Another year, another first-round upset handed-out by the Columbus Blue Jackets. Well, this wasn’t technically the first-round, and it was far from the same level of domination they showed last season over the Tampa Bay Lightning. Still, their “play-in round” victory against the Toronto Maple Leafs turned some heads, and rightfully so.

Just a year removed from losing key contributors like Artemi Panarin and Sergei Bobrovsky, John Tortorella’s squad didn’t miss a beat. Despite parting ways with their star netminder and top scorer, the Blue Jackets’ stout defensive front, and superior goaltending, made it very difficult for the Maple Leafs to score with consistency.

Now that they’ve made it into the actual playoffs, they’ll have a rematch against the same Lightning team they embarrassed in 2019. Can this scrappy squad pull yet another postseason upset, or will the Lightning redeem themselves in the bubble?

Round-Robin Performance

As previously mentioned, the Blue Jackets’ ability to bog down opposing forwards is their trademark approach and the main reason why they were able to beat Toronto. On top of that, Elvis Merzlikins and Joonas Korpisalo were both very good in net, shutting out the Maple Leafs in two of the five games.

In fact, despite splitting time in the series, Korpisalo and Merzlikins both ranked in the top-five among their expanded playoff contemporaries in terms of GSAx. Paired with a solid team xGA/60 rate of 2.19 at even-strength, it’s not surprising that a one-line team like Toronto (a harsh, but fair statement) had trouble getting their depth forwards to appear on the score sheet.

Dean Kukan was the most quietly impressive player on the blue line. Though he did not appear on the score sheet, he posted a relative xG-percentage of 7.55, and the best xGA/60 rate among his contemporaries.

Offensively, Columbus struggled. Their xGF/60 rate of 1.86 was the fourth-lowest mark among the 24-teams who participated in either the play-in, or the round-robin series of games. Only Oliver Bjorkstrand posted a positive xGF rate on offense at 53.86-percent. The other 11 forwards on the team failed to crack 50-percent in raw xGF, but Pierre-Luc Dubois did post solid relative xGF rates at 6.08 and 4.86-percent, respectively.

Despite their continued postseason misgivings, Toronto was actually the better xG differential team in this one. The reality is that they ran into a hot goaltending duo, and just couldn’t capitalize. Columbus’ scrappy defensive approach worked well this time around, but their low-event strategy might not be as effective against Tampa Bay.

Smothering Auston Matthews’ line worked since Toronto wasn’t really getting chances from their other trios. The Lightning are a much deeper team, so the Blue Jackets’ coaching staff will probably have to be a little more creative next round.

Series Preview

The main storyline in this series is the previously mentioned, first-round sweep that the Blue Jackets handed the President’s Trophy-winning Lightning last year. While Columbus has gone through some significant personnel changes since then, Tampa Bay is largely the same squad. That said, they will be without Steven Stamkos for an unknown period of time.

Fortunately for them, Stamkos isn’t even the most effective offensive player on their team. During the three-game round-robin tournament, players like Ondrej Palat, Yanni Gourde, and Nikita Kucherov were sensational for the Lightning each achieving xGF marks of over 60-percent over their three games so far. At the other end of the ice, goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy was also very good, posting a GSAx rate of 1.49.

While these two squads posted somewhat similar expected-goal differentials in the early-going (in very different contexts mind you), it’s fair to say that the Lightning faced a tougher slate of opponents. After besting the Washington Capitals and Boston Bruins in the first two games, they got smacked around by a score of 4-1 against the Philadelphia Flyers. To be fair, the Flyers outscored their round-robin opponents by a score of 11-3, and look like the best team in the playoffs right now.

If the Blue Jackets hope to prevail, they’ll need to not only continue to execute their superior defensive system, but they’ll need Korpisalo and/or Merzlikins to keep up their impressive performance(s) as well. Even though the Lightning weren’t nearly as dominant during the regular season as they were in 2018-19, they’re still one of the top teams in the Eastern Conference, with far fewer flaws than Toronto.

Series Prediction

I’m cheating a bit here since game one of the series is currently being played as I type this (heading into the third overtime), but barring a phenomenal run from the Columbus netminders, this feels like Tampa Bay’s series. They are so deep offensively, and John Cooper won’t let his team make the same mistakes they made last year.

Still, Tortorella’s team doesn’t have an ounce of quit in them, and if they can find a way to muster up a little more offense, they could make things interesting. When I was still riding the high from the Blue Jackets’ ousting of the Maple Leafs, I predicted them taking this one in seven games. I’m not sure I’m ready to stand by that prediction…

Lightning in seven.

Charts courtesy of Charting Hockey

xG and GSAx Stats courtesy of Natural Stat Trick