The 2020-21 NHL season will be something we've never seen before.
The league never has had a 56-game season. It's had 48 and 50 and 60 games, but never 56. The NHL's four divisions have been temporarily realigned because of travel. There's a geographic reduction because of cost and COVID-19 concerns, and because regulations at the Canadian border necessitated that the seven teams from Canada form their own division. Interconference and interdivisional play won't happen, as teams will play a schedule exclusively against teams within their divisions.
It's a mad sprint to the Stanley Cup playoffs, and that's where things get really interesting.
This season, there's no East meets West format for the championship rounds. The first two rounds of the playoffs will be intradivisional, with the first-place team facing the fourth-place team and the second-place team playing the third-place team in the first round. Those winners meet to determine the division champion. The four division champions are then seeded by regular-season point totals, and the two winning semifinal teams play for the Stanley Cup. No conference or geographic constraints. May the best team win.
The temporary realignment and revised playoff format could produce dream Stanley Cup Final matchups we otherwise wouldn't see under the previous playoff format.
Here are the top 25 Stanley Cup Final matchups that normally are impossible but now entirely possible under the temporary format. Please note that by "possible" we mean "plausible." Seeing the Detroit Red Wings and the Toronto Maple Leafs play for the Stanley Cup for the first time since 1964 would be a kick, but the Red Wings are still deep in rebuilding mode.
That established, here is our ranking of "once in a lifetime" Stanley Cup Finals, beginning with the least plausible but undeniably enticing ones:
25. Chicago Blackhawks vs. Los Angeles Kings
24. Chicago Blackhawks vs. St. Louis Blues
23. Calgary Flames vs. Los Angeles Kings
If there's a glitch in The Matrix and the rebuilding Blackhawks or Kings somehow level up into title contenders again, these are our dream matchups. A battle between the last decade's Western Conference Stanley Cup hoarders -- and two markets looking to pop again -- would be fun. Meanwhile, the decades-old divisional bile between the Blues and Blackhawks makes that a natural choice for a Stanley Cup Final. We'd also like to see Kings star Drew Doughty and Flames pest Matthew Tkachuk continue their shenanigans on the grandest stage.
But again, we don't expect the Blackhawks and Kings to challenge for the Stanley Cup. At least not in 2021.
22. Buffalo Sabres vs. Toronto Maple Leafs
Obviously, the money matchup for Jack Eichel would be against Connor McDavid, but that could (theoretically) happen in any traditional season. This season -- with an unexpected, Taylor Hall-induced uptick from the Sabres -- we could get Eichel vs. Auston Matthews in a battle of U.S.-born superstars. More importantly, we'd get the geographic rivalry between Buffalo and Toronto.
This would be worth it just to see what physical and technological roadblocks Buffalo erects to keep invading Leafs fans from buying Sabres playoff tickets. If, you know, there are fans at the Stanley Cup Final. (Sleeves rolled up and fingers crossed...)
21. Arizona Coyotes vs. Winnipeg Jets
20. Dallas Stars vs. Minnesota Wild
The relocation vendetta specials!
The former Minnesota North Stars left for Dallas in 1993. The former Winnipeg Jets played their first game in Phoenix in 1996. For a lot of fans -- locally and otherwise -- this is ancient history, a trivial footnote to the grander task at hand. But it's the enormity of the task that makes the backstory richer: The Jets have never won a Cup in any incarnation; Minnesota has never seen a Stanley Cup champion, while Dallas has seen one.
It's hard to imagine the Coyotes or Wild getting anywhere near a championship round. But if one of these happens, we're ready for "Storytime with Shane Doan/Mike Modano, franchise mainstay" to explain the relocation bragging rights stakes.
19. Dallas Stars vs. San Jose Sharks
18. Columbus Blue Jackets vs. New York Rangers
The free-agent soap opera matchups!
