One fatal flaw for each NHL championship contender

Bruins fans have developed quite the love-hate relationship with Tuukka Rask in recent years, and he is always one of the biggest scapegoats when things go wrong, especially come playoff time. If he does not break out of his recent slump, he could once again find himself in their crosshairs. Rask and Jaroslav Halak have formed an outstanding duo for most of the season but have stumbled a bit down the stretch. Since the start of March, their combined save percentage of .886 is the second-worst in the league, ahead of only the San Jose Sharks during that stretch. This is not the time of year you want your goalies to be slumping. 

This has been our concern with the Flames for a few weeks now. They have an incredibly talented team at forward and defense but are only ordinary at best in goal. Mike Smith has been atrocious this season and while David Rittich was a huge surprise in the first half, his performance has drastically fallen back to earth over the past couple of months. Over his past 15 appearances dating back to the start of February, he has managed only an .897 save percentage. That will not be good enough in the playoffs. 

There is a lot to like about this Hurricanes, from their fast and up-tempo style of play to their young and talented defense. The big question here has always been goaltending. So far this season, Petr Mrazek and Curtis McElhinney have been pleasant surprises in helping to solidify the position after a decade of failed experiments, and the Hurricanes are going to need them to continue to exceed expectations if they are going to make a deep postseason run. 

It is easy to think that special teams isn't as much of a factor in the playoffs because the number of penalties always seems to go down. That just means you need to be nearly flawless when you do take a penalty because one or two power play goals against change everything. The Avalanche ended the regular season by successfully killing off just 78.7 penalties. That was one of the worst marks in the league and the worst among all playoff teams. 

Bobrovsky has been one of the best regular-season goalies in the league since arriving in Columbus. This has not translated to the postseason where he has an .891 save percentage in 24 career games. Among active goalies with at least 20 games of postseason experience, this is not only the worst mark in the NHL, but he is the only one who is worse than a .903 save percentage. Now he has to face the best offense of the modern era, the Tampa Bay Lightning, in Round 1. 

The trio of Tyler Seguin, Jamie Benn and Alexander Radulov can be as good as it gets in the NHL. But who is going to score goals after that? That trio combined to score more than 45 percent of the Stars' goals this season, while no other forward on the team recorded more than 30 points. At some point Seguin, Radulov and Benn will get shut down for a couple of games. Who is going to pick up the slack when they do?

On paper the Predators roster is as complete as you will find in the NHL. Nashville has high-end players at every position, strong depth, a great salary cap situation and a recent track record of success. But something has been lacking this season in the way the team plays, and one of the biggest flaws is its power play unit. The Predators finished the regular season with the league's worst power play success rate at only 12.9 percent and were one of just three playoff teams to finish in the bottom 10 of the NHL. It just seems like they will have a big power play at some point in a playoff game, needing a goal, but failing to get one. 

The Islanders are one of the great success stories of the 2018-19 NHL season, reaching the Stanley Cup Playoffs after missing in each of the past two seasons and losing their franchise player, John Tavares, in free agency to the Toronto Maple Leafs over the summer. Their success is mostly built around defensive play and especially goaltending. Offensively, they are not great, finishing the season 22nd in goals per game. No other playoff team finished the season lower. 

When healthy, Kris Letang is as good as it gets in the NHL, and alongside Brian Dumoulin helps form one of the best top pairings in the league. The problem is Letang has not been healthy lately, and Dumoulin did not play in the team's final four regular-season games. After those two there is a pretty sizable drop in their defensive pairings, and that could be a concern come playoff time — especially as opposing coaches have an opportunity to gameplan more than they do in the regular season and try to target specific players (like the Jack Johnson-Justin Schultz pairing). 

The easy answer here is goaltending, but there is another concern that should be talked about and that is the health of superstar defender Erik Karlsson. He was limited to just 53 games this season and played in only one game since Feb. 26. When healthy he is a game-changing player and can help mask the obvious shortcomings in net. But if he is limited, or has to miss more time, that would be a hole the Sharks would not be able to fill. 

With the way they played over the second half of the season, the Blues might be one of the sleeper teams to go on a Stanley Cup run. The key to that will be Jordan Binnington continuing to play the way he has in net. He joined the team halfway through the season and was impressive enough to play his way into the Rookie of the Year discussion, winning 24 of his first 30 starts and posting a .927 save percentage. If he continues that, the Blues are going to be a difficult team to knock out. If he regresses at all (and at some point he will), that could be a bittersweet end to their season. 

Trying to find a flaw on this team is nearly impossible. The Lightning finished the year first in wins, first in goals scored, seventh in goals against, first on the power play, first on the penalty kill, and they have the likely MVP winner (Nikita Kucherov), a Norris Trophy contender (Victor Hedman), a Vezina Trophy front-runner ( Andrei Vasilevskiy), one of the league's best coaches (Jon Cooper) and an incredible supporting cast. Where is the weakness here? Maybe that is just it. Overconfidence: the expectation that they are so good no one can possibly beat them.

Missing Jake Gardiner for a significant portion of the stretch run certainly hurt the Leafs' defensive play, but even with him the blue line is still the likely Achilles' heel of this team. They will score goals, and as long as Frederik Andersen is rested and healthy he will play great in net, but the blue line is going to make sure he is tested.

At even strength the Golden Knights might be even better than they were a year ago, especially after the addition of Mark Stone at the trade deadline. But if any of their series turns into a special teams competition, they could be in trouble. The Golden Knights finished the regular season 25th on the power play and 15th on the penalty kill.

Michal Kempny's season-ending injury is going to be a significant hurdle for the Capitals to overcome. He was a huge addition during the 2017-18 season and played a big role on their run to the Stanley Cup. He followed that up by spending most of this season playing on the team's top pairing alongside John Carlson. Without him, an already thin blue line gets even thinner. 

The Jets were not as good as you might think, or as good as they should have been, during the regular season. The one big flaw here is they are just not a particularly good team during 5-on-5 play. Their puck possession numbers and goal differential at even strength are both among the worst of the 16 playoff teams, and that usually spells doom for a team come playoff time.