Ranking the 10 best opening round matchups that are still realistically in play
Did you catch another subtle sign of spring from the last few days? The NHL standings page added an “If Playoffs Started Today” link at the top of the page. And it doesn’t just go to a page that says “… it would be way too early, calm down”.
That’s because we’re almost there. There are just three weeks left in the NHL season, and while that’s plenty of time for teams to shift around the standings, it’s close enough to the playoffs that we can start thinking ahead to potential matchups. And as always, some are better than others.
Today, let’s have a look at some of those first-round matchups that are realistically in play, with a ranking of the 10 best. We’ll use the numbers from hockeystats.com, and limit our list to matchups with at least a 10% chance of happening (heading into last night’s games).
We’ll count them down, working our way to the best possible matchups, most of which of course will not happen because we’ll have jinxed it. We’ll get there, but let’s take this from the top…