Washington Capitals Playoffs: Breaking down the Eastern Conference

The Washington Capitals and Florida Panthers are set to battle each other in Game 4 tonight. But while we are a Capitals blog we have yet to look at the Eastern Conference playoffs as a whole. That’s what we’ll do with this article.

Before we look at the Eastern Conference, let’s take a look at the Western Conference. The Colorado Avalanche lead the second wild card Nashville Predators three games to none with a chance to go for the sweep tonight.

The Minnesota Wild and St. Louis Blues are tied at two as both the first two games in Minnesota were lopsided either way. Then they split in St. Louis and those games were lopsided as well. The Calgary Flames lead the Dallas Stars 2-1 with Dallas wining the last two games. The Edmonton Oilers and Los Angeles Kings are 2-2 with the Kings winning last night 4-0.

Now let’s look at the Eastern Conference. First let’s look on the Metropolitan Division side of the bracket. The Carolina Hurricanes and Boston Bruins are tied at two games apiece. The Bruins won yesterday 5-2 to even up the series with Game 5 tomorrow night. Brad Marchand and everyone’s favorite hockey villain Tony DeAngelo even got into it. They both lead their respective teams which forces us to root for Marchand.

Meanwhile the Pittsburgh Penguins are just like our Caps, leading their respective series two games to one over the New York Rangers. On Saturday, they got the 7-4 win to go up in the series. Game 4 is tonight from Pittsburgh. Andrew Copp, Mika Zibanejad, and Chris Kreider lead the Rangers while the Penguins are led by Jake Guentzel and Sidney Crosby.

Now let’s look on the Atlantic side of the bracket. Your Washington Capitals lead the Florida Panthers 2-1 with Game 4 tonight. They have a good chance to not only go way up in the series but put the President’s Trophy winners on the brink. If the Caps were to advance past the Panthers, they’ll face either the Toronto Maple Leafs or Tampa Bay Lightning in the second round.

That series is tied at two games apiece after the Lightning won 7-3 last night. Game 5 is tomorrow night. The Maple Leafs are led by Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner. For the Lightning it’s Victor Hedman and Andrei Vasilievskiy.

Overall it’s been an entertaining playoffs thus far and the second week of the postseason should be even more fun. We’ll all be watching.