Round 1 Verdicts: What the Data Says About Five Closed Series

Five of the eight first-round series have ended. That gives us something we did not have a week ago: enough evidence to explain why teams advanced and why teams went home, rather than guessing which way a series might tilt.

The closeouts in this round were not coin flips. Each of the five had at least one structural advantage that held across four to six games — special teams, goaltending separation, finishing in the dangerous zones, or some combination of all three. None of them were simply “the team that got hot” stories. Even the upsets had reasons.

The lens for this piece is mostly even-strength shot quality, special-teams shot quality, and goaltender performance broken down by where the shots actually came from. PDO — the sum of a team’s 5v5 shooting percentage and save percentage — gives us a clean read on which teams ran hot, which teams ran cold, and where the series truly separated.

The other three series will be covered in Part 2

Data from NHL API.

Carolina Hurricanes 4, Ottawa Senators 0

Why it ended: This wasn’t a chance-creation gap — it was a finishing and goaltending gap that compounded across four games. Carolina ran a 5v5 PDO of 103.4 while Ottawa sat at 96.6, a 6.8-point swing in just four games that put both teams on opposite sides of variance.

The shot picture was closer than the sweep suggests: Carolina out-shot Ottawa 135–110 overall, but Ottawa actually generated more high-danger shots than Carolina, 30 to 27. From there, both teams converted at near-identical high-danger rates, with Ottawa at 10.0% and Carolina at 11.1%, so the high-danger battle was essentially a draw.

Where the series broke: Carolina scored 6 of their 11 goals from medium-danger range, converting at 10.9%, while Ottawa managed 2 medium-danger goals at 6.2%. Carolina also scored twice from beyond 35 feet, while Ottawa scored zero times on 48 long-range attempts. Frederik Andersen finished with a .955 save percentage, a 1.10 GAA, and a Game 1 shutout — a +80.6 save-percentage swing over his .874 regular-season baseline, the largest goaltending performance of Round 1. The killer split: Andersen posted a .938 save percentage at medium danger compared to Ullmark’s .891.

Who dominated: Taylor Hall led every skater in Round 1 in production swing — his 0.60 regular-season points-per-game jumped to 1.75 in the playoffs, a +1.15 increase. He finished with 7 points, including 2 goals and 5 assists, and a +5 across four games.

Logan Stankoven turned into a true second-line driver: 4 goals on 18 shots, including a 33% conversion rate from medium-danger range, going 3-for-9. The young star logged 17:28 per night and finished +3.

The Hall–Stankoven–Blake line was the matchup the Sens couldn’t crack: 64 shots for, 32 against, 3 goals for, and 0 goals against in 56.9 5v5 minutes. That was an even-strength masterclass, with possession running nearly 2-to-1 in Carolina’s favor.

The defensive structure backed it up. Walker–Miller didn’t allow a 5v5 goal across 76.6 minutes, and K’Andre Miller delivered 3 points, a +4 rating, and 23:31 per night. Carolina’s power play converted 2 of 15 chances despite generating 7 high-danger looks, and the penalty kill ran at a clean 95.2%.

Who didn’t show up: This is where it gets damning for Ottawa. The top four forwards — Brady Tkachuk, Claude Giroux, Tim Stützle, and Shane Pinto — combined for one assist across the entire series. They generated 11 high-danger shots between them and converted zero.

Tkachuk’s collapse was the biggest of Round 1: a –0.98 points-per-game drop from his .98 regular-season rate to zero. Drake Batherson essentially scored Ottawa’s offense singlehandedly, putting up three of the team’s five goals on 6 of 9 high-danger attempts, a 50% conversion rate.

Thomas Chabot played 31:06 per night — a +8:33 jump over his regular-season role — and finished with 0 points, a –6 rating, and all eight of his shots coming from low-danger areas.

The strangest stat of the series: Ottawa won 58.5% of all faceoffs, including 63.0% in Carolina’s defensive zone, and still got swept. Ullmark gave them a stealable performance at .932, which was +41.7 save-percentage points above baseline, but Ottawa’s headliners wasted it.

Philadelphia Flyers 4, Pittsburgh Penguins 2

Why it ended: This was the second most extreme PDO swing of Round 1 —. Philadelphia ran a 5v5 PDO of 106.3, while Pittsburgh sat at 93.7, creating a 12.6-point gap across six games.