Stars playoff hero Joe Pavelski, trying to prevent the only other franchise for whom he played from winning its first Stanley Cup. Rangers MVP finalist Artemi Panarin, attempting to do the same against his old mates in Columbus.
There's plenty to watch here on the undercards, too: The old guard elite defensemen in San Jose (Brent Burns and Erik Karlsson) against the new hotness in Dallas (Miro Heiskanen and John Klingberg); the unique charms of John Tortorella, trying to outmaneuver the franchise that once worshipped him like a volcanic god.
These series would have their brutal charms, but both rely on the Rangers and Sharks being better than anticipated.
17. Nashville Predators vs. St. Louis Blues
16. Nashville Predators vs. Vegas Golden Knights
15. Colorado Avalanche vs. Nashville Predators
Here are three great options for an entertaining Nashville team. The Predators and Blues faced each other only in the playoffs, with the Predators eliminating the Blues in six games in 2017 en route to the Stanley Cup Final. Vegas and Nashville have never met in the postseason. The Predators are chasing their first Stanley Cup in franchise history, as are the Knights -- the difference being that Nashville's chase began 19 years (1998) before Vegas' (2017).
But obviously, the most intriguing Predators' intraconference Cup Final would be the final act of the Matt Duchene trade story ... in which the Avalanche win the championship and Bowen Byram wins the Conn Smythe, of course.
14. Carolina Hurricanes vs. Washington Capitals
Just a hunch, but we bet these two Metro Division teams and former Southeast Division rivals -- such as the Capitals had any rivals in the Southeast Division -- would have an absolute firecracker of a Stanley Cup Final. Their seven-game series in 2019 was intense, and not just because of Alex Ovechkin's fight against Andrei Svechnikov.
Plus, now there's the added drama of Canes Stanley Cup-winning coach Peter Laviolette coaching the Capitals. Respectfully, we're going to need Justin Williams to come out of retirement for this one. Maybe Rod Brind'Amour, too.
13. Montreal Canadiens vs. Pittsburgh Penguins
12. Columbus Blue Jackets vs. Pittsburgh Penguins
Fun fact: Sidney Crosby was a Montreal Canadiens nerd growing up. "He wanted everything to be Canadiens: pajamas, posters, you name it. Even his room is painted in the Canadiens' blue and covered with Habs wallpaper," his father, Troy, told NHL.com in 2006. That alone makes Montreal vs. Pittsburgh intriguing, even before you factor in the Penguins seeking their fourth Cup since 2009 and the Canadiens trying to win their first since 1993.
As geographic rivalries go, Pittsburgh vs. Columbus is a lopsided one. The Penguins have more Stanley Cup wins (three) than Columbus has postseason series wins (two) since the Jackets entered the league in 2000. So this would the CBJ's big chance to get one over on their tormentors and give their fans something to toss in the face of Penguins fans who infiltrate their building whenever Pittsburgh travels to Ohio.
11. Dallas Stars vs. St. Louis Blues
We could mine the depths to find some tangential connections between these division rivals -- "Ben Bishop was a Blues rookie!" -- but the reality is that we just want to see the last two Western Conference champions slug it out for the Stanley Cup in seven grinding games. (And, if we're being honest, to see Jamie Benn get another crack at a championship after being emotionally devastated following the 2020 final.)
10. Colorado Avalanche vs. Vancouver Canucks
9. Colorado Avalanche vs. Edmonton Oilers
One of the great "what ifs" from the 2020 NHL playoff bubble: What if the Avalanche didn't have to play without Gabriel Landeskog, Erik Johnson, Joonas Donskoi and their top two goaltenders in Game 7 against the Dallas Stars? Injuries undercut what could have been a championship season in Colorado.
While a rematch with the Stars is possible (and somewhat intriguing) under the current format, we'd prefer to see the entertaining Avalanche against these high-octane foes with interpersonal rivalries. Cale Makar vs. Quinn Hughes, after their Calder race this past season. Nathan MacKinnon vs. Connor McDavid, skill vs. skill, power vs. power, for the title of "Best All-Around Hockey Player on Earth." Oh, and their teams will try to win the Stanley Cup, too.
