The Official DJLR Playoff Watching Guide: Eastern Conference Edition

As we’ve discussed, Seattle is not in the playoffs, and a lot of Western Conference teams are.

So maybe you don’t want to give other teams in-conference your due. Maybe you’ve seen too much of the teams in your time zone to really feel safe giving them your all. So why not look east?

Let’s take a look at what the other conference is bringing, even now that just about every series has played once.

New York Rangers

Have they ever won the Cup before?: Four times, most recently in 1994.
How Likeable is their Roster?: Well, Matt Rempe definitely is likeable for being a gigantic lug who gets the s#!t kicked out of him. Otherwise, Chris Kreider and Trouba knock this team’s likeability down quite a bit. Shame, there’s some quality guys on this team, including Alex Wennberg.
How nice does their jersey look?: All timer. The Away looks a lot better, though. That’s just my opinion.
Do We Like Their Goal Song?: It’s custom! It’s also decent!
Do we hate the teams they’d be playing?: Any team that employs Tom Wilson is a danger.
Do We Have Beef With them?: Jacob Trouba…we do not care for him whatsoever. Screw him, in fact.

The Rangers back in 2018 chose to pull the rip cord and tank in order to get better for the future.

Given that they’re now top of the conference and president’s trophy winners, I’d say that decision was a phenomenal success. At least at this point. The Rangers have a lot of snarl and speed, but will that be enough?

I mean, it’s gonna be more than enough for the Caps, but how about everybody else.

The Rangers chose to get younger, faster, and meaner over the course of the last couple of years, and as a result have been a powerhouse to be reckoned with. Sure, they’re not good at all at evens and need their goaltender to bail them out a lot, but maybe that might be all they need when they got Alex Wennberg to do a lot of the solid meat and potatoes work and a forward corps singing with shooting ability. Adam Fox is also a helluva defender as well, making them a very interesting contrast of skill with guys like Ryan Lindgren, Trouba, Kreider, and Rempe providing a lot of the traditional playoff chicanery.

Rooting for the Rangers is a pretty solid choice for an eastern conference champion, and likely holding your nose for Wenny, however.

I DONT want Jacob Trouba to be rewarded for anything he’s done over the last season, the slime.

Carolina Hurricanes

Have they ever won the Cup before?: Once in 2006
How Likeable is their Roster?: Tony DeAngelo’s no longer here as someone we have to look at so in spite of how annoying their brand can be, their roster is ultimately fairly likeable.
How nice does their jersey look?: I like their red sweaters, but I’m afraid the Canes are going to start doing that stupid Blackout thing the Sharks did back in the 2010s, so a much more inferior sweater will be their look of choice.
Do We Like Their Goal Song?: Honestly this might be the most aggressively NC song you could get. Been a minute since I’ve thought about Petey Pablo…wow, memories…
Do we hate the teams they’d be playing?: I hate them aesthetically, does that count?
Do We Have Beef With them?: Nah.

Nobody seems to struggle as hard at making 100+ seasons count for something as the Carolina Hurricanes. Which is weird to think about because generally speaking they’re…generally pretty good?

They’re already up 1-0 in their series against the Islanders and frankly, while I know the Islanders will be fighty about it…there’s just something about the way the Canes play that feels like a counter to how they do things; they have the puck for 10000 years, they take a half million shots…and then they win 2-0.

They’re a lot like the Kraken if they got occasional finish in that sort of way. A tantalizing look at a team Ron Francis had a big hand in making. Maybe that might be a big motivator for fans to watch; while their brand generally is…let’s be nice and call it “enthusiastic” and “a little much” sometimes (because at worst, you get emails.), the team is rock solid. Sebastian Aho, Seth Jarvis, Stefan Noesen, Jake Guentzel…hell, if you’re sappy for guys on their last legs, Evgeny Kuznetsov found space for himself on that lineup and has acquitted himself well! Their goaltending has historically been a bit suspect…and that didn’t change with time…but I think the roster is as strong as it could ever be; even if they themselves sometimes struggle to make it worth it.

Florida Panthers

Have they ever won the Cup before?: Nope!
How Likeable is their Roster?: A Tkachuk sibling, Nick Cousins doing like actual WWE shit to get penalties, a coach who is addicted to stirring up things…This is a “hold your nose” at best kind of squad.
How nice does their jersey look?: It’s fine. I’m personally NOT a fan of the Half-stripe on the torso. CLOSE THAT UP AND THEN WE’LL TALK.
Do We Like Their Goal Song?: It’s a custom remix by a Miami area DJ! It’s also pretty bad!
Do we hate the teams they’d be playing?: Not nearly as much as they hate each other.
Do We Have Beef With them?: I mean, I do, but I know that’s pretty localized.