The numbers underneath it are stark. Pittsburgh actually out-shot Philadelphia at 5v5, 123 to 106, and out-shot them overall across the series, 159 to 155. Pittsburgh got their high-danger looks too, finishing with 30 high-danger shots compared to Philadelphia’s 36, which was close enough to call comparable.

Where the series broke: Stuart Skinner‘s medium-danger save percentage was .714. That is not a typo. He allowed 6 goals on 21 medium-distance shots in his three starts, going 0–3 before Dan Muse benched him for Arturs Silovs.

Silovs went 2–1 with a .939 save percentage in relief, but the hole was already dug. On the other end, Dan Vladar finished with a .937 save percentage across all six games, sitting +31.0 save-percentage points above his .906 regular-season baseline. He posted a .909 save percentage at medium danger and a clean .959 from long range. What a turnaround for the 28 year old,

The real number that decided the series: Philadelphia converted 20.9% on medium-danger 5v5 shots, scoring 9 goals on 43 attempts, while Pittsburgh converted just 10.7% despite generating more attempts, scoring 6 goals on 56 shots. Some of that was Skinner. Some of that was variance. Most of it was both.

Who dominated: Dan Vladar was the engine — .937 save percentage, 1.61 GAA, and 2 shutouts in 6 starts.

The Ristolainen–Sanheim defensive pair logged a series-leading 108.0 minutes at 5v5 with a 5–2 goal differential in the heaviest top-pair load of any team in Round 1. Ristolainen played 25:40 per night, a +4:17 jump over his regular-season usage, and added 5 points from the back end.

The scoring was distributed exactly the way Philadelphia needed it. Konecny, Zegras, Cates, Drysdale, and Sanheim all finished with 3–4 points, while rookie Porter Martone led the team in shots with 15 and added 2 goals.

Travis Konecny went 1-for-1 from medium-danger range, which is a small sample, but every conversion mattered. The Couturier–Glendening–Hathaway checking line went 2–0 in 41.9 5v5 minutes — a third line that gave the Flyers free goals.

Who didn’t show up: Crosby’s series tells the suppression-versus-finishing story cleanly: 19 shots on goal, only 1 goal, a 5.3% shooting percentage, 0-for-4 from high-danger range, and 0-for-5 from medium-danger range before scoring his lone goal from long range. He did everything except convert.

The Crosby–Rust–Rakell line at 5v5 actually crushed the matchup: 79 minutes, 59.3 shots for per 60 versus 29.6 shots against per 60, and a 2–1 goal differential. They controlled the puck and got almost nothing for it.

The Letang–Girard pair told a similar story. Across 93.5 minutes at 5v5, they posted 67.4 shots for per 60 versus 29.5 shots against per 60, the best defensive-pair territorial mark of the round. But they finished only 3–3 because Skinner couldn’t stop a beach ball at medium distance.

Where Pittsburgh actually lost the series was the bottom six. Acciari–Dewar–Lizotte went 1–4 in 51.7 5v5 minutes, while Malkin–Novak–Chinakhov went 0–2. The Crosby line won every territorial game-within-the-game; everyone behind them gave it back, and Skinner gave it all back.

Colorado Avalanche 4, Los Angeles Kings 0

Why it ended: The biggest PDO swing of Round 1 so far — Colorado at 106.5, Los Angeles at 93.5, a 13.0-point gap across just four games.

Underneath that swing, Los Angeles actually generated more high-danger shots than Colorado, 29 to 20, and got an even territorial share at 5v5 across the back half of the series. The series broke at finishing. The Kings shot 6.9% from high-danger range, scoring 2 goals on 29 attempts, while the Avalanche converted 25.0%, scoring 5 on 20. That 18-point high-danger finishing gap explains most of the goal differential.

The other side was Scott Wedgewood. Wedgewood went 4–0 with a .950 save percentage, a 1.21 GAA, and a .931 save percentage at high danger. Anton Forsberg posted a .750 save percentage from high-danger range, allowing 5 goals on 20 attempts — a number that would lose any series.

The rest of Forsberg’s line was fine: .951 at medium danger and .933 at low danger. But the high-danger failures put him at .909 overall, right at his regular-season baseline of .910, and not nearly enough against a Wedgewood who outperformed by +29.2 save-percentage points.

