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Four NHL teams that could break your playoff bracket
Can the San Jose Sharks finally get past Jonathan Quick and the Los Angeles Kings in the playoffs? Harry How/Getty Images

Four NHL teams that could break your playoff bracket

Maybe it’s because of its close proximity to the NCAA Tournament, but the NHL playoff bracket has become an extension of the postseason hockey experience. In fact, it’s as much a part of this year’s Stanley Cup Playoffs as offsides calls and debate over stepping on a team’s logo in the dressing room.

Just like in every other sports tourney, there’s always that one team that knocks your whole bracket out of whack. In this case, there are a few teams participating in Round 1 that are making a case for series upsets. Whether or not they make that happen — teams are only two or three games into their series now — is anyone’s guess. But they are certainly making a lot of people look at their NHL bracket submissions differently.

Here are four such teams that could pull off the upset.

St. Louis Blues

St. Louis’s matchup with defending champion Chicago promised to be a tight series right from the start. Yet given both teams’ playoff pasts — and the fact that the Blackhawks knocked the Blues out two years ago — Chicago has been the heavy favorite to take the series. Even though Chicago entered these playoffs after a less-than-stellar regular-season end, and the Blues have been clawing into the discussion for a couple months.  

But the Blues, who rallied to a victory on Sunday to lead the series two games to one, have shown a ton of resiliency when coming from behind — a huge upside in postseason play. After a Game 2 loss highlighted by coaches’ challenges and finding itself in the hole early on Sunday, St. Louis rallied back to a 3-2 win. Amalie Benjamin of NHL.com summed things up from the Blues’ side following Game 3:

“It was a sign: This is not the same team as two years ago, when the Blues took the first two games at home before dropping four straight to the Blackhawks in the first round. This is not a team that will be thrown off-balance by a call or a loss or anything, really. That does not mean that the Blues will necessarily win. It does mean that there has been a hardening, a maturing, a changing of a team that has failed to get out of the first round over the past three seasons.”

It isn’t about “maintaining a bracket” for the Blackhawks. The defending champs have to take the positives from the last three games and move on, as goaltender Corey Crawford told Tracey Myers of CSN Chicago:

“All that’s important right now is the next game… It was loud in here. We had so [much] good momentum, good shifts and good plays in the offensive zone. We had some good looks. We’ve just got to carry those things into the next game.”

New York Islanders

It’s hard to find anyone who slotted the underdog Isles to win Round 1 against the Panthers in the postseason after their Cinderella-like season, let alone find anyone who would have thought that New York would have the two games to one advantage over Florida.

Goaltending is as big a role-player as ever in playoff play, and that’s no different in this series. Thomas Greiss has been stellar between the pipes for the Isles, filling in for injured Jaroslav Halak with a .922 save percentage through three tilts. They’ve also gotten some important goals, like Thomas Hickey’s stunner in overtime on Sunday.

This is not to say that the Panthers — a heavy favorite in bracketville — are devoid of good things going for them. Reilly Smith has been on an absolute tear, leading the playoffs with eight points (four goals, four assists). Panthers coach Gerard Gallant has every bit of faith in his team taking the series back.

"I know it's the playoffs, but I thought we've played three good games in this series," Gallant reportedly told NHL.com. "This series could easily be 2-1 in our favor, but they got some breaks. I thought we had a great Game 1 (a 5-4 loss), and the teams were pretty evenly matched in Games 2 and 3.

"I believe this team will bounce back because we've done it all year."

Nashville Predators

Once the Anaheim Ducks shook off their early season woes and battled to finish first in the Pacific Division, they also regained some of that preseason favoritism for making a deep run in the playoffs. Going down 0-2 in a series that started in their building probably wasn’t what they had in mind when hosting the Nashville Predators.

Again, goaltending is a factor. Heading into the series, all eyes were on Pekka Rinne, as he would need to have a vintage showing if Nashville was going to beat the Ducks in their house. The 33-year-old goalkeeper has only allowed two goals in each game and has posted a .931 save percentage over the course of the series. The team in front of him scoring timely goals doesn’t hurt either.

"It's not pretty always," defenseman Mattias Ekholm reportedly told Adam Vingan of The Tennessean. "But I think we're always battling hard. We always try to be on the right side, do the right things. Just a great effort from everyone tonight. They're a hard team. They came out hard, they were physical, they were fast and I thought we managed the game good."

Ducks coach Bruce Boudreau told FOXSports.com that his team will have to rely on the bounce-back spirit they’ve had throughout the regular season to get back into the series against the Preds:

"The one thing about this team is our resiliency," Boudreau said. "This team has been through some really tough times this year, so this is no different right now. It was just two years ago that we lost the first two games at home against LA and went in there and won two, so it's not an impossible thing to do."

San Jose Sharks

While some have picked San Jose to take the series, the national perception at large still stands in favor of Los Angeles. That makes sense given the history between these two teams over the last five years, with L.A. winning two Stanley Cups and going through San Jose in the first round two years ago to do it.

But after two hard-hitting games at Staples Center, the Sharks — who had the league’s best road record this season — return home with a 2-0 record and a new sense of confidence that has carried them through the better part of this bounce-back season.

Of course, two games does not make a series. There was still the narrative bouncing around over the weekend that the Kings were playing down and lulling the Sharks into a comfortable state before bouncing back like they did in 2014. Plus, San Jose still has to win games at home, where the Sharks have mysteriously struggled.

"We've just got to play our game. I think everybody knows that, no matter where we're at," Sharks forward Patrick Marleau told Curtis Pashelka of the San Jose Mercury News. "We know what's worked for us on the road, now it's just bringing that home."

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