8. Vancouver Canucks vs. Vegas Golden Knights
In a word, "fun," and not just because Nate Schmidt, former head of the Golden Knights' playoff "fun committee," was traded to Vancouver as a salary-cap sacrifice at the altar of Alex Pietrangelo in the offseason. These are two teams with dynamic players, big personalities and high expectations as they seek their first championships. The controversy quotient, on and off the ice, is quite high here.
7. Pittsburgh Penguins vs. Toronto Maple Leafs
6. Toronto Maple Leafs vs. Washington Capitals
The Maple Leafs' Stanley Cup drought stretches to 1967, the longest for any NHL team that has previously won a championship. Typically, a franchise with decades of futility earns a "lovable losers" status, like the Chicago Cubs had for 107 years before winning the World Series in 2016. The Leafs, however, are as lovable as cholera to fans outside of "the Six."
The Friends of Sidney Crosby or Alex Ovechkin acting as the last line of defense against a Maple Leafs' Stanley Cup win is a delicious concept, especially when you factor in the overall popularity of the teams involved. Plus, there's that inherent "passing of the torch" drama when Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner are trying to sunset Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, or Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom, as the NHL's next dynamic duo.
5. New York Islanders vs. Toronto Maple Leafs
For fans on Long Island, this probably isn't just No. 1, but the entirety of the list. New York winning its first Stanley Cup since 1983 by defeating John "Pajamas Boy" Tavares -- who signed with his hometown Leafs because he felt he could win a championship with them while living out a childhood dream -- would be a delirious end to this chapter of NHL lore.
Then again ... Tavares choosing the right franchise, leading it to its first Stanley Cup in 54 years and winning the Conn Smythe in the process also has its virtues as the "Black Mirror" ending that Islanders fans fear.
4. Boston Bruins vs. Tampa Bay Lightning
3. Boston Bruins vs. Montreal Canadiens
2. Boston Bruins vs. Toronto Maple Leafs
Barring some lineup enhancements and the introduction of a youth serum, the Bruins might be on the downslope of their run as a championship contender. But they remain one of the most popular and compelling teams in the league and have served well as a physical and dramatic foil in the Stanley Cup Final for teams like Chicago and St. Louis. We'd expect the same for a series with the Lightning. Boston vs. Montreal doesn't have the luster is once did as a rivalry because of the Canadiens' decade of mediocrity (2014 excepted), but this is gold-standard, Original Six stuff.
Yet as compelling as those matchups are, neither come close to a Boston final against the Leafs. Toronto's Charlie Brown vs. Boston's Lucy holding the football has come to define the current Leafs. Raising the stakes to a Stanley Cup Final would mean the Leafs could erase years of humiliation with four victories against Boston ... or see the Bruins shovel even more dirt on Toronto's playoff burial plot. If the Maple Leafs had a chance to finally defeat these Bruins in a playoff series for the Stanley Cup and lost, they should seriously consider folding the franchise and starting over with something less cursed.
1. Philadelphia Flyers vs. Toronto Maple Leafs
Putting Boston vs. Toronto at No. 1 on this list would have made total sense, considering the storylines and the rivalry and the fact their last three series have all gone seven games. Outside of a mutual admiration of Wayne Simmonds and a familiarity with James van Riemsdyk, the Leafs and Flyers don't have much in common, save for one thing: the droughts.
The Leafs last won the Cup in 1967. The Flyers have the second-longest dearth for teams that have previously won a championship, with their last Cup coming in 1975. The best conflicts have an antagonist whose motivations are as zealous as those of the protagonist.
The Flyers and Maple Leafs meeting for the Stanley Cup would be like if the Cubs and Red Sox had met in the World Series in 2003. Someone will raise the Cup. Someone will still be a loser. And we'd all win.