Los Angeles scored five goals across four games. Three came on the power play or with the extra attacker. Their entire even-strength offense for the series was Trevor Moore in Game 3 and Joel Edmundson in Game 4.

Who dominated: Wedgewood was the engine, but the most efficient shot diet in the series belonged to Colorado’s depth. Nicolas Roy went 2-for-3 from high-danger range, a 66.7% conversion rate, and Gabriel Landeskog went 1-for-2, a 50.0% conversion rate, in his return season. Landeskog finished tied for the team lead with 4 points.

Nathan MacKinnon converted 2 of 10 medium-danger shots, a 20.0% rate, and won 67.2% of his faceoffs, going 43-for-64, even while his point production was modest by his standards.

Cale Makar logged 25:37 per night, scored twice, and did not allow a 5v5 goal across 68 minutes paired with Devon Toews.

The shock of the series was 41-year-old Brent Burns and Josh Manson going 3 goals for, 0 goals against in 30.3 5v5 minutes as the secondary defensive pair, while controlling play at 79.3 shots for per 60. Burns logged zero points but finished with a series-leading +5.

The Lehkonen–MacKinnon–Necas line spent 31 minutes together, controlled play at 78.9 shots for per 60, and produced exactly zero goals. Then Landeskog–MacKinnon–Necas produced two goals in smaller minutes after the lines were shuffled.

Wedgewood’s 4–0 record and .950 save percentage were the headline; the depth-line conversion was the structure.

Who didn’t show up: This is where Los Angeles fell apart. Anze Kopitar finished with 0 points in four games, a –5 rating, and only three total shots. That was not a finishing problem — that was a complete absence from the shot count.

Drew Doughty finished with 0 points while playing 25:12 per night, posted a –3 rating, and recorded one shot on goal across the series. The Doughty–Anderson top pair did not allow a 5v5 goal, but produced none either, finishing with 0 goals for in 77.4 minutes.

The forward results are uglier in volume terms. Quinton Byfield had 17 shots on goal and 0 goals, including 4 high-danger shots with no finishes. Alex Laferriere had 15 shots on goal and 0 goals, including 5 high-danger looks with no finishes. Scott Laughton had 12 shots on goal and 0 goals, including 4 high-danger looks with no finishes.

Those three Kings forwards combined for 44 shots, 13 high-danger looks, and zero goals between them. The process arrived; the finishing did not.

For Colorado, Martin Necas finished with 2 points, 0 goals, and 12 shots on goal, dropping –0.78 points per game from his 1.28 regular-season rate. Valeri Nichushkin had 0 points on 3 shots in four games.

Neither team got its stars to convert. Only one team had a depth core — Roy, Landeskog, and Burns — that did.

Minnesota Wild 4, Dallas Stars 2

Why it ended: This was the strangest series of Round 1 by the numbers. Dallas actually out-shot Minnesota at 5v5 across the six games, 134 to 131, generated a near-identical share of high-danger looks, 22% to 22%, and ran the most efficient power play of the round at 22.5%. The Stars scored 9 power-play goals on 40 shots, converting 26.7% of their high-danger attempts and 23.5% of their medium-danger attempts.

They still lost.

The reason was a 15.4-point PDO gap at 5v5: Minnesota at 107.7, Dallas at 92.3. That was the largest swing of any closed series in Round 1, and it sat on top of two grinding sub-stories.

First, Minnesota’s even-strength offense buried Dallas: 14 goals at 5v5 to Dallas’ 4 in six games. Matt Boldy scored 6 goals, Quinn Hughes scored on both of his medium-danger attempts, Brock Faber went 1-for-1 from high-danger range and 2-for-15 from long range, and the Johansson–Eriksson Ek–Boldy line went 5 goals for, 0 goals against in 53.4 minutes at 5v5, producing 5.62 goals for per 60.

Second, the goalie split was decisive. Jesper Wallstedt finished with a .924 save percentage, including .842 at high danger, .893 at medium danger, and .978 at low danger. Jake Oettinger finished at .893 overall, with a .795 save percentage from high-danger range, allowing 8 high-danger goals on 39 attempts.

