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00:00We welcome in Pete Jensen of theNHL.com.
00:03I love to get this time and this breakdown.
00:05Pete, let's have some fun with the NHL.
00:07How are we feeling this morning?
00:09Feeling good coming off that weekend with the two Game 7 comebacks.
00:13I mean, it just seems like every time we talk, every other week,
00:15there's something major going on in hockey this year between Four Nations
00:19and the Ovechkin Great Chase.
00:21The stretch run was great.
00:23The playoffs have not had any major upsets, let's say.
00:27But I think that a lot of people were surprised that Dallas came back
00:31to beat Colorado in that game considering they were playing the whole series
00:35without two of their best players, Jason Robertson and Miro Haskinen.
00:39Good chance they get one or both of those guys back for the second round
00:42and they meet the Winnipeg Jets guys that had a shocker of their own on home ice
00:47to come back and the buzzer beater by Perfetti and then winning it
00:51in double overtime.
00:52That was an epic win for the Winnipeg Jets over the weekend too.
00:55Hockey's been good, man.
00:57The toughest tournament, the toughest trophy to win is the Stanley Cup.
01:00We're now entering to round number two.
01:02Doubleheader last night, the Hurricanes and the Capitals,
01:04the Oilers and the Golden Knights.
01:05We'll focus here first.
01:06An overtime victory in game number one for the Hurricanes,
01:09two to one last night.
01:10Defensive struggle.
01:11How did this game play out?
01:13And was it any surprise, Pete, on the end of it,
01:15that it was the Hurricanes taking game number one?
01:16So going into this series, we knew that the goaltending was stingy on both ends of the ice.
01:24You know, whether you're talking about Washington making quick work of Montreal
01:28in surprising fashion in the first round.
01:31I thought Montreal could have maybe pulled the upset,
01:33but they just had amazing goaltending from Logan Thompson.
01:36And then on the other side, you always have that structured possession-dominant style
01:40of the Carolina Hurricanes.
01:42But coming into the series, there was some injury concerns surrounding Freddie Anderson.
01:47Game one went in the way of the Hurricanes in terms of the shots on goal.
01:50Heavy advantage for them.
01:52That's not surprising at all.
01:54But for Carolina to finish the job and win that game one on the road in an overtime fashion,
02:01just, I think, can show everybody that, hey, this is not going to be what the regular season was,
02:07which was a dominant performance by the Washington Capitals.
02:10The better possession team historically this year, this first game, is the Carolina Hurricanes.
02:17If they could finish on some of these chances with some of the young players in their lineup,
02:22like Stankoven scored another goal in game one.
02:25He's been a stud this postseason.
02:27A Carolina could easily get to the conference final.
02:30I wouldn't be surprised by that based on game one.
02:34Yeah, it was.
02:35And Frederick Anderson also in goal for them.
02:39And what is that?
02:40I mean, that was always the biggest question mark, right?
02:42With Carolina, what were we going to get at a goal with them?
02:45Because we know we're going to get a ton of shots and a ton of possessions.
02:48But what about the goaltending here moving forward with Carolina?
02:54Well, I mean, I've always kind of been a Freddie Anderson apologist, I guess you could say.
02:59The guy has a 9-15 save percentage in 77 career NHL games.
03:06You look at how many goalies have done that in NHL history.
03:09It's a short list.
03:10Like 15 or fewer goalies have done that.
03:13And the names on that list are ridiculous.
03:15It's like Brodeur, Patrick Waugh, Dominic Koscik.
03:18I mean, the guy's never won the cup before.
03:20But I personally think he's a good enough goalie to get it done one of these years if he could get a helping hand from some of his teammates.
03:28And I think that that Carolina system, you know, just is conducive to him.
03:33If he stays healthy, he's a good enough goalie to get them over the top one of these years.
03:38He's had past struggles, of course, with the Hurricanes last year.
03:42Kind of blew it in the series against the Rangers after they came back and, you know, gave up a couple of weak goals in that game six when they lost.
03:50He's played a lot of playoff hockey for the Maple Leafs and the Anaheim Ducks through the years.
03:54One of these years, Freddie's going to get it done, I think.
03:57And I at least won't be surprised by it.
03:59I'll tell you what's surprising right now is the best attack point for the Edmonton Oilers just to let them get out to a really good couple goal lead.
