NHL Playoffs First Round Preview: Eastern Conference

Pittsburgh Penguins vs. Columbus Blue Jackets

A matchup between two of the powerhouses in the Metropolitan Division leaves fans of the game in for a real treat: at least four games featuring the Stanley Cup Champion of last season against the up-and-coming Blue Jackets, led by Cam Atkinson.

As we know, the Penguins are easily the most talented and easily the most dangerous out of the eight teams in the Eastern Conference, but they will have to go through a team deep with young talent that has given them problems in the past.

That's not to say that the Penguins -- led by 44-goal scorer Sidney Crosby, the ever dangerous Evgeni Malkin, and set-up man Phil Kessel will not advance to the next round -- but it will certainly not come without a fight.

The key to Columbus' success in this series needs to stem from Atkinson, who had tremendous regular season success, scoring 35 goals and amassing 62 points alongside Alexander Wennberg and Brandon Saad, who respectively recorded 59 and 53 points and have been two of the bigger producers of the course of this 82-game season.

The performance of Sergei Bobrovsky is also a key defining point for the Blue Jackets, because with any goaltending that is less than stellar, the Penguins will have a field day.

In their season series, we witnessed a 2-2 split, featuring two overtime games and a 7-1 rout, Columbus over Pittsburgh.

On neutral ice, our metrics illustrate that the Penguins (0.60) and Blue Jackets (0.52) are both top-five squads in the league.

All statistics aside, this series should be high-flying, and we will see one of the league's best go home far too early. Our algorithms give the Penguins a 53.07% chance to take the series in any fashion.