The last of the playoff series start tonight as Montreal heads to Toronto for the first game of their seven-game series. It has been decades since the two faced off in postseason competition and fans are excited. This should be fun to watch, even if Toronto is heavily-favoured.

I just can't believe Cole Caufield is sitting.

Caufield made his debut for the Habs on April 26^th. From that point to the end of the season, Caufield led them in individual expected goals per 60 minutes and shots per 60 minutes. He was third in goals. This is on a team that was last – dead last – in goals at 5-on-5 per 60 minutes from April 1^st through to the end of the year. A team that was last in the league in goals for six weeks is benching the guy who led them in shots and put up four goals in 10 games.

Teams don't need loads of scoring in the playoffs, but they do need some, and who knows how healthy Brendan Gallagher is. I will just say it: sitting Caufield is a mistake. A big mistake. That doesn't mean it's the difference between Montreal winning and losing. It is the difference between putting your best players on the ice, or not. The Habs are clearly not icing their best scoring lineup, and going up against a team that was first in goals over the same six-week stretch the Habs were last, feels like a very big mistake. Time will tell.

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The Carolina Hurricanes went back to Top Line Svech for their game on Wednesday night against Nashville.

I am going to do a bigger dig into Svech this offseason but there are some concerns starting to pile up for me. I guess there is one big concern and it's his shooting percentage. For his career, at 5-on-5, he's shot 8.85 percent. Comparatively, Jordan Staal has shot 8.3 percent. League-wide, among 232 forwards with at least 2000 minutes at 5-on-5 over the last three years, Andrei Svechnikov is 176^th, tucked between Jake Virtanen and Jesperi Kotkaniemi. Not exactly a group of snipers.

One of two things needs to happen: his sniping skills improve or he starts shooting more. Without at least one of those two things happening, it's hard seeing him pushing far past 30 goals. And while 30-goal seasons are great, and we would take that with his peripherals, he is capable of more.

We should remember he's just 21 years old and has a lot more growth to go through. I would just like to see him converting more at 5-on-5. Without it, he may never reach true elite stats in the fantasy realm.

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Something to keep in mind for next year:

We all know there could be significant change this off-season, but worth noting #Flames wingers Johnny Gaudreau and Matthew Tkachuk, who just combined for another goal, have certainly developed some chemistry in the past few weeks. Something to keep in mind for fall.

— Wes Gilbertson (@WesGilbertson) May 19, 2021

Gaudreau and Tkachuk haven't played together much over the last three years, only about 373 minutes at 5-on-5 (comparatively, they each have over 2400 minutes away from each other). But in those 373 minutes, the team posted 3.0 expected goals per 60 minutes and 1.9 against for an expected goal share of 60.9 percent. For actual goals, it was 3.5 for and 2.7 against, for a 56.7 percent goal share. All those numbers, both expected and actual, are better when they're together than when they're apart, save from actual goals against, and that's driven by save percentage, not their play.

All this is to say I have been hard on Gaudreau these last couple years but if Gaudreau-Tkachuk can become a regular thing, it could be a huge boost for both players. It might be real bad news for Sean Monahan, depending on their centre, but it could be excellent news for both wingers. Just remember that for September drafts.

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Evgeny Kuznetsov has been cleared medically following his second trip to the COVID list and was in the lineup on Wednesday night. With the loss of Eller, this is a big boost to the Caps’ lineup, and may be a big reason why they’re able to endure that injury.

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Carolina took a 2-0 series lead with a 3-0 win over Nashville. The final score isn't really indicative of the play, as an empty-netter Sebastian Aho and a very late lucky bounce in favour of Warren Foegele added to what was a wonderful 1-0 game.

The story is obviously Alex Nedeljkovic. He made 32 saves in the shutout and looks to be making good on the promise he's flashed over the years.

If he can do what Cam Ward did for the Hurricanes all those years ago, well, this really could be the year they really make some noise. They sure are a fun team to watch.

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Boston and Washington went to overtime again, this time a double OT, but Craig Smith played hero in a 3-2 win. He stole a puck from Ilya Samsonov on a miscommunication and wrapped it into a partially-open net. It was a tough way to lose what was a great return by Samsonov from the COVID list.

Taylor Hall scored a beautiful goal on the second period, tying the game 1-1 not long after Alex Ovechkin scored on the power play. That was Hall's second tally of the playoffs, one for each round on the draft pick included in the trade to acquire him. Game 4 is Friday night in Boston.

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Well, we got an update on Dylan Larkin, and it was a neck issue from a cross-check that kept him out of the season at the end:

Red Wings C Dylan Larkin says today is his first day not in neck brace. "I believe I got pretty lucky and I don't have to have surgery." Was crosschecked in neck by Jamie Benn April 20, ended season.

— Helene St. James (@HeleneStJames) May 19, 2021

Honestly, this sucks so much to see. Anyone who has read my writing for these last few years knows just how much I've railed against cross-checking. We saw some hubbub about that earlier in the year, but it seemed to die down once Tom Wilson went nuclear. The fact remains that cross-checking is incredibly dangerous and its proliferation across the NHL has to end.

You will never believe this, but the cross-check that ended Dylan Larkin's season wasn't called a penalty:

Here's what happened to Dylan Larkin, thanks to @Harjas_Grewal for pointing it out. Cross-checked in the back of the neck by Benn on Tuesday https://t.co/AlpPDYXwuq pic.twitter.com/oYn8wgzLkC

— NHL Safety Watch (@NHLSafetyWatch) April 23, 2021

That is what gets me so heated. It is clearly a penalty under any definition of cross-checking, but it never gets called. And as long as the NHL accepts this plays of this nature, they're going to keep losing their superstars to injury. You can either protect them or not care about them. I think it's time we stopped accepting the latter.

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I wanted to piggy-back off an article written by Brennan Des a couple days ago. He discussed players to watch in the playoffs and one of them was Teuvo Teravainen.

When I was looking up the stats for Svechnikov earlier in the article, I ran across this: there are 15 players with at least 1.0 primary assists at 5-on-5 over the last three years. They are as follows: Marner, Panarin, McDavid, Huberdeau, Crosby, MacKinnon, Malkin, Kucherov, Marchand, Kane, Stamkos, Pettersson, TERAVAINEN, Stone, Point.

Just look at the names on that list. It is a veritable who's-who of elite fantasy producers, and then Teravainen. It begs the question: have we seen Teravainen's upside?

A couple years ago, Teravainen had 76 points in 82 games. For him to have more upside, we have to imagine him as a point-per-game player. Can he get there? I think so.

What hurt Teravainen this year, besides injuries, was ice time. He played 17:55 a couple years ago, was up to 19:12 a night last year, but crashed to 16:26 this year, his lowest since his first year in Carolina. We also need to remember that he's not a spring chicken anymore, as he'll be 27 years old for next season.

I think Teravainen can be a point-per-game player. He is a great distributor and should be playing consistently on a line with Aho/Svechnikov. That puts him firmly in the realm of 60 points right away. What the difference will be is what they do with him on the power play. He got 1:20 per game in 5-on-4 TOI this season, being relegated to the second unit. It will be near impossible to get anywhere near a point per game as long as he's playing 16-17 minutes and on the second PP unit. But if he's playing 19 minutes on the top line with top PP minutes with the aforementioned duo? Oh yeah, he can.