Misfit goalies, unsung heroes, and the biggest storylines to watch in Round 3 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs
The final four are set.
For at least two of the teams remaining in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, this round was seen as the bare minimum. The Colorado Avalanche and Carolina Hurricanes did not disappoint. The Avs tore through a Minnesota Wild outfit that looked primed to give them a real fight in just five games, including an epic Game 5 comeback from 3-0 down. The Hurricanes, meanwhile, swept the overmatched Philadelphia Flyers.
The other guys? Try the Vegas Golden Knights, who finished the regular season with a measly 95 points after firing Stanley Cup-winning coach Bruce Cassidy with only eight games remaining, and a Montreal Canadiens team that is the youngest to reach the third round since 1993. Just like we all predicted.
You can’t fault Vegas’s work since they made it to the dance; the battle-tested Knights schooled a pair of young, dangerous teams, the Utah Mammoth and Anaheim Ducks, in six games apiece to continue their quest for Cup No. 2. Montreal, meanwhile, survived a brutal Atlantic bracket by outlasting the ever-dangerous Tampa Bay Lightning and worst-to-first Buffalo Sabres in a pair of seven-game battles.
Now, all that’s left is to break down some of the intrigue we’ll see on the short road to the Stanley Cup Final.
Is the mismatch narrative overstated?
As the playoffs wear on, consensus picks have only become more, uh, consensus. When our Daily Faceoff prediction panel reconvened to pick winners for the conference final round, only one staffer, senior Nation Network producer and Daily Faceoff Live host Tyler Yaremchuk, zagged from a Colorado-Carolina Stanley Cup Final. In case that implies these series are foregone conclusions, allow me to play devil’s advocate for both the Canadiens and the Golden Knights.
If the Habs’ biggest concern against Carolina is that they can’t hope to carry play against the Eastern Conference’s most ruthless puckhounds, they should remember that they didn’t need to dominate possession to knock off a pair of very strong teams in Tampa and Buffalo. Perhaps Montreal is relying too heavily on the goaltending of Jakub Dobes and the hot-shooting of diminutive sniper (not that one) Alex Newhook, but we’ve seen the Hurricanes get PDO’d before; the Rangers knocked them off despite being massively out-chanced in 2022. Also of note? The Habs were the only Eastern Conference team to go undefeated against Carolina in the regular season.
The Golden Knights face arguably an even taller task in an Avalanche team that boasts outstanding four-line, three-pairing depth and the most star power (Makar, MacKinnon, et al.) of any roster in the league. Vegas has serious high-end talent of its own, though, in Mitch Marner and Jack Eichel, who don’t need to eschew the Golden Knights’ team-wide commitment to fill up the scoresheet. The Knights showed that the bludgeoning identity that helped them knock out the Oilers in 2023 and the Avs themselves in 2021 is still alive by silencing the potent offenses of Utah and Anaheim. This is a closer matchup than a 26-point gap in the standings would imply.
The coaches have something to prove, too
The bench bosses who have gotten their teams this far want to go a step further and get within four wins of the Stanley Cup. That’s not news, it’s human nature. Still, each of the remaining coaches has a little something extra at stake from a personal standpoint.
For Jared Bednar, it’s due recognition as one of the greatest coaches of the 21st century. With two Presidents’ Trophies, Kelly (ECHL) and Calder (AHL) Cups, and, oh yeah, the 2022 Stanley Cup on his resume, Bednar is already a Hall of Fame lock at just 54. He’s not as good for a soundbite as Tampa’s Jon Cooper or Florida’s Paul Maurice, though, which has often left Bednar overlooked by neutral fans and the media alike. Bednar also has just one career Cup appearance to Cooper and Maurice’s four. Rectifying that would go a long way toward earning Bednar the credit he has long deserved.
It’s vindication that Rod Brind’Amour is after. For the better part of a decade, his Hurricanes have utilized player development, roster balance, and tireless commitment to his relentless forechecking system to win at least one series every year. They have always fallen short of the Cup Final, though, when facing teams with top-15 players and superstar goaltending. Against a young Canadiens squad his club is heavily favored to topple, this is Brind’Amour’s chance to prove you can reach Round 4 without individual award winners.
At the opposite end of the Eastern matchup, Martin St. Louis’ Canadiens are too early in their contention window to feel significant pressure, even at this stage. A loss costs St. Louis nothing after an already brilliant season. Still, getting the Habs back to the Stanley Cup Final just five years on from their last visit would be quite the feather in his cap; there was, you’ll recall, a full rebuild in the interim.
