Unfortunately, the Kraken are not in the Stanley Cup Playoffs this year.
But, if you’re still fiending for a little postseason hockey, the options for you are still pretty good! DJLR has come up with this helpful guide to help you understand your options and whether or not they might break your heart! Going from the top of the conference and down to the wildcard!
Don’t worry the wildcard sections for the home conference will be very short, I promise you.
Dallas Stars
- Have they ever won the Cup before?: Once, in 1999.
- How Likeable is their Roster?: Pretty likeable! They’ve a mix of hot young talent and one of the greatest success stories of western north american hockey, as well as veterans of Team USA and other squads who’ve only begun to taste meaningful success now that they’re here.
- How nice does their jersey look?: Look nothing’s going to ever beat their original look but it’s….fine. It’s okay. I’d like it more if it were in the style of their old CCM sweaters, but it’s FINE.
- Do We Like Their Goal Song?: RIP Dimebag Darrell
- Do we hate the teams they’d be playing?: OH BUDDY DO WE.
- Do We Have Beef With them?: The Kraken were eliminated from the playoffs by the Dallas Stars in 2023 after 6 games. Otherwise…meh.
The Dallas Stars may have made fools of the Kraken recently, but I can’t be too mad at them for that. The Stars otherwise are a blast to watch; a heady mix of skill and speed that just overwhelms their foes most nights and if they have to grind out a victory, they let the grizzled vets lead the way in that department. While the competition at the top of the conference is fierce this year, if there’s any team that could be a reasonable pick for the cup favorite in the Central; you’re probably looking at them. The only real issue I can think of them having is that sometimes they take a period or two off, and that tends to
Also a good pick if you’d like their opponent to suffer. I sure as shit would love to see them suffer. Win every game by 30, Dallas.
Vancouver Canucks
- Have they ever won the Cup before?: Nope. Not once in their history.
- How Likeable is their Roster?:
- How nice does their jersey look?: A Timeless look, even when they swap to the Flying Skate sweater (Especially if they swap to the Flying Skate). If only they were strong enough to put the running Canuck back on their sweaters it’d be perfect.
- Do We Like Their Goal Song?: It’s inoffensive but not anything bad. I would’ve preferred “Holiday” by Green Day, as do most of their fans.
- Do we hate the teams they’d be playing?: Honestly, not really. I don’t, anyway.
- Do We Have Beef With Them?: To be honest, it’s been at a low simmer and frankly I just don’t think enough games have happened to really warrant anything than mild discontent.
Canucks fans have been through a lot.
If there was an arc of history that closely resembled the M’s topsy-turvy history in the NHL, I think the Canucks get as close as humanly possible to it. Their fans are absolutely crazy for and because of this team and it’s many, many, many close calls and rapid falls from grace. If this team ever actually found a way to win the Cup, then 50+ years of abject suffering will have finally been worth it.
And now? The Canucks are amazing again. They have an absolutely hilarious roster full of guys who seemingly cannot stop scoring. It’s not just that they’re all talented and fun, it’s that there was talk about a year ago about blowing all this up and starting over and they went out and proved that talk to be nothing but that; talk.
That said, I need you to understand something: because of said history, Canucks fans are absolutely, positively bats#!t crazy. This team has done untold damage to the psyches of thousands of British Colombians into a heady mix of hardened pessimists and blind optimist with extremely little in-between. If this team experiences even a tiny bit of success you are going to see a level of insanity coming out of our northern neighbors you have never seen before. The space between the last time they were here and now is pretty long, and the road to get there was rough.
Rooting for them is not just rooting for a team that’s never won it and has existed a long time to get theirs, but also a science experiment to see just what the hell Canucks fans do if they actually get it.
Colorado Avalanche
- Have they ever won the Cup before?: Thrice! Most recently in 2022.
- How Likeable is their roster?: Whatever Val Nichushkin’s done apparently is in the past, but otherwise this is a roster to envy. Nate MacKinnon’s insane, Cale Makar is a genuine treat to watch, Casey Mittelstadt gets to see what the first round looks like…it’s also a fairly consistent roster as well.
- How nice does their jersey look?: I will always prefer the current look of this sweater to the crap they were wearing in the 2000’s.
- Do We Like Their Goal Song?: Chase the Sun – Planet Funk is a real groovy choice.
- Do We Hate The Teams They’re Playing?: I have my personal beef with the Jets, but otherwise not really.
- Do We Have Beef With Them?: It’s…complicated.
