The first night of action in the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs is in the books and if you didn’t get a chance to watch, you missed out on some fun Saturday.
First, the Winnipeg Jets rallied on home ice to beat the St. Louis Blues, 5-3, in Game 1 of their First Round matchup after trailing, 3-2, entering the third period at Canada Life Centre.
Then the Colorado Avalanche took advantage of the Dallas Stars’ recent streak of bad luck in Game 1s and secured a, 5-1, victory on the road as the two teams opened up their series at American Airlines Center.
Whiteout conditions
Winnipeg takes a 1-0 series lead over St. Louis entering Game 2 Monday night (7:30p ET on ESPN2, CBC, TVAS2, FDSNSW) and is poised to take a commanding 2-0 series lead provided they– you know– maintain their home ice advantage.
The Jets won 30 out of their 41 home games in the regular season and spread out their scoring pretty evenly in Game 1 with goals from Mark Scheifele, Jaret Anderson-Dolan, Alex Iafallo, Kyle Connor and Adam Lowry.
You may say “but, wait, three out of five of their goals came from the stereotypical first line forwards, isn’t that a little concerning?” and, well, you need your top six forwards to produce this time of year without question.
Scheifele’s goal came on the power play and he later added an assist– giving him Winnipeg’s all-time leading playoff scorer status, having entered Saturday night tied with Blake Wheeler at 39 points.
Scheifele now has 41 career Stanley Cup Playoff points with the Jets in 43 games compared to Wheeler’s 39 in 44 games.
Meanwhile, Iafallo is getting off on the right foot and needs to continue to be a factor throughout the series. The Jets had an early exit in five games against the Avalanche in the 2024 First Round and Iafallo only had one assist in that span.
Connor led the team in regular season scoring with 41-56–97 totals in 82 games– establishing career-highs in assists and points in the process– and is expected to be a point per game type of player.
Lowry added an empty net goal from the third line and Anderson-Dolan picked up his first career Stanley Cup Playoff goal in Game 1 as a fourth line winger.
Here’s hoping the positive momentum continues this time around against the Blues.
If anything, the second line was quiet with clutch postseason scorer, Nino Niederreiter, and his linemates, Vladislav Namestnikov and Cole Perfetti recording just three shots combined– one for Niederreiter and two for Perfetti. But, hey, fourth line center, Morgan Barron, failed to record a shot on goal.
At the other end of the rink, St. Louis got ahead at 9:31 of the first period courtesy of Robert Thomas opening up postseason scoring with a power-play goal and cast doubt in the minds of weary Jets fans that have watched countless Vezina Trophy-winning (and worthy) regular seasons from Connor Hellebuyck come to a screeching halt.
Despite Oskar Sundqvist tying the game in the final two minutes of the middle frame and 26-year-old phenom, Jordan Kyrou, capitalizing on another power play to give the Blues a, 3-2, lead at 1:13 of the third period, St. Louis couldn’t hold on as Winnipeg played the long game.
By the end of the night, the Blues became undisciplined and both teams engaged in sending and receiving messages ahead of Game 2.
If there’s one thing St. Louis head coach, Jim Montgomery, can’t afford to do ahead of Monday night– it’s lose the room.
Montgomery’s tenure in Boston saw the Bruins lose focus on the big picture time and time again as they lost in the 2023 First Round and 2024 Second Round to the Florida Panthers– blowing a 3-1 series lead in the former.
While Joel Hofer had a .921 save percentage on the season against Winnipeg– turning aside 70 out of the 76 shots he faced in three matchups while Jordan Binnington turned in an .875 SV% stopping 21 out of 24 shots against in one game against the Jets back in October– Binnington has the proven track record of taking over a playoff series both in the stat lines and in the opponents’ heads.
Whereas the last two years saw Montgomery and his players scrambling to wrap their minds around Florida’s antics, the Blues could be the Panthers this time around. All Montgomery has to do is not screw it up.
And, unfortunately for U.S. hockey fans, there’s the “big game” factor for Binnington in that he did win the 4 Nations Face-Off as Canada’s goaltender back in February, so he’s bound to steal Hellebuyck’s thunder again if St. Louis can channel their antagonistic qualities for the better.
Meanwhile, in Dallas…
The Colorado Avalanche are good. There’s a reason why they won the Stanley Cup in 2022, and remain a Cup contender from year-to-year since then.
The Dallas Stars should be good. There’s a reason why they went out and added Mikko Rantanen ahead of the trade deadline last month and made it to the Western Conference Final in 2023 and 2024.
All of this, of course, after losing in the 2020 Stanley Cup Final in six games to the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Since that Cup Final, however, the Stars haven’t been able to get over the hump that is the Western Conference Final and, well, Game 1s.
Dallas has now dropped eight consecutive series-opening games. The last time they won a Game 1 was actually that 2020 Stanley Cup Final against Tampa, when they had a, 4-1, victory in Edmonton during the pandemic-infused “bubble” playoffs.
The bad news? Game 1 isn’t Dallas’ thing.
The good news? History is on their side.
The Stars dropped Game 1 against the Avalanche, 4-3, in overtime last year on home ice in their 2024 Second Round matchup. They went on to win the next three games before losing Game 5, but won Game 6, 2-1, in double overtime on the road in Denver– courtesy of former Colorado forward, Matt Duchene’s game-winner.
Dallas also holds the 4-2 series advantage against the Avalanche in their lifetime having beaten Colorado in seven games in the 1999 Western Conference Final and 2000 Western Conference Final, as well as seven games in the 2020 Second Round and six games in the 2024 Second Round.
Jake Oettinger is the type of goaltender that can get better as the series goes on. He nearly stole the 2022 First Round series against the Calgary Flames in a Game 7 on road ice.
Oettinger faced 67 shots against and made 64 saves that night in the process before Johnny Gaudreau sent the Flames onto the Second Round with a game-winning overtime goal.
We probably– and by probably, I mean we shouldn’t see Jamie Benn on a line with Rantanen again in this series and if Dallas can find a way to get by without Jason Robertson and Miro Heiskanen, the Stars will get better depth throughout the lineup as they return to full health by the Second Round.
Well, assuming they get there. Rantanen should probably try not to have another minus-two plus/minus rating Monday night (9:30p ET on ESPN, SN360, TVAS-D, Victory+, ALT).
Nathan MacKinnon notched two goals in Colorado’s, 5-1, victory Saturday night and usual playoff performers, Devon Toews and Artturi Lehkonen, found ways to get on the scoreboard as well– albeit Lehkonen in a rather unconventional, though unintentional manner.
If the Stars can figure out how to (1) remain undisciplined because Cale Makar is a penalty drawing machine and (2) uh, stop MacKinnon and Makar while in the process shutting down Colorado’s heavily invested in depth at the trade deadline, then Dallas can go back to Colorado even in the series 1-1.
The problem is that even if you shutdown MacKinnon’s line which includes Martin Nečas, the Avalanche still have Brock Nelson, Jack Drury and Charlie Coyle working their middle six while waiting for the potential return of Gabriel Landeskog for the first time in Colorado’s lineup since Landeskog raised the Cup above his head in late June 2022.
Avs netminder, Mackenzie Blackwood, however, is largely untested.
Both teams only managed 24 shots on goal aside in Game 1 and Blackwood is still new to playoff hockey even if he is now past his Stanley Cup Playoffs debut heading into Game 2.
Dallas really has to come out on all cylinders Monday otherwise it could a short series.
Even on an off night for MacKinnon– he’s still one of the top two, three or four best players in the world depending on whether or not Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl or Nikita Kucherov are also playing that night for their respective teams.
Down the Frozen River 
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