The Reigning, Defending Eastern Conference champions. A bunch of pricks masking the fact that the Panthers went from, analytically speaking, a kind of mid team to a nightmare seemingly the minute the playoffs began…and then just stayed that way.

The Panthers are patience personified. Sure, they’re fast and physical, but their biggest X-factor is their play recognition; you simply cannot make mistakes against them. Sure, they have a goaltender that goes between unbeatable and unplayable between weeks and their scoring is sort of tied up in 5 players…but honestly it may not even matter. All they need is one shot, and they’ll likely get it.

Even better, against the Lightning in Game 1, they proved that playoff hockey’s physicality means little to them. They just played a pretty regular Panthers game and handled them pretty well.

Rooting for them is to see if they truly ascend beyond their mediocre performance in the finals last year and finally win the big one.

Boston Bruins

Have they ever won the Cup before?: Six times, most recently in 2011
How Likeable is their Roster?: Brad Marchand AND Pat Maroon are here. Automatic disqualification from this category.
How nice does their jersey look?: Another classic, though the centennial sweater kinda dulled their gold in a way that makes them look kinda pittsburghian.
Do We Like Their Goal Song?: It’s Zombie Nation.
Do we hate the teams they’d be playing?: I mean, statistically some of you must hate Toronto, right?
Do We Have Beef With them?: They’re a Boston team. The ambient beef from the Sox and Patriots just kinda bleeds over.

Look there’s nothing I can tell you here that will make you want to root for them beyond it might be funny to watch the Leafs blow it up after losing to Boston again so let’s continue on.

Toronto Maple Leafs

Have they ever won the Cup before?: 2nd most in the league…but only prior to color television existing. Their last cup was in the 50’s.
How Likeable is their Roster?: They tried being likeable, that didn’t work, and so decided that Max Domi and Tyler Bertuzzi among a host of other twerps was the way to go.
How nice does their jersey look?: Another all-timer, honestly. The East has some solid sweaters.
Do We Like Their Goal Song?: Pursuit of Happiness is pretty neat. Steve Aoki is also pretty neat if you like that one synth tone that he has in like 3/4ths of his work.
Do we hate the teams they’d be playing?: I mean…yeah.
Do We Have Beef With them?: Not really.

Okay I know we have ex-Leafs fans in our comments section. I know you have suffered and dearly. I am acutely aware from research that the Leafs are very much a sisphyean task. I understand completely if you want to root for this team just to finally give the long suffering fanbase of this team something to cheer for, or believe in.

Hear me out.

It would be so funny if they lost again.

Yes, I know. It would turn your immediate surroundings into an insufferable s#!tstorm of hot taeks. I mean the schadenfreude alone would be absolutely gruesome unless you draped yourself in Kraken gear in order to escape judgement. But think about this! This team has spent more money than a lot of small countries trying to get past the second round of the playoffs and they can’t even get there without having years of bad memories flooding their minds if they lose even once. The team absolutely chose to make itself worse at just about every position of the game in order to make themselves feel better about a potential rematch against any of the other teams in division they could play. They got a franchise defining performance out of their star center! They got depth that can do stuff!

…and it still might not work! Could you IMAGINE what they do next?

This is the most potentially moral choice to give a group of fans who have braved more hardship than most would expect of a team with their payroll…but also the most sicko anti-choice. This feels like the end of the line for the team as constructed around Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, John Tavares, and William Nylander, and if they can’t figure a way out…well…

The explosion at the fireworks factory could be an incredible sight to see.

Tampa Bay Lightning

Have they ever won the Cup before?: They were most notably the COVID champions; getting the 2020 and 2021 cups back to back.
How Likeable is their Roster?: Nikita Kucherov is a tremendous asshat, and while the individual players themselves aren’t terribly annoying, they’re coached in such a way that they could end up being insufferable once things don’t go their way.
How nice does their jersey look?: They’re really close to the Leafs sweater, so I guess some of it depends on how you feel about that.
Do We Like Their Goal Song?: Goons by Mona is a very recent song that I am stunned has not been used to sell me insurance at any point this year. Interesting pick!
Do we hate the teams they’d be playing?: Not nearly as much as they hate each other.
Do We Have Beef With them?: I do, but that’s neither here nor there.

So hey, you know how everyone’s mad at the Golden Knights for doing light cap circumvention?

Y’wanna know who taught them all that? Look no further. (Well, you’d also have to go back to the Leafs but this is the most applicable to what they do.)

