Written by Scott on Friday, June 12th, 2020
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For this article we will go over the teams that have a bye in the opening round of the playoffs in the Western Conference.
In a normal postseason the top 2 teams in the Conference would take on the two wild card teams with #1 playing #8 and #2 playing #7. Now they are taking the top 4 teams from each Conference who will skip the play-in round and play one game against each other to determine seeding.
First Round Bye Teams Western Conference
The top 4 teams in the Western Conference were the St. Louis Blues, the Colorado Avalanche, the Vegas Golden Knights and the Dallas Stars and during the round robin they will play each other once.
At the end of the round-robin tournament between the top four teams, the win-loss records of those teams after the three games will determine the 1-4 seeding entering the Round of 16, with regular season points percentage acting as a tiebreaker if needed.
St. Louis Blues: The Blues were comfortably atop the Western Conference with 94 points, only 2 ahead of the Avalanche but 8 ahead of the 3rd place Knights. They are the defending Stanley Cup champs so they will have pressure on them to repeat the success they enjoyed last year. They have the pieces to do damage though. O’Reilly, Perron, Schenn and Schwartz can do the heavy lifting and a healthy Tarasenko will only add to an already deep offense. Pietrangelo may be playing his last games for the Blues in these playoffs so he may want to go out with a bang. So with all of the experience they gained last year and being healthy they could be the favorites in the West.
Colorado Avalanche: The Avalanche to me are a team who shouldn’t be taken lightly. They played great hockey during the regular season. They have some amazing players just entering their primes and have no real weaknesses on their roster. MacKinnon put together an MVP caliber season, and Landeskog and Rantanen are young and compliment each other perfectly. Makar put up an amazing season as a rookie finishing in 2nd in team points as a defenseman. And Ryan Graves lead the league in plus/minus. Just a solid team.
Vegas Golden Knights: In only their 3rd year, the Knights have been an amazing story and team. Most of their best players aren’t youngsters so they have the experience that will help them in the playoffs. Pacioretty and Stone have been everything they hoped for and lead the team in scoring during the season. But behind those two they still have some incredible depth up front with Smith, Marchessault, Karlsson and Stastny forming an amazing top 6. Their defense is more of a team approach who gets the job done. One spot of concern for the Knights is in goal where Marc-Andre Fleury has had an amazing career but he isn’t getting any younger but the Knights addressed that by adding Robin Lehner should Fleury need a night off. Is this the year that the Knights get the Cup that they flirted with in their first year? They have the team to do it so lets see what happens.
Dallas Stars: The Stars didn’t have as many points as the Oilers but it came down to the wining percentage. This team has some decent players all throughout their lineup. Seguin and Benn are proven veterans who have great chemistry and could go on a run. On defense they have Heiskanen, and Klingberg who are young and have taken the step towards top of the league defense. They also have some proven veterans from other teams like Pavelski and Perry who will provide them with secondary leadership and scoring. Ben Bishop had a great year and have Khudobin as an excellent backup. They have nothing to lose here and if they have a good round robin, they have the team to do it, they could come out of this as the top seed.
Who do you think will come out of the round robin as the top seed? For me I have to think it will be the Avalanche. They were only 2 points behind the Blues for top spot and the youth of their best players I think will get them through the round robin