Avs and Kraken fans have what I think we can call a respectful disdain for one another after last year’s playoff series. That said, if you wanted to see what a former giant that is deeply and badly wounded can do, look no further.
The Avs got the very fun news that they’ll be without Johnathan Drouin for the early playoffs, and that might be a real pain for them; Drouin isn’t just good because he’s an Av, he’s good because his playoff performances over the past couple of years has been exemplary, and that robs the Avs of crucial performers they already didn’t have a whole lot of coming into this series with the Jets. It could indeed be a case where the Jets get a similar situation to the Kraken last year where the Avs lacked critical pieces to truly put their foe away…and may pay the price for it with a short playoff trip.
That said…they’re not gonna be an easy out. They simply have too much power contained on one line to just bow out without a fight. Nathan MacKinnon’s a gamer (as you and I both know), Mikko Rantanen is considered a genuine terror in postseason hockey, Val Nichushkin when not uh…doing whatever it was he was doing, is a hellacious penalty killer. The pairing of Devon Toews and Cale Makar when they’re not playing the Kraken are a force to be reckoned with. Casey Mittelstadt finally gets his first real shot at postseason NHL hockey. Yakov Trenin is a great solid depth player. There’s cool stuff to like about this team!
It’s just that…it’s a lot more compacted than it was last year. The rest of the squad is just kinda there? They’re not bad, but the sheer impact of years past isn’t quite to the level it used to be. It really does feel like they’re coming into this playoffs with a restrictor plate on. Still, if you want to see Nathan MacKinnon try and work wonders, there’s plenty to like here…just from a respectable distance.
Winnipeg Jets
- Have they ever won the Cup before?: Neither iteration of the Jets won the Stanley Cup in their time in the NHL.
- How Likeable is their roster?: I’m not a fan of Mark Scheifele, and that sucks because the rest of the roster is both super good and very likeable outside of him.
- How nice does their jersey look?: Nothing’s beating the classic, so it’s always a race for second place. I personally like the current away a lot better than the home, and would love if they started incorporating that into the home sweater.
- Do We Like Their Goal Song?: Gonna Celebrate by The Phantoms sounds like the kind music that would sell a cell phone in-between periods. Otherwise, perfectly harmless. Only Kyle Connor has any brains in his head and went for their original goal song; Hell Yeah by Rev Theory.
- Do We Hate The Teams They’re Playing?: Not really.
- Do We Have Beef With Them?: I personally have beef with them, but otherwise? Not really.
Look. This is a hard one for me to write objectively. I am a certified hater of the Jets and I will happily admit it is for entirely unfair and stupid reasons.
Especially since my ambient vitriol for this team just looks silly now, because they’ve done a genuinely great job at excising most of my problems from this roster, and really they were very very manageable. Otherwise? They’re young, they’ve got a future Team USA starting goaltender, they’ve got exciting talent, and it’s giving the impression they’re going to go deep into these playoffs.
Do I personally have to like them? Hell no. Hope Colorado depth charges them then gets depth charged afterwards.
But I can absolutely see why you’d wanna root for this squad; after a half-decade of trying to expel the leftover Thrashers DNA (and hell, some of the Blake Wheeler DNA) from their system, the team that’s come out from the other side of the regular season is fast, dynamic, hungry, and absolutely loaded with skill. Manitoba shows up for these guys big time, too, so their building will be rocking. The Atmosphere of Winnipeg really brings out the…
…”unique” side of fandom.
No shame to anyone who chooses to believe in them. I’ve just seen the Kraken hit one too many stretch passes to beat Connor Hellebuyck clean as a whistle to truly get on board.
Edmonton Oilers
- Have they ever won the Cup before?: Back in the 80’s a whole bunch, but it ended the minute Mark Messier and Wayne Gretzky left town.
- How Likeable is their roster?: Any team that has Evander Kane and Corey Perry on it is automatically extremely unlikable for a litany of reasons both on and off ice.
- How Nice Does Their Jersey Look?: A timeless classic they have periodically elected to move away from, only to come crawling back to the ones they’re wearing now.
- Do we like their goal song?: Decidedly meh, and it’s usually overpowered by that ear-splitting horn.
- Do We Hate The Teams They’re Playing?: Oh yeah we do.
- Do We Have Beef With Them?: I certainly don’t care for them.
The Oilers have been in “please god let this be the year I have done everything I can to support McDavid” mode for nearly a half-decade. Now, are they still wildly inconsistent on defense and reliant on their worldbreaker offense not going cold and their goaltending not going entirely tits-up in a seven game series again?
