This week we are returning with the final part of our playoff series review. In last week's article we covered the teams that were eliminated in the second round and this week we are going to take a look at the final four playoff teams. This means the Florida Panthers, Edmonton Oilers, Dallas Stars, and Carolina Hurricanes. Three of these four teams were featured last season as well, with Carolina swapping in for the New York Rangers.

Like all playoff action we are still dealing with some small sample sizes, but these teams advanced to the conference finals with players generally playing at least 15 games and as many as 23. The teams also experienced a significant amount of success.

As a reminder, for this article we are going to 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 etc. 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 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.

But on to the process. We will be looking at deployment and specifically percentage of time on the power play, and total time on ice. We will be using percent when possible 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 and shots per game), then basic time on ice data (percentage of the power-play and total time on ice). Additionally, 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.

Carolina

Carolina played the fewest games of the group, going to five games against the New Jersey Devils, Washington Capitals, and then Florida. They had three overtime games, with two of them being double overtime. Broadly speaking it looks like we have an increase for the Jordan Staal line, and a collection of defencemen, with decreases in other depth skaters across both forwards and the blue line.

In terms of individual players, the biggest winner was Andrei Svechnikov who added more than two minutes of ice time on average, and almost 20% of the team's power-play time. He lined up with Sebastion Aho in both instances which is exactly what you want if you are a Svechnikov manager. He had a big increase in shot rates and point pace over the end of his regular season.

On the flip side we have Taylor Hall. He went on a great run when he originally landed in Carolina getting top power-play time and then signed for three more years. During the playoffs though he basically lost out of his role to Svechnikov losing out on about 20% of the power-play time and almost two minutes of overall time on ice.

Brent Burns is their most interesting defenceman with his contract up, and that didn't impact Svechnikov or Hall, but the point remains that playing with Aho is the place to be and Svechnikov seems to have an inside track for now.

Dallas

Dallas played 18 games against the Winnipeg Jets, Edmonton, and Colorado Avalanche, three of which went to overtime. Looking through the data, Dallas is an interesting example here as essentially no one who gained overall time on ice also gained time on the power play. Matt Duchene and Tyler Seguin were really the only ones who saw a greater percentage of the team's power play; everyone else was essentially the same or worse. There weren't a lot of big winners at even strength either with Mikko Rantanen leading the pack with less than a minute and a half of extra time.

Throughout this series I have mostly been highlighting players with at least two additional minutes. There are only really two players that stand out from this sample: Jason Robertson and Mavrik Bourque. Both stand out because they lost out on a significant amount of deployment. Robertson makes sense as he was injured through a chunk of the games though oddly I would have assumed they would have prioritized power-play time, but he dropped about 20% of the team's time. It did rise a bit during the Edmonton series, but it is worth noting.

Mavrik Bourque only played three games during this run with no power play to speak of, and less than 11 minutes of ice time on average. He did get to play with Jason Robertson a bit in the final game, but this was not a good showing. Add that to his 28-point pace regular season his contact situation this summer is certainly going to be interesting. That is not to say all hope is lost for the AHL's former MVP because it is his rookie season after all, but not a great résumé to go into contract negotiations with.

Edmonton

Edmonton played 22 games against Dallas, Los Angeles, Vegas, and Florida. Big picture Edmonton did exactly what we all expected they would do. The members of the top power-play saw huge increases (at even strength and on the power play), while basically everyone else saw huge decreases.

There are a couple of players worth noting though. Trent Frederic, acquired at the deadline played predominately on a third line, but is essentially the only person not on that top unit that got a bump of any kind. Corey Perry was the other major winner, probably helped by the fact that Zach Hyman missed time, but he ended up on the top line and top power play for stretches of time. The biggest drops came from Jeff Skinner and Viktor Arvidsson who lost out on upwards of 30% of the team's power-play time and between 3-4 minutes of overall ice time. Of this group, Perry, Frederic, and Skinner are all free agents this summer and judging by playoff usage odds have to be that Skinner is the most likely to not return. There are a lot of contracts up this summer in addition to those though so we will need to wait and see where the dominoes fall before crowning Perry or Frederic winners of the deployment shuffle.

Florida

Florida played 23 games against Edmonton, Carolina, the Tampa Bay Lightning, and Toronto Maple Leafs. In contrast to Edmonton's usage, there isn't much to report here either. There weren't a ton of dramatic time on ice shifts, and the only thing that really changed was the top power-play saw more time, and the second unit saw less.

The biggest drops were Sam Bennett and Aaron Ekblad. The power-play seemed to change a bit over the course of the playoffs with Ekblad and Seth Jones both on it at times, which would leave only space for three forwards, plus games where Jones ran it solo. Judging strictly by the numbers Bennett and Ekblad losing deployment and having their contracts up could be an argument for them being more likely to move on. Florida has some big decisions to make though with Ekblad, Bennett, Brad Marchand, and Nate Schmidt all due for new contracts. The addition of Jones doesn't seem great for Ekblad's prospects and Anton Lundell or Eetu Luostarinen might make moving on from Bennett easier. It's hard to read too much into anything with the Stanley Cup champs though. They pushed all their chips in, got rewarded for it, and will probably be satisfied to let the pieces fall where they may.

That is all for this week.

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