Even though Dallas’ special teams were excellent and Minnesota’s penalty kill was brutal — a .775 save percentage, with 9 power-play goals against on 40 shots against — the Wild won the series anyway because their +10 goal differential at 5v5 covered the special-teams disaster.

Who dominated: Matt Boldy was the series-breaker: 33 shots on goal, 6 goals, and an 18.2% shooting percentage. He scored 3 high-danger goals on 13 attempts, converting at 23.1%, and added 2 goals from long range. That gave him the broadest finishing diet in the series.

Kirill Kaprizov added 9 points and finished +11 on more modest shot volume: 15 shots on goal, 0 high-danger goals on 5 attempts, but 1-for-2 from medium danger and 1-for-8 from low danger.

The defensive impact was rookie-pair excellence. Quinn Hughes and Brock Faber logged 127.6 minutes together at 5v5 — the largest defensive-pair workload of any team in Round 1 — and finished 4–3. Hughes converted both of his medium-danger attempts.

Joel Eriksson Ek had 5 points, 24 shots on goal, and went 3-for-12 from medium-danger range, converting at 25.0%.

The deeper structural read: Spurgeon–Brodin, in their off-pair role, went 5 goals for and 1 goal against in 79.5 minutes at 5v5, producing 3.78 goals for per 60 while burying Dallas’ stars. Wallstedt finished at .924, right near his .916 regular-season baseline, but never gave a game away.

Who didn’t show up: This is where Dallas’ series breaks. Jason Robertson actually finished well: 30 shots on goal, 5 goals, including 2 high-danger goals at a 20.0% rate and 3 medium-danger goals at a 27.0% rate. But most of Dallas’ other top names could not get to dangerous ice.

Miro Heiskanen had 21 shots on goal and 2 goals, but 0 high-danger attempts in the entire series. Fifteen of his shots came from long range.

Mikko Rantanen had 14 shots on goal, 1 goal, and just 1 high-danger attempt. He generated almost nothing close.

Jamie Benn had 8 shots on goal, 2 high-danger looks, and 0 goals. Tyler Myers had 9 shots on goal, all from low danger, and 0 goals. Sam Steel had 6 shots on goal and 0 goals.

The Stars’ top-line trio of Duchene–Robertson–Bourque went 0 goals for, 3 goals against at 5v5 in 60.3 minutes. Their entire production came on the power play. Mavrik Bourque got to high-danger areas with 7 high-danger attempts, but converted just one, a 14.3% rate.

Heiskanen finished –9 at 5v5 across the six games while logging 30:30 per night. Rantanen finished –8.

The Stars had the best power play of Round 1 — Duchene with 7 power-play points, Rantanen with 6, Robertson with 5, Johnston with 5, and Heiskanen with 5 — and an even-strength group that could not stop bleeding goals.

Anaheim Ducks 4, Edmonton Oilers 2

Why it ended: This was the biggest upset of Round 1 — and the only closeout series where the losing team had the favorable PDO. Edmonton ran a 5v5 PDO of 102.9 compared to Anaheim’s 97.1, a 5.8-point gap in Edmonton’s direction, and still lost in six.

The 5v5 goal differential was thin. Anaheim out-shot Edmonton 154 to 142, generated 41 high-danger looks to Edmonton’s 37, and converted at a near-identical rate from high danger, 24.4% to 24.3%. At even strength, this was effectively a fair fight that finished 17–14 Edmonton.

The series was won and lost on special teams, by exactly the inverse margin. Anaheim’s power play converted 8 of 32 shots, a 25.0% rate, and finished at 27.3% from high danger, 23.1% from medium danger, and 25.0% from long range. That is an absurdly broad finishing distribution.

Edmonton’s power play went 4-for-20, a 20.0% rate, but went 0-for-8 from high danger. All four of Edmonton’s power-play goals came from a single hot zone, as they went 4-for-9 from medium danger.

Edmonton’s penalty kill posted a .750 save percentage, allowing 8 goals on 32 shots against, with allow rates of 27.0%, 23.0%, and 25.0% across all three danger zones. They had no answer at any distance. Anaheim’s penalty kill ran at .800 but cleanly defended high danger, allowing 0 goals on 8 high-danger attempts.