04:07And then you chase them down because the Edmonton Oilers are very comfortable when they're behind in the game.
04:12A 4-2 victory over the Golden Knights on the road, which saw the Oilers get down 2-0.
04:17And then four straight goals from the Edmonton Oilers to win game number one.
04:21The road teams last night had some pretty good performances, Pete.
04:24Yeah.
04:25And how about these live line Edmonton Oilers, you could call them.
04:29Five comeback victories in their first five.
04:32They won four straight to beat the L.A. Kings.
04:35They are wrecking some teams that are very structured in the Los Angeles Kings and now the Vegas Golden Knights.
04:43This series is far from over.
04:45Again, I think Vegas is the deeper, more structured possession team.
04:51But Edmonton's a good possession team, too.
04:53The difference is they bring a lot of chaos in different situations.
04:57They're experienced in the postseason.
05:00And they're one of those teams, guys, that we look for every year.
05:03We try to pinpoint them.
05:04Which team is going to flip the switch?
05:06You know, sometimes it's, you know, cap situation and stuff like that.
05:10But in this case, they got Evander Kane back in the first round.
05:13He brings some physicality.
05:15The shots on goal volume.
05:17A secondary score.
05:18They've gotten production from Connor Brown, who's been a stud this playoff.
05:23And, you know, the past year and year or two, Connor Brown has done almost nothing for the Oilers.
05:28So all this combination, Jake Wallman healthy.
05:31You know, Ekholm's still out for them.
05:33But injuries were the big concern coming in.
05:35But right now, like, they're peaking at the right time and showing us that maybe they were saving their best for last year after a pretty mediocre regular season.
05:43Got to love it here.
05:47And Aiden Hill, not a great night last night.
05:50But Edmonton dominated that entire game, Pete.
05:53I mean, they were the deserved winner.
05:55They didn't dominate against the Kings in those comebacks.
05:59But they absolutely dominated Vegas last night.
06:03Yeah, it's a tough one for the Kings to swallow, for sure.
06:07The Kings outplayed them, made a couple of mistakes in the clutch, of course.
06:11That one by Byfield, we remember that, you know, will haunt a really good young player.
06:16He'll overcome that in the future.
06:18But, yeah, I think some organizational changes have been made in L.A. already.
06:23And they'll try to go back to the drawing board.
06:25But that's tough, man.
06:26Four straight years losing to the Oilers in the first round.
06:29And this one felt closer than ever compared to the other three.
06:33But, yeah, I think that no matter how good the goalie is, Kemper was great in the regular season.
06:38And Vezina finalists, Edmonton came back on them.
06:42Edmonton has some sneaky depth.
06:45Even a guy like Corey Perry that's been through the rigors all through the years
06:49with so many different teams and deep playoff runs.
06:51Corey Perry's playing a lot of top-line minutes this year and has been productive.
06:55Maybe look at him in the props market moving forward for the rest of the postseason.
07:00Doubleheader tonight, which we'll talk about again.
07:02The Jets and the Stars open up their series.
07:04The Maple Leafs and the Panthers.
07:05There's much more talk with Pete Jensen of NHL.com on the way next on The Early Line.
07:10Let's re-rack the Stanley Cup playoff round two odds here.
07:14And particularly with the FanDuel Sportsbook.
07:16The Hurricanes with a 1-0 series lead against the Capitals, a minus 420 price.
07:20If you like the dog price here, it's a plus 320.
07:22The Maple Leafs, a minus 113 price going up against the Panthers, who are at a minus 106.
07:27The Oilers we just talked about at one game, number one against the Golden Knights.
07:30Now a commanding series lead at a minus 225 favorite and a plus 184.
07:34And then the Stars and the Jets, which will get underway tonight.
07:37The Stars are the favorite at minus 182.
07:39The Jets' dog price at a plus 150.
07:41Anything picked out here, Pete, from those odds here for these series that might come to our attention?
07:48I mean, I think that the Jets are definitely being underestimated.
07:53But I think it's a mismatch in Dallas' favor.
07:55The only thing that maybe could slow down the Stars over time is injuries.
08:01But like I said, they played all of last round without Robertson and Haskinen, and they could get one or both of them back.
08:07So maybe if the series is showing the wear and tear that the Stars went through in their epic series win against the Avalanche,
08:15you could jump on the Jets at that time, especially if they, say, drop game one.