Golden Knights’ coach John Tortorella, meanwhile, doesn’t care what anyone thinks of him or his legacy. Just ask him. Tortorella fits right in, then, with the team everyone loves to hate. Winning his long-awaited second Cup after his whirlwind appointment and subsequent six-figure fine would be a fitting final chapter for a guy who’s built his career on running high-end bluelines and ticking people off. Maybe the 67-year-old Tortorella, who is not signed beyond the end of the postseason, goes back to tending his horses after all of this. But there’s no debating that the NHL is a more interesting (see: chaotic) place with ‘Torts’ around.
Can the unsung heroes keep it up?
Carl Hagelin. Colton Sissons. Ville Leino. It’s the MacKinnons and Eichels that get you to the dance in the first place, but many of the playoffs’ big moments come from more unexpected sources. The aforementioned Newhook is the best example of 2026 so far.
Though he has always been a burner with some finish to his game, no one had Newhook, who has never scored more than 15 goals in a season, firing home two Game 7 goals in two rounds and another five tallies in between. His breakout opposite standout rookie Ivan Demidov on Jake Evans’s unit may have finally solved Montreal’s long-standing second-line issues. He’s not the only surprise package of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
In Raleigh, Taylor Hall’s status as a former No.1 overall pick and Hart Trophy winner means he’s not exactly a come-from-nowhere contributor. Hall’s ability to recapture the electric playmaking of his prime (he’s been more of a 45-point guy these days) has nonetheless been more than just a pleasant surprise; it’s the driving force behind Carolina’s offense through two rounds.
Out west in Denver, Nic Roy, who was brought to the Avalanche for his size, toughness, and defensive acumen, is outscoring Valeri Nichushkin and even Brock Nelson in limited usage; two of Roy’s three tallies have been game winners. Nazem Kadri’s return quickly overshadowed Roy’s trade to Colorado, but the past few weeks have more than justified the latter’s first-round price tag.
Of Roy’s old Vegas teammates, no one has broken out quite like Brett Howden. The forward’s wheels, work rate, and versatility quickly ingratiated him to Tortorella, who has given him a favorable deployment on a line with Mitch Marner throughout the postseason. Howden has grabbed the top-six opportunity by the horns, scoring eight goals, including a pair of game winners.
Whether the emergences of Hall, Howden, Newhook, Roy, and others like them are blips or the real thing will go a long way toward deciding who’s still standing in two weeks.
Are franchise goalies overrated?
The quick and easy counterpoint is that four of the last six Stanley Cup Winners were backstopped by either Andrei Vasilevskiy, who might win his second Vezina in a few weeks, or Sergei Bobrovsky, who has two Vezinas of his own. But it’s been a weird year for the toughest position in sports to nail down. The only big-money Vezina types in the field this year, finalists Jeremy Swayman and Vasilevskiy, went out early. Each team in the final four, meanwhile, is riding with a guy that wasn’t supposed to be here.
Dobes, one of the stories of the postseason, was to be a placeholder until prized prospect Jacob Fowler was ready to form a tandem with incumbent starter Sam Montembeault. Instead, Montembeault’s game fell apart, and it’s Dobes, not Fowler, getting his Patrick Roy (Ken Dryden?) on as Montreal’s latest rookie sensation in goal.
Journeyman Scott Wedgewood was to serve as the capable backup for the Avalanche to his former Devils’ teammate Mackenzie Blackwood, only for Blackwood’s season debut to be significantly delayed by an injury. Wedgewood, the NHL’s leader in regular-season GAA (2.02) and SV% (.921), has been sensational ever since.
Frederik Andersen was the low man on the totem pole in the Carolina crease until Calder-ineligible rookie (and 31-game winner) Brandon Bussi collapsed down the stretch. Brind’Amour had no choice but to turn back to the old war horse Andersen, who, after the worst season of his career, has been the postseason’s best netminder (1.12 GAA, .950%).
Vegas’s Carter Hart looked like the odd man out in all these unlikely goalie success stories after a bang-average first round. The Evil Empire’s latest reclamation project had all the makings of a dud before his old coach Tortorella took over and summarily anointed Hart the starter over struggling 2023 Cup hero Adin Hill. Tortorella’s faith was repaid with a lights-out performance (1.99 GAA, .935 SV%) against a dangerous Anaheim attack.
Nothing is certain in the weird world of goalies, except that the masked man who lifts the Cup might not have expected to have this opportunity a few short months ago.
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POST SPONSORED BY bet365
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