The first round of the playoffs is officially wrapped and it is time to turn our attentions, at long last, to those series. We are going to dive into this extra set of games and see if there is anything to learn about a player's performance. We will go round by round and look at the eliminated teams.

We are starting out west, so that means St. Louis, Colorado, Los Angeles, and Minnesota. For this article we are going to take a look at these four teams and focus on things that have changed. It is such a small sample size that we are not going to read too much into point paces but instead look at how players were utilized in these win-or-go-home series and if that change resulted in anything different on the score sheet or in the underlying numbers. Doing so might give us a bit of insight into how teams are viewing certain players and who might be primed for a different role next season compared to this one. This is also the playoffs, so to some extent we would assume that a team's top players see a bit of an increase while some depth players might fall off a bit.

Caveat time for all of these first-round exits. They all lost. In the first round. That means small sample sizes, but it also means that what the team/coach did didn't really work, so there might be less motivation to build on it for next year.

And now on to the process. We will be looking at deployment and specifically percent of time on the power play and total time on ice. We will be using percent as overtime games can add significant time to a player's overall count without changing that player's real deployment opportunity. In order to get this data, we will be running a Big Board report for the playoffs and comparing that to a second custom Big Board report for the last two months of the regular season. That comparison will tell us which players have gained or lost time between these two samples.

Essentially, we are looking at four data points from two different time periods. We have basic scoring data (points per game, shots per game), then basic time on ice data (percent of the power-play, total time on ice). In addition, we will also be looking a bit at the contract status for players for a clue as to what changes might be in the works for over the offseason.

Los Angeles

LA played six games in yet another losing effort to Edmonton. There were some interesting changes during this playoff series, though it is not clear how much these changes will carry over to 2025-26. By and large the top nine forwards and top four D saw increases in time on ice, while the fourth line and bottom D pair saw precipitous drops in ice time, in most cases down to less than five minutes of total time on ice.

For player specific changes, we saw a big change in Alex Turcotte's deployment with the arrival of Andrei Kuzmenko. Turcotte saw a lot of top line time during the year, and did manage to keep some of that when Kuzmenko joined, as LA did a fair amount of line shuffling and proactive benching leading up to the playoffs. Once the playoffs hit, though, Turcotte was relegated to the fourth line, when he got to play at all, while Kuzmenko took his spot on the top line, and then also took over time on the top power play. Kuzmenko is not currently under contract for the 2025-26 season, so we will see if the fit was good enough that he returns to LA. There are a few other RFA/UFA forwards this summer to figure out, so the lineup is certainly pending. But if Kuzmenko returns, Turcotte could certainly be seeing a reduced role.

Additionally, LA decided to run a five-forward top power play. That means Drew Doughty dropped a lot of power-play time, with Quinton Byfield being the beneficiary. It seems unlikely that LA will run a five-forward power play all next season, so this bump for Byfield might be short term, especially if Kuzmenko sticks with LA.

St. Louis

The Blues took Winnipeg to Game 7 and lost in kind of spectacular fashion. The end of the season and this playoff series does bode well for the future in St. Louis, and that is reflected in this data.

The highlight here is Jimmy Snuggerud. He played seven games to end the regular season, and got decent deployment, but unlike what often happens with young players in a playoff series, he actually increased that deployment against Winnipeg. He joined the top power play with Zack Bolduc, Robert Thomas, and Pavel Buchnevich and saw over 17 minutes of total ice time.

That top power-play deployment meant that Jordan Kyrou was relegated to the second unit with Brayden Schenn and both saw large decreases in their share of power-play time. It is a bit of a warning sign for Kyrou, who also lost about a minute of overall time during the regular season and has been a top power-play fixture for the last three seasons. There aren't too many contracts up this summer, so pending unexpected changes it will be interesting to watch where Snuggerud and Kyrou line up to start next season.

Colorado

Colorado's lineup went through a lot of iterations over the course of the season and that stayed true during the playoffs. The biggest winners during the series have to be Artturi Lehkonen and Gabriel Landeskog.

Lehkonen joined Nathan MacKinnon and Martin Necas on the top line and top power play, while Landeskog straight up joined the lineup. He played over 20 minutes by the final game and was on the top power play, there were no immediate red flags or notes after the series so maybe he can actually be a participant in some of the 2025-26 season.

The biggest losers here were Jonathan Drouin, Valeri Nichushkin, and Brock Nelson. Drouin and Nichushkin lost a significant chunk of power-play time, and Drouin ended up in the bottom six, so he lost out on a lot of even strength time as well. Nelson was less dramatic but also lost smaller chunks of time both at even strength and on the power play. Both Drouin and Nelson are free agents this summer so losing time during a playoff matchup doesn't exactly bode well. There are a ton of moving pieces in this lineup with Colorado's history of injuries and missing players, plus they gave up a lot to get Nelson for this run, so there is still a lot to be decided. Based on this data set though Drouin and Nelson are the ones I will be watching closely over the summer.

Minnesota

The Wild took Vegas to six games. In the data it looks like the top line and top four D increased their overall time on ice, which isn't much of a surprise. Both Joel Eriksson Ek and Kirill Kaprizov played all six games, which was certainly nice to see given their injury troubles over the course of the regular season.

The bottom six certainly lost a lot of time with players like Frederick Gaudreau and Marcus Johansson losing about four minutes of ice time. Marco Rossi lost more than seven minutes and a whopping 45 percent of the team's power-play time. That's what happens when you get bumped from the top line all the way to the fourth and demoted to the second power play. He is young and was heavily used throughout the season (and did well with the time) so this might not be a complete disaster, but it is a little bit of a warning sign. His contract is up as well so this cannot help his negotiations. Johansson and Gustav Nyquist (who also saw a significant drop in ice time) are up for new contracts as well, so it will be interesting to see who is actually brought back.

On D, Brock Faber, who was already down deployment during the regular season further lost out dropping another 32 percent of the team's power play. He managed only about 15 percent of the team's total power-play time throughout this series. He was still on the ice for more than 27 minutes a night so it isn't like he wasn't being relied on, but it is another example of him not living up to the offensive excitement from his rookie season.

That is all for this week. Do your part to support organizations working to make hockey for everyone.

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