Well, Yeah…but it might work this time!
Regardless of exactly how Zach Hyman’s daddy ultimately paid for his road to the NHL, Hyman’s 50 goal season has turned him in to a dynamic presence on the Oilers that supplements two of the most dominating players of this generation quite nicely. Combine that with guys like Warren Foegele and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, alongside guys like Evan Bouchard, Mattias Ekholm, and Adam Henrique; this feels like just about one of the best versions of Edmonton you could throw your hat in the ring with.
Granted, jumping on this bandwagon puts you in some…uncomfortable territory. Corey Perry is a known and infamous rat who is the cloth they cut guys like Brad Marchand from, and oh boy…Evander Kane’s various transgressions really make it hard to stomach the idea of them going deep, because then he’s likely to receive a cup ring. Yick.
Basically if your need for 80’s nostalgia needs to be filled, there’s nothing better than a nice, deep Oilers run. You could get the same thing from repairing a walkman, but those aren’t quite as orange and blue simultaneously.
Nashville Predators
- Have they ever won the Cup before?: Never
- How Likeable is their roster?: It has Jeremy Lauzon on it! Still! Otherwise plenty of guys to like on this team. Roman Josi’s cool, Luke Evangelista looks like he’s gonna be a gamer.
- How Nice Does Their Jersey Look?: SO GODDAMN YELLOW OH GOD
- Do we like their goal song?: It’s as Nashville as it gets.
- Do We Hate The Teams They’re Playing?: The Canucks are definitely a local frustration, so I’ll be generous and say “yes”.
- Do We Have Beef With Them?: Not really.
The Preds are so much themselves. That’s such an awesome thing.
Nashville hockey had always been a defensive, goaltending-led grind and that didn’t change much this year, but they were also willing to let themselves branch out a bit by working hard to get goals by actually playing a little bit of offense this year as opposed to dedicating themselves to pure unadulturated defensive struggle.
Other than that, the story around the Nashville Predators is just awesome. They showed some fire early, had some struggles that were so bad they ended up getting banned from going to a U2 concert at the big Vegas ball…and then got so mad they couldn’t see Bono up close they decided they weren’t just gonna make the playoffs, they were gonna make the playoffs so hard they’d get a solid berth together, and be one of the best teams down the stretch. Gustav Nyquist came back from the dead, Filip Forsberg probably punched his ticket to the olympics with this run, Luke Evangelista looks like he’s gonna be a problem for the next few years and I’m not happy with the idea of having to play them in the upcoming future, and hey! Them being here means an ex-kraken is in the playoffs! Jeremy Lauzon gets a shot at glory!
This is a team with a lot of reason to feel good about. If you’re into teams with an interesting atmosphere and a lot of guys who don’t really get their due…the Preds aren’t a bad choice.
Los Angeles Kings
- Have they ever won the Cup before?: Twice! once in 2012, and then in 2014.
- How Likeable is their Roster?: Well, it’s got Pierre Luc-Dubois on it, Drew Doughty’s still there…honestly not completely likeable.
- How Nice Does Their Jersey Look?: YOU KEPT THE PINSTRIPES!? Jeez Louise, LA.
- Do We Like Their Goal Song?: It’s custom! It’s also kinda boring.
- Do We Hate The Teams They’re Playing?: I mean, I’m certainly no fan of some of the guys on that roster.
- Do We Have Beef With Them?: HELL YES, BROTHER
Allow me to make this very clear. I do not like the Kings, and if you’re a Kraken fan you probably don’t either.
It would however, be unbelievably funny that after all of the Pierre Luc-Dubois saga; from forcing a trade to Columbus to actively taking shifts off to having issues through the first part of the year to where they are now…the Kings could genuinely end up being a major upset by stopping the Oilers dead in their tracks. I don’t think it’s probable…but it’s possible! Just imagine after all of that…the Kings somehow break the Oilers. God that’d be priceless.
Otherwise, a vote for the Kings is because you either really like Quentin Byfield or think the Squids can swing a trade for one of their centers this upcoming season. I don’t know why you’d willingly root for them beyond knowing a Kings fan personally.
Vegas Golden Knights
Man, f#!k these guys.
Don’t root for the Golden Knights.
While the Kraken may be out of it, there’s plenty of games to whet your appetite and maybe get a little schadenfreude in the process.
As for who wins? Uh…
Dallas, Winnipeg, Kings in a shock, Nashville. At least, that’s my guess. What are yours?
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