The Lightning honestly aren’t all that good at even strength, and their erstwhile goaltender, Andrei Vasilevskiy, has sort of come down to earth. They got a harsh lesson taught to them about those kinds of things in Game 1 against the Panthers. However, counting out the Lightning is a fool’s errand; Nikita Kucherov when pressed can be one of the most devastating players in hockey to try and defend against, and he’s found ways to be unstoppable in the playoffs before. Brayden Point’s a real helluva center, Anthony Cirelli’s a sneaky perennial contender for the Selke, Anthony Duclair gets a shot at vengeance against his former team, Brandon Hagel finds a way to be impactful wherever he is on the ice…and that’s all before you get to Steven Stamkos, the captain and big shooterman himself.

That said…these guys popularized the whole “injured guy goes on IR until the playoffs” thing we’re all mad at the Knights for, so maybe we ought to be a little meaner to them. Rooting for them to win would also put them in dangerous territory of being a dynasty, something we haven’t really had since the Salary cap was implemented.

And frankly, I dunno if I want one.

New York Islanders

Have they ever won the Cup before?: They were the other team in the 80’s that won all the cups! But after that, it’s been slim pickings.
How Likeable is their Roster?: I think “Perplexing” is more applicable to the Islanders than “Likeable”. Bo Horvat’s alright, Anders Lee is cool…but Matt Martin? in 2024? Are we kidding ourselves here? Robert Bortuzzo? What’s going on here?
How nice does their jersey look?: Another classic.
Do We Like Their Goal Song?: Crowd Chant feels a little cheap, but so long as it’s just one team using it, I think it’s fine.
Do we hate the teams they’d be playing?: I mean, I certainly don’t love the Hurricanes.
Do We Have Beef With them?: Is there such a thing as organizational beef? Like…spiritual beef?

The Islanders are the team that does nothing and wins anyway.

They are the DEFENSE team in that they BLOCK SHOTS and they HIT and they DON’T HAVE THE PUCK VERY MUCH and have a lot of TRANSITION OFFENSE BALLED UP IN LIKE FIVE PLAYERS and they WEREN’T VERY GOOD MUCH OF THIS YEAR but they managed to PULL IT TOGETHER and DO MANLY DEFENSE and SCORE SOME GOALS and then MAKE THE PLAYOFFS because the rest of the division is kind of BUTT.

As you can tell, I don’t really buy what the Islanders are selling.

They feel like they took half of what defense in the NHL should be and turned it into their entire personality; like a 20 year old watching Drive. I think a lot of what they do is part of having a good team together, and having guys like Anders Lee, Mat Barzal, Bo Horvat definitely doesn’t hurt the prospect of being a team that can constrict their foes like an anaconda…it’s just that they don’t do the part where they coil around their foes as often as they should, just sort of slamming their head with mouth outstretched onto the bodies of their opponent. Sometimes it catches a vein…other times, it just catches lean muscle and they get brought along for the ride.

Still, rooting for the Islanders seems like a reasonable pick. They manage to find ways to win in the playoffs, and are usually good for at least an upset or two…just don’t get too attached; I find their style of hockey has a hard and fast half-life.

Washington Capitals

Have they ever won the Cup before?: They have once in their time!
How Likeable is their Roster?: Tom Wilsons’ here. Auto-disqualification.
How nice does their jersey look?: I hate these jerseys so much, man. They’re an awful holdover from the Reebok days of piping, pointless tertiary colors being added to sweaters…just take one of those winter classic designs and promote it.
Do We Like Their Goal Song?: Given that it’s being drowned out by a horn and sirens and all that I don’t know if fans have ever actually heard Kickstart My Heart.
Do we hate the teams they’d be playing?: Not really.
Do We Have Beef With them?: Kinda, but more of an “ugh. You brought Tom Wilson again?” kind.

The Caps are bad, man.

The Caps are not good at anything this year and realistically only made the playoffs because three other teams didn’t want to go. They are the postseason participant by default. Is there anything to like about them? Well, they’re actually younger than they started out because of injury and trading Kuznetsov. This might be the last time Tom Wilson ever plays meaningful NHL hockey ever again and Charlie Lindgren seems dedicated to finally making a shot at being an NHL goalie count…but otherwise…that’s kind of it.

If you’re rooting for this team it’s either because you live in DC, or you think Alex Ovechkin can summon magic from his hat again.

The games tonight are pretty darn solid, even if the East itself isn’t. So pick a team and see how far they take you!

My personal picks are Boston, New York, Carolina, and Florida. Some of it on vibes admittedly, but the rest of it is that I think there are some teams here that could cause real trouble and are just matched up too well.

Happy playoffs!