NHL Playoff Push: Round 1 matchups we want to see

We are officially one month away from the conclusion of the 2024-25 NHL regular season, and as the stretch run of the campaign is laid out before us we’re seeing the playoff picture shift every night.

This weekend brought a few possible first-round matchup previews between rivals in the Atlantic and Central divisions, too. The Senators topped Toronto to keep Ottawa’s remarkable win streak alive — and add to the Maple Leafs’ pile of March losses — on Saturday, while on Sunday, the Dallas Stars visited the Colorado Avalanche in a game that not only brought the well-traveled Mikko Rantanen to his old stomping grounds but showed us a glimpse of the high-octane matchup we could see go down in the Central Division next month.

From now until the end of the season, all the wins and losses and momentum swings will be under a brighter spotlight as we get a clearer sense of which matchups we’re most likely to see in Round 1. But what about the matchups we most want to see?

That’s what we’re looking at in this edition of the Playoff Push, which is all about putting a word in with the Hockey Gods and highlighting the first-round series we’d love to see if the stars align.

Below is the current Eastern Conference standings as of March 17.

Eastern Conference playoff matchups we want to see

Senators vs. Maple Leafs

Three straight playoff meetings starting in the spring of 2000 — and four post-season series clashes in the first five years of the new millennium — saw the Toronto Maple Leafs and Ottawa Senators go from provincial NHL neighbours to fiery rivals. Toronto became Ottawa’s biggest roadblock over that stretch, stumping the Senators each time.

While there’s no love lost between these franchises, separated by a 450-kilometre stretch of the 401, for much of the past two decades the Battle of Ontario has been a rivalry more or less in name only. Rotating rebuilds have seen the clubs hit and miss the playoffs at different times, limiting the rivals to regular-season bouts. While those have brought some entertaining affairs, nothing re-ignites a rivalry like a best-of-seven showdown.

If we are to finally strike up another Battle of Ontario in the playoffs this spring, the Maple Leafs will need to take a note from the Senators’ book and start winning again. Toronto has been comfortably sitting in the top three of the Atlantic Division standings but after losing five of six — including Saturday’s loss to Ottawa, their final head-to-head of the regular season — that position could soon be in peril. Four points separate them from the surging Senators, who have won six straight games to jump into the playoffs and apply more than a little pressure to the Maple Leafs and Lightning. A string of three losses for the Lightning prior to Saturday’s win in Boston has Tampa Bay at risk of being leap-frogged, too.

Another path to a Toronto-Ottawa first-round meeting is if the Maple Leafs can shake off their dysfunction and catch the Panthers atop the Atlantic should the Senators maintain their WC1 spot.

Fans in Ottawa and Toronto aren’t the only ones who could greatly benefit from a little movement around the Atlantic Division standings. We’re four points in any direction away from seeing a Battle of Florida, too.

Capitals vs. Rangers

Last spring, the Capitals just barely squeaked into the second wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference and didn’t stand a chance against the conference-topping Rangers. New York outscored the Capitals by a combined 15-7 and kept Alex Ovechkin off the scoresheet entirely, the captain’s first time ever being shut out in a playoff series.

It felt like Washington’s window was slamming shut.

But oh, what a difference a year can make. Now, one month shy of the season finale, Washington is the heavyweight favourite, the league’s most prolific offence, with a commanding lead atop the Eastern Conference and just two points shy of the overall league lead as Ovechking’s thrilling hunt for history thrusts their every game into the spotlight.

The Rangers, meanwhile, have fallen from grace amid a season of struggles and are in and out of the post-season window as part of a four-team fight for the final wild card spot that’s looking like it’ll go down to the wire.

Cue the revenge tour. If the playoffs started today, these two teams would officially embark on a rematch with the roles completely reversed from a year ago. If the Rangers can fend off the Canadiens, Blue Jackets and Red Wings over the next month, it’ll be a reality. Proof once again that parity is alive and well in the NHL.

Below is the current Western Conference standings as of March 17.

Western Conference playoff matchups we want to see

Avalanche vs. Stars

When Avalanche brass traded away star Mikko Rantanen to Carolina at the end of January, no one expected he’d wind up landing with a division rival instead. If the Rantanen saga, which saw him flipped from the Hurricanes to the Stars at the deadline, wasn’t already intriguing enough, how about we add a familiar first-round playoff bout into the mix?

The Stars and Avalanche gave us a glimpse of what a Round 1 series could look like when they met on Sunday — the 4-3 Avalanche win brought no shortage of offence and needed overtime to solve.

Put that into the post-season, and we’ve got a thriller between two of the game’s highest-scoring offences. Of course, there’s plenty of recent playoff familiarity between these two clubs of late. They met in the second round last spring, with Dallas claiming the series in six games before losing to the Oilers in the Western Conference Final. Before that, they met in Round 2 of the 2020 playoffs, with the Stars again winning en route to the Cup Final.

Despite Dallas’ success against Colorado, the Stars have yet to hoist the Cup with this core, and are among the favourites to finally get there this year. It would feel like a fitting start to a Cup run to see them topple the 2022 champs with Rantanen on Dallas’ side this time.

Jets vs. Canucks

If the playoffs started today, we’d be bracing for an interesting clash between the Jets and Canucks. Not since the early 1990s have these teams met in the post-season (Vancouver took both division semi-final series in 1992 and 1993). That’s not exactly a recent rivalry, but this all-Canadian matchup would certainly be intriguing.

Everything has gone right this season for the Jets, who sit atop the NHL, thanks to a deep lineup and MVP-calibre netminder Connor Hellebuyck. Few things have gone right for the Canucks, meanwhile, as locker room turmoil and piled-up injuries have halted any signs of momentum. And yet, the team with legitimate playoff expectations going into the season finds itself within the window despite those struggles.

We’re about to get a taste of what this playoff matchup could look like as the Jets visit Vancouver Tuesday night as the Canucks near must-win mode if they’re to fend off the Blues, Flames, and Utah hot on their tail. (The Jets and Canucks are set to play again March 30.)

More from Sportsnet

Weekend Takeaways: Don’t count out those pesky Blues just yet

32 Thoughts Podcast: Tension building around Maple Leafs