Can a Canadian-based team win the Stanley Cup for the first time since 1993? The fun will begin on Monday night, with the Canadiens travelling to Tampa Bay to face the Lightning. Later today, our writers will give you their Stanley Cup and Conn Smythe picks, so you might have a pretty good idea of how likely the Habs can finish their improbable run.

I'll let you in on my pick before then: Tampa Bay in 6, with Brayden Point as the Conn Smythe winner. My rationale is simple: I've been picking Tampa to win each series so far. Also, I picked Tampa Bay to reach the final before the season started and again before the playoffs started, to be consistent (with Colorado winning the Stanley Cup). I was also thinking that Nikita Kucherov might return for the start of the playoffs (which he did), his absence hurting the Lightning a little during the regular season but giving them the kind of boost that no other team would have received with its trade deadline additions. So it makes sense that Carolina would win the division, but Tampa would come out of that division during the playoffs.

Their Stanley Cup Final opponent was a team that I didn't predict would make it at all. Before the season, I picked Montreal to finish 5^th in a tight division (they finished 4^th). But that one placing is the difference between making the playoffs and not making the playoffs. Perhaps we shouldn't have been that surprised about Montreal, who finished second in the league with a 54.5 SAT% (Colorado was the runaway winner with a 59.0 SAT%). Even though I said last weekend that I thought Carey Price stole Game 3 against Vegas (which I still believe is true), they looked like the better team in Game 4 (which they lost) and deserve full marks for their series win against the Golden Knights.

Some Habs news: Dominique Ducharme expects to return behind the bench for Game 3 of the final when the series moves to Montreal. Even in a relatively short stint, I wonder if Luke Richardson's stock as a potential head coach somewhere has increased.

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One occupational risk of blocking shots is breaking a bone. That's what happened with Alec Martinez, who played with a broken foot during the playoffs. Martinez was the runaway leader in blocked shots during the regular season with 165, which was 37 ahead of the next-highest total (Adam Larsson). His 72 blocked shots during the playoffs is 20 ahead of the next-highest total from teammate Alex Pietrangelo, so it's safe to assume he will be the blocked shots leader of the playoffs as well. We'll have to wait and see where the UFA d-man signs before determining his overall multicategory league value, but it's obvious that he's a must-own in leagues that count blocked shots.  

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During the offseason, I like to walk through Frozen Tools for some interesting stats that might be in some way meaningful to fantasy owners. Today I'll feature one that is very important to fantasy owners: Draisaitl Hat Tricks.

Okay, maybe it's not that critical, but every time I bring it up, someone asks what exactly a Draisaitl Hat Trick (DHT) is. Very simple: it's a game where a player scores a goal (or more), adds an assist (or more), and finishes with a minus-1 (or less). Think Gordie Howe hat trick with one modification. I'll give Eric Daoust credit for coining the term, which was not meant to disparage Draisaitl, who we all know is an elite-level scorer. Instead, it's a stat used to recognize players who could post potentially big numbers (goals/assists) for defensively deficient teams (hence, the minus ranking).

The more I've thought about how a player could score a goal and contribute an assist while finishing the game with a minus ranking, the more I believe that registering these points on the power play has something to do with it. Remember that a player does not earn a plus ranking if recording a power-play point, a tradeoff for multicategory owners in leagues that count both plus/minus and power-play points. So what I've done below is listed the DHT leaders from the past season, along with their total power-play points and overall rank in that category.

Draisaitl Hat Tricks, 2020-21

Co-leader Connor McDavid finished first in power-play points, while third-place finisher Nathan MacKinnon finished third in power-play points. At the very least, the top scorers also usually finish with high power-play point totals and more frequent games with at least a goal and an assist. Also, those who record a goal and an assist in a game more frequently are also more likely to record DHTs. Given the rest of the names, there isn’t a perfect correlation, but enough to believe that one exists.

You may be wondering by now where Leon Draisaitl is on this list. As weird as this is to say, Leon Draisaitl did not record a Draisaitl Hat Trick in 2020-21. We'll have to keep the name for at least one more season, though. Draisaitl himself led the league in this category in 2019-20 with five. No other player recorded more than three.

Draisaitl Hat Tricks, 2019-20

I could examine every single DHT occurrence and find out how many power-play points were scored that day, but it will take considerable effort. Instead, I'll focus on the two leaders of 2020-21 and how many power-play points they earned on each of their DHTs.

Aleksander Barkov: 2, 2, 2, 1

Connor McDavid: 1, 4, 1, 0

We can see that in seven of those eight DHTs, the player earned at least one power-play point. In leagues that count power-play points separately from points, more DHTs should be better for your fantasy team! And that should even be true if your league counts plus/minus, since you're trading off negative plus/minus for positive goals, assists, and likely power-play points.  

Barkov earned a total of seven power-play points combined on his four DHTs. McDavid earned six, although it's interesting to note he recorded four of those power-play points in one game. That game was on January 31 against Ottawa, when McDavid scored a goal and added four assists while receiving a minus-1. You might have thought that it would be impossible for a player to finish a five-point game with a minus-1, but it really happened. Power-play points are the reason.

That particular five-point game for McDavid finished with an 8-5 score in favor of Edmonton. Could there have been any more of a North Division game than that one? Ryan Nugent-Hopkins also earned his lone DHT of the season in that game, thanks to a goal, two assists, and a minus-2. All three of those points were on the power play. Just to tie everything together, this was also the game where Draisaitl himself recorded a season-high six points (all assists, and with a plus-3).

And if you're curious about Draisaitl hat tricks during the playoffs, here they are. Not such a bad list of playoff performers, with the playoff goal leader at the top.

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