Burnside: Does late-season performance predict a team’s playoff fate?

There’s worry in Washington, fretting in Tampa, they’re squeamish in Nashville, jangling nerves in Raleigh, trepidation in Pittsburgh, and there’s full-on angst in Los Angeles.

You know where there is none of that? Florida. Colorado. New York. Toronto.

Oh, to be on a heater heading through the final weeks of the NHL’s regular season.

Or maybe not.

Should you pencil in a parade for South Florida or Denver or, heaven forbid, downtown Toronto?

Does it mean all those slumping Nervous Nellie teams are destined to be one-and-done come playoff time?

In short, no and no.

Whatever is happening right now in any of the 16 markets that will host playoff hockey starting in early May, none of that will have any bearing on how those teams fare once the puck drops on the second season.

Because for every ice-cold team – like the 2020-21 Montreal Canadiens, who were winless in their last five games of the regular season and outscored 21-11 before going to their first Stanley Cup final since 1993 – there’s an example of a red-hot team like the 2019 St. Louis Blues, who went 8-1-1 down the stretch before ending a rags to riches saga with their first Stanley Cup championship in Game 7 in Boston.

Rick Tocchet won a Stanley Cup as a player, participating in 145 post-season games over the course of his career. He also won two Stanley Cups as an assistant to Mike Sullivan in Pittsburgh in 2016 and 2017.

The final two weeks of the regular season can be challenging for players on teams that have already locked up playoff spots because there is the balance of trying to do the right things, play the right way, but at the same time the value of those games pales in comparison to what lies ahead.

Tocchet and others we spoke with agree that each team, each dynamic is different but that having had the experience of long playoff runs should help mitigate teams that have run a bit aground in the final weeks of the regular season.

For instance, Tocchet thinks the Lightning, battling for third place with Boston in the hotly contested Atlantic Division, has been making myriad uncharacteristic mistakes and it looks to him like their veteran leaders are tired. He also thinks all-world netminder Andrei Vasilevskiy looks a bit worn out.

But the team will get a nice break before the start of the playoffs. Veteran leaders like Nikita Kucherov will get his act together and the team should be fine.

“Tampa, just from their history, I wouldn’t really worry as much,” Tocchet said.

Other teams, like the Predators perhaps, need to keep their foot on the gas, Tocchet said, as they’re not only trying to solidify a playoff spot but also they’re trying to reinforce their identity and personality for when it really matters.

The Carolina Hurricanes, a team that could face Tampa in the first round, are in a bit different place as they try and take that next step forward in their unprecedented fourth straight playoff appearance under head coach and defending Jack Adams Award winner Rod Brind’Amour.

“Roddy’s last 10 games are going to be different than (Jon) Cooper’s,” Tocchet said.

The coaches play an integral role in navigating the stretch run, as does the leadership group in the locker room.

In 2016, for instance, the Penguins were cooking. They lost Game 82 but had won nine in a row before that. The only issue for the coaches was whether Marc-Andre Fleury or Matt Murray was going to be the team’s playoff goaltender, Tocchet recalled.

The next year was different as the Penguins were all over the place. They finished 4-4-2 including a four-game winless streak and a four-game winning streak followed by losses in the final two games. But what set that team apart, Tocchet said, was how head coach Mike Sullivan let the leadership group handle things down the stretch.

Sidney Crosby, Kris Letang, Matt Cullen, Patric Hornqvist and Nick Bonino all helped keep the team on point even though the results might have suggested otherwise.

Those veteran players, “they knew what was at stake. Sully knew when to push and when not to,” Tocchet said. “We didn’t push. We just let the locker room take over.”

It’s fascinating in retrospect to be reminded of teams that closed out the regular season strongly before embarking on long – or shockingly short – playoff runs.

Tampa is the poster team for “None of this really matters,” as it went 11-3-0 into the 2019 playoffs as part of a 62-win season that ended in just over a week when they were swept by eighth-seed Columbus.

We noted St. Louis streaking through the second half of the 2018-19 season and all the way to a Cup, but their final series opponent, Boston, was just 3-4-0 down the stretch.

The year before, Washington had struggled through a mediocre season before roaring into the playoffs on an 8-2-0 roll.

“I’ve seen it every which way,” said longtime NHL player, executive and analyst Dave Poulin. “No rhyme or reason for me other than good health both physically and mentally.”

And the stretch run may be viewed differently by managers and coaches and the players on their teams.

“Actually (a poor stretch run) makes coaches and managers more nervous than players,” Poulin said. “Players want to be feeling good about themselves, their own play. You hate to have something nagging, sore, but you just want to feel good about your game.

“There was always the tiny fear of peaking at the wrong time, but of course you can’t control that. If coaches try and think their way through that, and some do, they’re really in trouble.”

Rich Peverley is the director of player personnel for the Dallas Stars. He was also part of a Boston team that won a Cup in 2011 and then went to a final two years later.

In 2010-11, the Bruins were playing well, winning the Northeast Division and closing out the season with a 5-2-1 record. Two years later, after a lockout scuttled half a season, the Bruins finished second in the division and won just twice in the last nine games. But so much of the core of the Cup-winning team remained. There was such a strong and firm belief in what was happening in the room that those numbers really were insignificant.

Peverley recalled that ’13 team, and even though they weren’t getting results at the end of the regular season they ended up rolling right up until Chicago stunned them with two late goals in Game 6 of the final.

“We just got hot in the playoffs,” Peverley said.

In both ’11 and ’13, Peverley described an intangible belief in the room that things were going to go their way even though, for instance, they got down 2-0 to Montreal in the first round and 2-0 to Vancouver in the final in ’11 before winning it all in Game 7 in Vancouver.

“You just feel you can’t be stopped,” Peverley said. “It’s like, wow, you really start to believe.”

He echoed Tocchet’s sentiments about the leadership group being key to being an extension of the coaching staff and the message that staff is trying to send to the team.

“There’s just no doubt in the room anywhere,” Peverley said.

For teams in the Eastern Conference, especially where the top eight teams have been more or less defined for a month or more, it’s harder to get through the final weeks of the regular season.

You’re checking the standings, wondering who you’re going to play even though players may insist they don’t care about that stuff.

“I know I was looking at the standings every day and I was curious to see who we were playing all the time,” Peverley said.

It’s not just the experience but, in general, those teams with experience have players who are in defined roles. They aren’t trying to massage the lineup (outside of injuries of course) trying to find out what works in those final games of the regular season.

“I think the teams that have been through it and have the experience have a little bit more leeway to flip the switch,” Peverley said.

Teams without that experience?

“I could be wrong, but I feel if they’re not going well, it’s hard to flip the switch, because then you’re scrambling,” Peverley said. “You don’t have that equilibrium.”

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Burnside: Does late-season performance predict a team’s playoff fate?

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