In their second matchup in as many years, the 2016 Stanley Cup Champion Pittsburgh Penguins are set to do battle with the Presidents' Trophy-winning Washington Capitals. This series should be a bloodbath, and we can expect to see no shortage of fireworks from the likes of Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin, and the rest of the two teams that happened to finish numbers first and second in regular-season points in the entire National Hockey League.
Matt Murray Who?
The Pens seem to be doing just fine without Matt Murray, the goaltender who provided them 15 of the 16 wins necessary to capture last year's Stanley Cup, winning in five games over the Columbus Blue Jackets, a team our models rank as a top-five squad.
In all five games, Marc-Andre Fleury manned the pipes for the Pens while Murray has yet to skate due to an injury he suffered in warmups of Game 1. General manager Jim Rutherford looks like an absolute genius for not transferring the contract of Fleury just yet with the Expansion Draft looming. Because of his play, highlighted by a remarkable .933 save percentage and 13 goals allowed, Fleury may have earned the starter spot for the Pens in this series, even if Murray is ready to go at some point.
The Holtbeast in Action
It's not surprising that the Capitals are as good as they are, with the star-studded lineup that busts onto the ice night in and night out, but how much of their success is because of the play of Braden Holtby? In this series, Holtby should be key as the Caps' offense should be able to score. If Holtby struggles like he did against the Toronto Maple Leafs in the opening round, the Capitals may be in trouble.
Holtby only scraped the top five in the Eastern Conference goaltending race with rather average numbers in goals against average (2.36), save percentage (.925), and goals allowed (16).
Now, you may be thinking, why are these numbers (some of which are comparable to Craig Anderson's), bad for Holtby? And the answer is quite simple -- because the Capitals have expected more from him all season, and they've gotten exactly that.
This may be overkill, but Holtby will likely need to perform like his regular-season self in order for the Caps to prevail against the red-hot Pens.
The Verdict
In four games between the two fierce division rivals, we witnessed a 2-2 split. This includes a 7-1 rout of the Penguins by the Capitals and a ravishing 8-7 overtime victory by Pittsburgh over Washington.
This only shows us that when these two teams are both playing at their best, there's not much better. We can assume that this series will be a high-scoring and high-flying affair.
According to our nERD metric, Washington and Pittsburgh are the two best teams in the league -- with the Capitals being expected to beat an average opponent by 0.92 goals per game while Pittsburgh's nERD is 0.67.
These margins have given Washington and Pittsburgh the two highest chances to win the Stanley Cup -- at 27.77% and 16.33%, respectively -- so the winner of this series will be the clear favorite the rest of the way. Unfortunately, due to the format on the NHL playoffs, one of these teams will go home much too early.
Our models give the upper hand in this battle to the Capitals, projecting them win the series 56.91% of the time.