NHL Playoff Power Rankings

After a wild first round in the NHL playoffs, let’s take a look at how the remaining eight teams stack up.

8. Tampa Bay Lightning – After barely sneaking past the Sidney Crosby-less Penguins in seven games, the Lightning now face a well-rested, powerful Capitals squad that rolled the through their first-round series in five games. The Bolts can put up NHL scores, as they proved with an 8-goal game in round 1, but they’ll face a tougher test with the Capitals much-improved defence. They can hang their heads high after a nice bounce-back year, and have to be excited about the continued emergence of Steven Stamkos, but the probably don’t have more than five or six games left in this 2010-11 season.

• Philadelphia Flyers – The defending Eastern Conference champions got a nice first round from Danny Briere and Claude Giroux, who combined for 16 points in their seven-game series against the Sabres. Their offence looked strong, averaging over three goals a game despite the presence of stud goalie Ryan Miller between the pipes for Buffalo.

But the it’s a small miracle Philly got through a long, tough series with the mess they have in net. Three different goalies saw the ice for the Flyers throughout the series, with only Brian Boucher having any success at all. They’ll need better consistency from their masked men if they hope to make it past Boston.

• Boston Bruins – The B’s have to feel good that they were able to come back after dropping the first two games of their series with the arch-rival Canadiens at home. Entering the raucous Bell Centre and taking two games is no easy feat.

Goals should be much easier to come by against Brian Boucher and co. than they were against the Habs’ Carey Price, but it remains to be seen whether the Bruins will have enough left after a long, tough series that featured three overtime games.

• Vancouver Canucks – After a riveting – some might say horrifying – first-round series with the Blackhawks, the Canucks are entering round two either with their confidence destroyed or their demons exorcised. It’s hard to be confident in a team that barely got past a deeply-flawed Chicago team, even though they finished the regular season at the top of the NHL standings.

Still, they have to be encouraged by the production they received from Ryan Kesler and Alex Burrows, so if the Sedin twins can get rolling and find a way to beat Pekka Rinne, the Canucks dream season might just continue.

4. Nashville Predators – After cooling off the NHL’s hottest team in round one, the Predators are rewarded with a series against the NHL’s top team in the regular season. Who, to be fair, backed their way into round two as much as a team can back their way into anything. If the Preds top defensive pair of Shea Weber and Ryan Suter can keep the Sedins in check, Nashville might be able to string together two playoff series wins after never winning one in the first 11 years of the franchise.

3. San Jose Sharks – Like the Canucks, a team with some long-time playoff woes to overcome. They can put up NHL scores in bunches, but Antti Niemi had a shaky first-round, so unless he can come around – or Antero Niittymaki can fill in effectively – they’ll be in tough against the veteran Red Wings.

• Detroit Red Wings – The Wings did themselves a favour by sweeping the Coyotes in the first round – possibly sending them back to Winnipeg – giving their older players time to rest in advance of what is sure to be a high-speed series with the Sharks.

• Washington Capitals – These aren’t your daddy’s Washington Capitals. A team that has typically been handicapped in the Ovechkin era by a weak back end suddenly has one of the league’s better defenses and a hot goalie in Michal Neuvirth. This might just be their year.