When the postseason finishes, the nature of the injuries revealed are usually pretty brutal. The one that comes to mind immediately is Patrice Bergeron and his collapsed lung, though the list of players to have done something similar is lengthy. With Vegas’s win in Game 5, we were sure to get some gnarly updates, and we got exactly that from Florida:

Skipping ahead to Ekblad’s portion, I think fans and fantasy players alike knew he was playing through an injury, likely to his foot, but all of it in totality is a lot. Little wonder Ekblad’s play fell off so much as the season wore on and into the playoffs. It’s a wonder if any outcomes would have changed had he been healthy, or a healthy player taken his spot in the lineup.

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The Flyers gave qualifying offers to most of their pending RFAs, except one:

Bellows was claimed off waivers by the Flyers early in the 2022-23 season and he bounced back and forth between the AHL and NHL. Right now he seems like one of those Quad-A players that is too good for the AHL but hasn’t been able to translate his skills to the NHL; perhaps a bit too one-dimensional with his shooting. I am personally pessimistic long-term for any fantasy value but it’s sometimes worth taking a chance on a guy who can shoot eventually unlocking his next-level potential.

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Given Vegas's Cup win on Tuesday night, we should talk about both Cup Finalists from both a real-life and a fantasy perspective. First, some overall thoughts.

I think the most salient talking point throughout the playoffs as it pertained to both Vegas and Florida was the importance of building a roster that can sustain good-to-great play for years. We always hear about how hard it is to win the Stanley Cup, and that's precisely why teams should be focusing on building rosters that can be a playoff squad several years in a row, or 7 out of 8 seasons, or what have you. To put a fine point on this: the top-6 teams by regular season points percentage since the 2009-10 campaign now all have Stanley Cups in that span. Those teams are Boston (1), Pittsburgh (2), Washington (1), Vegas (1), Tampa Bay (2), and St. Louis (1). The one recent quasi-exception is Colorado, but they turned the franchise around over the last five years and have been one of the top teams in that span. Yes, the Cup is very hard to win, and great teams fall by the wayside all the time, which is why building a roster that can give you several chances to vie for the Cup is paramount. Even that doesn't guarantee a Cup – think of San Jose or Toronto – but that should be the primary focus of every franchise, and it paid off for Vegas, even if their prospect cupboard is now mostly bare.  

Alright, with that over-arching sentiment out of the way, let's start with the runner-up.

Many people (present company included) expected Florida to take a step back in 2022-23 given all the offseason movement. To be fair, they did just squeak into the postseason, but they still finished third in goals/60 at even strength during the regular season, a season after finishing first. There was a small decline, but they were still excellent offensively at evens. The power play fell off, too, but we have to be careful about how that is presented because not all PP units are created equal. Florida's most-used top unit, with Brandon Montour and Aaron Ekblad on the blue line, scored 10.5 goals/60 minutes at 5-on-4 in the regular season. Not a super-elite top PP unit, but much better than other iterations Florida had, and a very good overall number. That is something to keep in mind when looking at the team's overall PP production in preparation for the 2023-24 fantasy season.

As has been the case in Florida for several years now, the team is only as good as the goaltending behind them. It is the case for every team, obviously, but very good Florida rosters had been torpedoed by poor goaltending often in recent history, something that finally didn't happen. To illustrate this point: Florida was 24^th by points percentage through the team's first 35 regular season games, a stretch that saw them 23^rd by save percentage. Over the rest of the season, they were 12^th by points percentage as their team save percentage rose to 17^th. Just average goaltending gets this team to the playoffs every year, and the fact that "average goaltending" is constantly in question is its own conundrum.

Florida changed the way they played under Paul Maurice vs. previous incarnations, too. Corey Sznajder's tracking data had the Panthers second in shots off the rush in 2021-22, just a shade behind the Avalanche. That fell to sixth in 2022-23 as they focused more on the forecheck. That was no more apparent than in the postseason where it seemed the Panthers were always swarming the puck carriers, cutting off passing lanes, and forcing bad passes/turnovers. That is something that might hurt their offence during the regular season but clearly has its uses in playoff hockey when they can stretch the rules a bit more. Their discipline still leaves a lot to be desired, and that can create its own problems for a team that focuses on forechecking, but the change in style seemed to have helped the team, if not fantasy owners.