08:20But they also have home ice in the series.
08:23When the Jets are at home, Connor Hellebuck has been great.
08:26When the Jets are on the road, he's been terrible this postseason.
08:29So he'll need to be better.
08:31I still believe that Dallas will steal one in Winnipeg.
08:35And I think that they'll have to do the same down in Big D.
08:39So Hellebuck's going to have to be much better in order for them to do that.
08:43So that's what I'm kind of looking at.
08:44So far this postseason, Odinger has been much better than Connor Hellebuck, which is a little bit surprising, I think.
08:52Yeah.
08:53These totals are interesting, too, here.
08:56Let's look at game two in Florida and Toronto.
08:59That's the early game tonight, 7 o'clock, Pete.
09:02Five and a half here.
09:04We got an over in the first one.
09:06And really, it was Florida lost the first period, then won the second and third.
09:12They just started a little bit late.
09:14But it feels like some of these totals, are we going to get more like what we saw last night in the 2-1 overtime?
09:20Or are we still going to get a ton of goals moving forward in some of these series?
09:25I think as that series Toronto and Florida gets later in the game, you'll see maybe some lower games
09:31and some tighter checking hockey and high pressure, especially on the Maple Leafs side.
09:37But what a nice performance by Toronto.
09:40Even with their goalie Stolar's getting banged up, they went 0-4 on the power play, which is their bread and butter.
09:46And they still scored five goals to beat the defending champs.
09:50So maybe that's a sign.
09:52And they got some defenseman contributions as well, which is something that I was worried about comparing them to Florida coming into the series.
09:59So, you know, maybe this year is different for the Toronto Maple Leafs.
10:02They have Stolar's.
10:03They have Joseph Wall if they need to turn to him again in the postseason.
10:08Craig Berube is a past Stanley Cup winning coach from the St. Louis Blues in 2019.
10:12I like that move in the offseason the second it happened.
10:16I wasn't sure if they would be able to lock it down defensively like they have.
10:20But they've shown the ability to win games in many different ways.
10:24I'm still picking Florida to win the series.
10:26But game one was a big statement that this series is going to go very deep, I think.
10:30Probably six or seven.
10:31And Toronto is going to give the Panthers everything they can handle on the board.
10:36Game number two tonight, Pete.
10:37You got Dallas and Winnipeg.
10:38Ottinger going up against Hellebuck.
10:40And you want to talk about escaping from the jaws of a loss.
10:43That's what Winnipeg did.
10:44Scoring with one second left and then winning a game in double overtime.
10:47They'll line up against the Stars.
10:48A five and a half total and a slight favorite now for Dallas on the road as opposed to Winnipeg here.
10:55Yeah, a lot of guys to keep an eye on in this series.
10:58There's certainly Mikko Rantanen who has 11 points in his past three games.
11:03Leading the entire first round.
11:05Tied with Kyle Connor for the most points.
11:07But what he did against his former team was legendary, to say the least.
11:12And you see him already here, you know, only behind McDavid pretty much in the Conn Smythe rankings, you would say, based on the odds.
11:20And he deserves to be there.
11:22I mean, he couldn't have scripted it any better for him after being traded twice earlier in the season.
11:27And he would benefit from Robertson coming back because they play on the same line with Rupe Hintz.
11:32So, you know, keep an eye on maybe a multi-point game to come.
11:36I think you can get pretty good odds on Rantanen to score a goal tonight to keep the momentum going.
11:42And then on Winnipeg's side, Neil Pionk, if Morrissey's banged up, he's going to continue to get involved in the offense.
11:48He had the highest total skating distance in a single game in that double overtime win for Winnipeg of any player in the postseason so far.
11:57I know it was a double overtime game, but he was filling in for one of the best defensemen in the league, Josh Morrissey, in that game.
12:05So, major props to what he was able to do with Winnipeg playing that game, most of it with five defenders.
12:11Should be a lot of fun to watch him play out at this point here.
12:14We do want to thank Pete for joining us this morning.
12:16The NHL Awards market here.
12:17It actually has two Oilers up top.
12:19Connor McDavid at a 7-1 price here at the Vandal Sportsbook.
12:22And Leon Dreisaito at an 11-1 price to win that Conn Smythe.
12:25Pete, thanks for checking in with us, giving us the ice advice this morning on the early line.