Our writer's panel picks for the semifinals are now posted. Without trying to spoil the article, click on it to find out how many of our writers are picking the underdogs in these series. Unless you've been taking just a passing glance at this year's playoffs, you probably don't need me to tell you which teams are favored.

After a strong 6-for-8 opening round, I was a dismal 1-for-4 in the second round. At least I wasn't the only one. But I guess as long as I'm over 50 percent, I'm doing okay. Picking series winners has never been my area of expertise, particularly in a postseason as unpredictable as the NHL's.

You may recall there was a little trade made between two of the teams involved. Here's a comparison of two of the main pieces of that trade.

Max Pacioretty (32) #VegasBorn
Reg. season – 185 GP – 157 PTS – 0.85 PPG
Playoffs – 30 GP – 27 PTS – 0.90 PPG

Nick Suzuki (21) #GoHabsGo
Reg. season – 127 GP – 82 PTS – 0.65 PPG
Playoffs – 21 GP – 15 PTS – 0.71 PPG

This is going to be a fun series.

— Dave Hall (@hall1289) June 12, 2021

Remember that the fun starts today (Sunday) at 3 pm ET with the Islanders and Lightning. Then the Canadiens begin their series in Las Vegas with the Golden Knights on Monday at 9 pm ET.

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As I mentioned yesterday, the Top 100 Roto Rankings will be updated for June in a matter of days. I'm mainly using this opportunity to add and remove players affected by injury during the season. Playoff performance may factor into the rankings a little bit, although some players are significantly better (or worse) during the playoffs for a number of reasons. Regular-season production is all that really matters, since there aren't many fantasy leagues (at least from my experience) that include both regular season and playoffs.

Here are three players that will be back in the top 100 in some way, shape, or form after being pulled during the season.  

Nikita Kucherov

It's a miracle that Kucherov was healed from his offseason hip surgery just in time for the playoffs! Kidding aside, I don't have a problem with the Lightning keeping him on LTIR. For starters, they're not breaking any rules, as teams regularly exceed the cap during the playoffs. If they could win a Stanley Cup without Steven Stamkos, they figured they could probably make the playoffs without Kucherov. That's the risk they took in not activating Kucherov, who was essentially a better addition than any of their competitors could muster at the trade deadline.

These playoffs should serve notice that Kucherov is back among the league's elite. He currently leads the league in playoff scoring with 18 points, which is five points more than anyone that is still active in the playoffs. Before the Lightning announced that he would miss the entire regular season, Kucherov was widely considered a top-5 pick in single-season drafts. I don't see any reason he shouldn't be back there, both in single-season and keeper formats. Pretty straightforward.

An astounding fact about the Lightning and Kucherov: The team is firing at a league-leading 41.7% power-play efficiency, while 13 of Kucherov's 18 points have been on the power play. Nathan MacKinnon and David Pastrnak are the only players whose playoff point totals are higher than Kucherov's power-play point total.  

On a side note, as much as the Islanders are known as a defensive juggernaut, their penalty killing effectiveness has been only 61.5% during the playoffs. That will need to improve if the Isles have any hopes of getting past the Bolts.

Jack Eichel

There's plenty to discuss as far as a potential Eichel trade goes, but let's recap the disaster of a season that was first. For a player that was drafted in the first round of many Yahoo leagues, Eichel could provide only 21 games because of a herniated disc in his neck that cut his season short. Of that, you may recall that he scored a grand total of two goals. This won't come as any surprise, but Eichel's shooting percentage was an astoundingly low 3.3%. Perhaps the herniated disc had something to do with that. At least we know there's nowhere to go but up.

How far up that will be will depend a lot on where he plays next season. There's always a greater than zero percent chance that he'll stay in Buffalo, but it seems more likely than not that the Sabres will have to trade their star player and effectively start another rebuild. Given his price tag of $10 million for five more seasons, whichever team trades for him should slot him in as their first-line center with the prime power-play minutes. He could potentially be going to a better team than Buffalo, which could further increase his value. The high-scoring Rangers might be a good fit.

Where he plays next season isn't the only issue, and it might not be the most important problem. The fact that Sabres' doctors and Eichel disagree over a course of treatment should indicate that the injury is a fairly significant one. Eichel is expected to be ready for the start of the 2021-22 season, but what if he opts for surgery or a form of treatment that requires a longer rehab? Or what if he doesn't, and a team acquires damaged goods, perhaps acquiring him at a discount? For those reasons, Eichel is a difficult player to value heading into next season, which means his value should fall from where it was pre-2020-21 season.

Carey Price

Lots of numbers below, I know. Let's compare Price's playoff performance to his regular-season performance over the last five seasons.

Playoffs

Season	GP	W	L	OTL	SO	GAA	SV%	QUAL%	RBS%	GSAA
2020-2021	11	8	3	0	1	1.97	0.935	63.6	0.0	9.00
2019-2020	10	5	5	0	2	1.78	0.936	60.0	10.0	7.38
2016-2017	6	2	3	1	1	1.08	0.943	83.3	0.0	3.70
2014-2015	12	6	5	1	4	1.84	0.915	66.7	16.7	-0.31
2013-2014	12	8	3	1	3	1.79	0.919	58.3	16.7	2.22

Regular season

Season	GP	W	L	OTL	SO	GAA	SV%	QUAL%	RBS%	GSAA
2020-2021	25	12	7	5	1	2.64	0.901	52.0	24.0	-4.37
2019-2020	58	27	25	6	4	2.79	0.909	53.4	19.0	-2.05
2018-2019	66	35	24	6	4	2.49	0.918	60.6	9.1	16.63
2017-2018	49	16	26	7	1	3.11	0.900	42.9	20.4	-17.14
2016-2017	62	37	20	5	3	2.23	0.923	64.5	12.9	18.08

Talk about elevating your game under pressure! Price has not posted a GAA above 2.00 in the playoffs in the last five seasons. But over a larger sample of regular-season games, Price's GAA has been close to 2.50 or higher in each of the last four seasons. Also note the differences between playoffs and regular season in save percentages over the last three seasons, as well as the percentages of really bad starts (RBS) and goals saved above average (GSAA).

Last offseason, I cited Price's playoff performance as a reason to increase his regular-season roto value. I'm not sure I'll do the same this season, as the two seem to be separate entities. Price is now 33 and may be dealing with the effects of a heavy workload, although he clearly hasn't been worn down come playoff time. As much as it appears that Price clearly has a lot left, the regular-season numbers haven't been there the last two seasons. Even if the Habs somehow manage to go all the way, be careful not to overvalue Price on draft day based on his playoff performance.

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The Tim’s app is working again this morning, so I can provide you with my picks. Here they are:

1. Steven Stamkos
2. Blake Coleman
3. Mikhail Sergachev

I am obviously going all Lightning here, since they are considered the favorite for the series and they are playing at home. I didn’t spend long thinking about these, since I just wanted to get them in on time before I tackle a busy Sunday.

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For more fantasy hockey discussion, or to reach out to me, you can follow me on Twitter @Ian_Gooding