Which playoff team needs a win the most tonight?

Frank Seravalli was joined by Colby Cohen to discuss which teams need a win the most tonight on the latest episode of Daily Faceoff Live.

Frank Seravalli: When you look at the four games on tonight’s slate, all four teams facing going down 2-0 on the road. Which is crazy to think about, since all four lost their home games on Tuesday night, which team needs a win the most?

Colby Cohen: So I’m going to go against just about everything Cam just talked about and I’m going to say the Devils. Because, again I don’t dive into the analytics, I don’t necessarily look at the numbers or understand numbers like Cam does. But at the end of the days, a couple of things I wrote down that really stick out to me. You’ve got a number of first year playoff players in Hughes, Bratt, Hischier. These are guys who you count on to carry your team but have zero playoff experience.

So they go down 0-2 going into Madison Square Garden against Igor Shesterkin who have the total edge in the series in goal. That becomes very problematic and I do not know if these players even know what it takes or how to dig deep to win those playoff series. You look at guys like this and I’m not sure they necessarily have that in their dressing room.

Now, next season or the season after that’s a totally different story but I think this year if they go down 0-2 compared to Colorado or Vegas they are going to be in big trouble. Vegas has guys they can lean on like Pietrangelo, who has won a cup, Mark Stone is a great gritty leader. Colorado coming off of a Stanley Cup, plenty of guys in that locker room that can take over a game and just push through a series. So, at the end of the day I think the biggest and must win tonight comes from the New Jersey Devils.

Frank Seravalli: I couldn’t agree with you more. I also think the Leafs for all the reasons we just pointed out desperately need a win. They need to feel good about something and if they are shaky and look scared again then I think there’s a real chance for the Tampa Bay Lightning to make this a short series and you know that that is a team that has no problem putting a skate to the throat of an opponent which is certainly something that you need at this time of year.

These are a couple of really intriguing games tonight.

You can watch the rest of the episode here…