The 2025 Stanley Cup playoffs have been amazingly good, and now we are at the Final Four. The dreams of a Canadian team finally won the toks of the Cup a great success in the second round with the jets and the leaves falling, leaving everything to the Edmonton Oilers, which have largely been much of the postseason.
This postseason I have executed predictions for the first round, and the second round with a 10-2 general record, incorrectly doubting Edmonton in both series. Is that change now in the conference finals?
Florida Panthers vs. Carolina Panthers
The Florida Panthers are the ones who think they were, mainly. The Stanley Cup champion reigns are very similar to the team that all a year ago, matching a brutal lawyer with a solid defense, they love to reject games and force the teams to play at their rhythm, before everyone drills.
Brad Marchand’s trade deadline has been absolutely fantastic for Florida. Marchand gave the team a very neteran presence on its third line, and its leadership has really allowed Eetu Luostarinen to shine these playoffs, leading the team with 12 points (along with Marchand).
If there is something to be a little worried about with Florida, it is a goal that costs, what is wild considering that Sergei Bobrovsky was the hero of the 2024 Cup team. Bob has simply not been so reliable in the network of these playoffs, with a savings percentage of .901, allowing 2.31 goals per game, and having a coverage below 50% of the quality of quality. These margins have the leg good enough to obtain the Arce rays and leaves in consecutive series, but now they face a very different challenge.
There is something to say about heating at the right time, but Carolina hurricanes have been the absurd thesis playoffs. Entering the postseason as an average team with great concerns in the network and in the power game, it felt as if the dogs were destined to another postseason license. On the other hand, we have seen that everything joins for Rod to Brind-A’Mour team, which is playing his best hockey at the most importer.
Much of this has to do with Andrei Svechnikov. Always a talented player, Svech has backed that murderous instinct to take his “very good” kingdom game and make him “great.” This year that has changed. The most important goals of Carolina de los Playoffs, Svechnikov has eight goals so far in the playoffs and has routinely reached the team when I needed it most.
Capital coach Spencer Carbery called Carolina “the easiest team to explore in the playoffs,” and is not wrong. Everyone in Hockey knows precisely What hurricanes want to do, but stopping it has impossible. The ridiculous pressure of this equipment is designed to reduce ice and stop any offense before it begins. From here they love to gravel their opponents with a burst of shots, enjoying making the game ugly. It is not quite hockey, but it is resurrected and, until now, no one has found an answer after the consecutive victories of the 4-1 series against New Jersey and Washington.
In the past, this tactic has worked in the playoffs, but this year everything has joined. Going to their opponents 332-240 in the postseason, the dogs have simply taken their opponents while eliminating their best player from the equation. We saw Alex Ovechkin in the Capital series, where he was only allowed a goal in 14 shot attempts, after scoring four in 19 attempts in the first round.
All this is supported by the amazing work of Freddie Andersen in the goal for the dogs. Andersen, a routinely reliable but noticeable goalkeeper, has reached the new Gear playoffs that allow 1.36 leader of the NHL leader per game, with the best savings percentage of .937 of the playoffs. Literally, everything is breaking the road of Carolina at the right time, and they are the hardest team in the playoffs by a significant margin.
Prediction: Carolina hurricanes win the Eastern Conference final, 4-2
Edmonton Oilers vs. Dallas Stars
You can find a greater stylistic difference between the Eastern and West Conference finals if you tried. While panthers and hurricanes will eliminate things in a brutal physical series of deep lines and ugly goals, both the oilers and the stars play an extremely beautiful hockey directed by the most pronounced stellar power in the NHL.
Connor McDavid is desperate to win a Stanley Cup, and the Ontario native would do anything to break the Canadian hockey drought to bring the trophy to the north. McDavid has simply been ridiculous this postseason with 17 points and 14 leading assists in the playoffs. It is a force multiplier, like all the best athletes, regardless of sport. McDavid lifts the game of all those around him and is selfless enough for his teammates to have the glory of goal, while the teams focus their attention on the always present threat that the album leaves his stick.
Like last year, this 2025 playoff team focuses on McDavid and Leon Draisaitl in the center. However, this year, Edmonton plays a little deeper and more several with his lines, leaning a little less in his starring in front to save early games. This has allowed players like Evander Kane and Connor Brown to shine, giving a great third line impulse that the Oilers were missing a year ago.
Edmonton’s weak point, as was last year, is on the network. Neinder Calvin Pickard or Stuart Skinner has proven to be reliable goals in these playoffs, with all the existence of Edmonton depending on the score of his opponents and hoping that his defense can avoid shots in the network. That will be very difficult for this series.
What can we say about the stars of Dallas other than “are terrifying”? This is a team that already had the potential to make a deep playoff career before the exchange deadline, but adding Mikko Rantan has been a real manufacturer of difference. At first, there were great concerns that Rantan’s lack of production would become endemic, but the imposing Finn has really folded the corner in the last handful of games to become the most dominant skater of the playoffs.
Rantanen has 19 leading points in the NHL in 9 goals and 10 assists, being everything that the team was in advance and why they did the bold movement to trade with the wing, then extending it in one of the largest contracts in the NHL. Even more important that Rantanen’s production is how his domain has allowed coach Peter to play with the stars lines, more or less putting Rantanen in the upper line, while Matt Duchene, Jason Robertson and Wyatt go back they go back backstock by retreating the Fallen Fallen Infallles match.
The complicated party with the stars is to isolate where they are weak, and also how they have fought. A brutal series of seven games against avalanche in the first round was expected, but sometimes Dallas let his concentration elaborate it against Winnipeg, which turned out that this series was also seven. This team is so dominant in the role that the box scores do not always coincide in a way that makes sense. Part of that is simply youth and consistency, but it is enough to pause and wonder why this organization is not simply to dominate opponents as we would expect.
Prediction: Dallas stars win the finals of the West Conference, 4-3