting and steady goaltending have insulated them from the consequences of their shaky defense. Wyatt Johnston and Jason Robertson are scoring at will (28 combined G since 2/4), Jake Oettinger and especially backup Casey DeSmith (5-0-1, .934 SV% since 2/4) are stealing games, and the team’s PDO (shooting % + SV%) is the best in the league over the past two months. Dallas can ask the Winnipeg Jets what happens to PDO in the playoffs when the Colorado Avalanche are on the other end of the ice. The Stars need to get Heiskanen back in the lineup or do a better job coping with his absence.
Can the L.A. Kings finally get one over on Edmonton?
Is this the year the defensively stout Los Angeles Kings finally knock off McDavid, Draisaitl, and the high-flying Edmonton Oilers? Math, history, and common sense all point to the same answer: “No.” The Kings have beaten Edmonton in a series twice in 10 tries throughout their history, most recently in 1989 after Wayne Gretzky’s first season in L.A. The teams have met in the past three postseasons, and it’s only gotten easier for the Oilers since a seven-game slugfest in 2022. Last season, Draisaitl and McDavid needed only five games to collect 22 combined points and send the Kings packing. They had seen L.A.’s gimmicky trap defense one too many times and turned it into Swiss cheese in record time. Why should this year be any different?
For starters, because the Kings are different. Jim Hiller, who took over from Todd McLellan midway through last season, is still running a trap, but it’s a 1-2-2 designed to turn the puck over in the offensive zone. That’s given big physical forwards like Alex Laferriere, Warren Foegele, and Quinton Byfield more leeway to get out and hunt on the forecheck, where they’ve helped add a layer of grit and physicality to their once passive defensive approach.
QUINTON BYFIELD
You're going to want to watch this pass 🥶 pic.twitter.com/A2F6o9HkQ4
L.A.’s hot-and-cold offense (five 7-goal games, five shutout losses) is still in the bottom half of the league, but Byfield’s encouraging form (8 G, 23 P in 24 GP since 2/1) has taken some pressure off aging captain Anze Kopitar and unlocked Kevin Fiala’s productivity (12 G, 21 P in 24 GP since 2/1) on the second line. If that duo can help the Kings take a series lead back to Crypto.com Arena, where starting goalie Kuemper has been nigh-invincible (16-2-2, 1.69 GAA, .932 SV%), the Oilers could be in for the shock of a lifetime. A matchup between the two teams in Southern California next Saturday will go a long way toward determining who gets home ice when it counts.
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