The other side of Edmonton’s series was the goaltending. Connor Ingram started five games and went 2–3 with a .876 save percentage, a .743 high-danger save percentage, and a 3.86 GAA — bottom-of-the-league save percentage in the most important zone.

Edmonton went to Tristan Jarry for one start in Game 6 and lost 1–0 despite Jarry stopping 34 of 35 shots for a .971 save percentage. Neither goalie ever got the net for keeps. The team rotated mid-series rather than committing, and neither goalie outperformed Lukas Dostal on the Anaheim side.

Dostal finished with an .874 save percentage and a .735 high-danger save percentage, so both sides had below-replacement-level goaltending. The netminding mostly canceled out, and the special-teams gap — 8 power-play goals to 4 — decided the series.

Who dominated: Anaheim’s young core delivered. Jackson LaCombe finished with 9 points, including 8 assists, while playing 26:59 per night. He was the highest-producing rookie defenseman of Round 1.

Cutter Gauthier scored 4 goals on 21 shots, a 19.0% shooting percentage, and added 5 power-play points. He went 1-for-3 from high danger, a 33.3% rate, and 2-for-7 from medium danger, a 28.6% rate.

Leo Carlsson generated more shots than any Duck, finishing with 28 shots on goal and 3 goals, including 2 goals on 8 high-danger attempts. Troy Terry added 8 points on a 23.1% shooting percentage.

The depth scoring was real. Ryan Poehling scored 4 goals on 12 shots, a 33.3% rate, with a 50.0% high-danger conversion rate, going 2-for-4. Mikael Granlund scored 2 goals on 8 shots, including 1 high-danger goal. Alex Killorn scored 3 goals on 14 shots and added 4 power-play points.

The Killorn–Granlund–Sennecke line was Anaheim’s top 5v5 unit by ice time, playing 68.9 minutes together. They finished 4 goals for, 3 goals against, while controlling play at 68.8 shots for per 60.

Who didn’t show up: Edmonton’s headliners produced — and didn’t. Connor McDavid finished with 6 points, but only 1 goal on 20 shots, a 5.0% shooting percentage. He went 0-for-5 from high danger, 1-for-12 from medium danger, and 0-for-3 from long range. He also finished –8 across the six games, with reports throughout the series that he was playing through a lower-body issue.

The shot diet shows it. McDavid was getting to the right ice — 5 high-danger attempts is normal volume for him — but the conversion rate was a clear departure from his career baseline.

The Hyman–Nugent-Hopkins–McDavid line at 5v5 was outshot badly, posting 11.8 shots for per 60 compared to 28.6 shots against per 60, and finished 1–1 in 35.7 minutes.

Evan Bouchard‘s series followed the same template: 8 shots on goal, 1 goal, a –7 rating, despite playing 24:51 per night. Zach Hyman generated 8 high-danger attempts and converted just one, a 12.5% rate.

The bright spots were Leon Draisaitl, Kasperi Kapanen, and Vasily Podkolzin. Draisaitl scored 3 goals on 13 shots with strong medium-danger finishing. Kapanen scored 4 goals on 15 shots with 50.0% medium-danger finishing. Podkolzin scored 3 goals on 12 shots, also converting 50.0% from medium danger.

That kind of depth scoring would normally win a series, but Edmonton could not overcome an injured McDavid going quiet, a penalty kill that allowed goals from every distance, and a goalie tandem that never found a true starter.

What we learned from the five closeouts: goaltending was the single biggest variable of this round. Andersen, Vladar, and Wedgewood all outperformed their regular-season baselines by enough to swing their series.

Anaheim–Edmonton was the exception that proved the rule. Neither goalie was good, and the series came down to Anaheim’s power play punishing Edmonton’s penalty kill.

Special teams decided the two upsets and one of the sweeps. Anaheim’s 25.0% power play, paired with a penalty kill that cleanly defended high danger, was the round’s structural masterpiece. Dallas’ 22.5% power play was excellent and still could not save them, because Minnesota’s top six buried them at five-on-five.

Three winning teams won with a secondary unit doing the heavy lifting: Carolina’s Hall–Stankoven–Blake line, Minnesota’s Johansson–Eriksson Ek–Boldy line, and Colorado’s depth pair of Burns–Manson. The stars produced in spots, but the depth converted.

The other three series are still alive. Coverage in Part 2.