There will be more on Florida during the offseason, but this was a good team that finally got the goaltending necessary for a deep playoff run. Whether Sergei Bobrovsky, a (hopefully) returning Spencer Knight, or someone they sign in the offseason, their success in 2023-24 will hinge on who is in net. With each of Sam Reinhart, Anthony Duclair, Brandon Montour, and Gustav Forsling free agents after the 23-24 campaign, they have one year to really go for it again. It should make for an interesting summer.  

Alright, to the Cup champs.

First, it seems to have been overshadowed by Colorado's health or Edmonton's push to get Connor McDavid deep in the playoffs that Vegas won the Western Conference. They finished tied for second in the West in regulation/overtime wins and tied for fourth in the league by points percentage. Perhaps it was an uneven regular season, at times, but this was a very good team at the outset that just needed to get Mark Stone healthy.  

The weird part of winning the regular season is they did it without much impact fantasy-wise. No skater finished higher than 66^th by standard Yahoo! scoring (Jack Eichel), and Eichel and Alex Pietrangelo were the only ones to finish in the top-100. Vegas finished ninth in 5-on-5 scoring, which exceeded teams like New York, Colorado, Dallas, and Tampa Bay. However, they were 19^th by 5-on-4 scoring, had nine forwards all within one minute of PPTOI/game of each other, and were a distant last in power-play opportunities per game. Strictly from a fantasy perspective, this was a pretty disastrous situation. No forward cracked 19:30 per game overall in the regular season, they didn't draw power plays, and the PP units were, more or less, split. It is a situation where I don't doubt it is very beneficial for the team but not for fantasy players.

Vegas didn't change the way they played, like Florida, but what they did do was get a healthy Jack Eichel. I found this article at ESPN illuminating on the problems his neck issue caused him, mainly one of over-compensating. His doctor said his movements were inefficient because of it, and for a player whose strength is quick bursts and his long stride, being inefficient with those movements took away what made him special. He clearly re-found his top gear in 2022-23:

• Led Vegas forwards in overall points despite playing just 67 games.
• Led Vegas forwards in overall points/60 minutes by a full 10%.
• Led Vegas forwards in points/60 at 5-on-5, tying Artemi Panarin, and exceeding names like Leon Draisaitl and Aleksander Barkov.
• Led Vegas forwards in 5-on-5 goal scoring, tying Nathan MacKinnon, and exceeding Travis Konecny and Matthew Tkachuk.
• Tied David Pastrnak in zone entries per 60 minutes, leading Vegas forwards 16%.

He had his dips through the year, and the power-play scoring left something to be desired, but it really does seem as if Eichel regained his touch. It was certainly on full display through the postseason. There are concerns for fantasy, given how Vegas runs their team, but if they maintain a 65% top PP usage for Stone-Eichel-Marchessault-Stephenson, it could change things a bit.

Our last note will be on Shea Theodore. He missed one-third of the regular season but managed 41 points in 55 games, which exceeds 60 points/82 games. The tracking data had him leading the Vegas blue line, at 5-on-5, in the following micro-stats:

• Defensive retrievals leading to zone exits per minute, on par with Kris Letang and Adam Fox.
• Fewest botched defensive retrievals per minute, on par with Cale Makar and Hampus Lindholm.
• Fewest zone entries allowed to the opposition per minute, on par with Charlie McAvoy and Miro Heiskanen
• Individual scoring chances per minute, on par with Fox and Jakob Chycrun

There are also a number of categories where he finished second on the team behind Zach Whitecloud. In short, he was tremendous overall, particularly on offence, and had his best defensive season in a few years. He might finally be hitting his final form, and a healthy season with full control of the top power-play unit could see him reach 60 points for the first time in his career.

It was a really fun postseason, headlined by two really fun teams. Both rosters are going to return mostly intact, which should make their 2023-24 regular season games appointment viewing. Both might have their fantasy upsides limited either through deployment or tactics, but we have a whole summer to figure that out.