As 1st night of NHL playoffs showed, there's plenty of interesting hockey to watch even without Penguins

Contrary to popular belief in Pittsburgh, the NHL playoffs are taking place even though the Pittsburgh Penguins didn’t qualify for the first time since 2006.

There are some very intriguing storylines, many of which already started to take shape on the first night of competition.

Here’s a six pack of things to watch in the NHL playoffs this year, even with the Penguins playing golf.

• All eyes are on the Boston Bruins this postseason after dominating the regular season. Boston set the NHL record for most regular season wins (65) and points (135).

Now they try to avoid the dreaded Presidents’ Trophy curse. No team has won the Stanley Cup after winning the regular season points title since the Chicago Blackhawks in 2013.

I think they’ll do it. The Bruins ended up as plus-350 favorites (via BetRivers.com) to win the Stanley Cup, and I thought that was a worthwhile bet.

The Bruins beat the Florida Panthers 3-1 in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference playoff series. It could have been by more if not for a disallowed goal and some big saves by Florida goalie Alex Lyon in the first period.

But win or lose, tracking how their regular-season dominance translates into postseason success or failure will, in my mind, be the most interesting angle to this year’s NHL postseason.

• If you are also a believer in the Bruins to at least get out of the Eastern Conference, getting a bet down on David Pastrňák to be the postseason goal-scoring leader is a smart move. That pays out at plus-700. If the Bruins do advance that far, it’s going to be because No. 88 keeps finding the net as he did all year.

His 61 goals were 10 more than anyone else from the Eastern Conference (Brayden Point from Tampa Bay had 51). Others on Boston may accumulate a lot of points as the playoffs go along, but Pastrňák is relied on to do the heavy lifting in the goal-scoring department. No one else on that club managed more than 30 goals. Patrice Bergeron was second on the team with 27. And Pastrňák did score the opening goal against Florida in Game 1.

You can still get a bet down on Pastrňák to win the Conn Smythe as the postseason MVP at plus-800 via Bet Rivers. That could prove to be a worthy investment.

Similarly, if you are someone who believes in the Edmonton Oilers, Connor McDavid at plus-1400 to win that trophy makes a ton of sense. If you think the Oilers are going to finally emerge from West this year and play for the Stanley Cup, McDavid will be the biggest reason why. He also came back at plus-400 to have the most points in the postseason.

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• I am one of those people who picked the Oilers out of the Western Conference. So I’m not feeling really great about things after Game 1. They lost the opener at home to the Los Angeles Kings 4-3 in overtime, blowing a 2-0 lead in the third period.

McDavid has never played better than he has this year. Edmonton led the NHL in scoring (3.96 goals per game). The power play (32.4%) was overwhelming in the regular season.

But the Kings can score too. They had the fourth-best power play in hockey (25.3%) and were 10th in goal scoring (3.34). And they showed that ability to come back in Game 1, with Anze Kopitar factoring in with points on all four goals. Meanwhile McDavid was a minus-2 and held off the scoresheet.

• The West may not have an overwhelming favorite, even with the defending Cup champion Colorado Avalanche in a good spot with the Central Division title and a No. 2 seed. Which is why McDavid and company really could (or should) see this as their best opportunity to claim at least a conference crown in the McDavid era. Their 109 points are the most the franchise has posted since 1985-86 (119), and they won nine in a row to close out the regular season.

But the conference is deep. I won’t be stunned if any of the top six seeds win it.

The most interesting first-round battle is in the Central between the Dallas Stars and Minnesota Wild. At plus-700 after closing the regular season on a six-game win streak, I thought the Stars were a shrewd potential pick to win the West. But then again, they may not even survive the first round.

Minnesota’s 3-2 double overtime win on the road in Game 1 is a harbinger of things to come in that series. That one smelled like a seven-game, multi-overtime nailbiter the minute the bracket was locked into shape.

• How the Wild handle the goaltending situation will be fascinating. Ex-Penguin Marc-Andre Fleury played in 46 games this season and won 24. Former Pens prospect Filip Gustavsson played in 39 games and won 22. But many of Gustavsson’s stats were better. In fact, his 2.10 goals against average and his .931 save percentage were tops in the Western Conference and second only to Boston’s Linus Ulmark overall.

So, for now, Fleury — with three Stanley Cup rings on his fingers — is playing the role of backup to a guy making his first run through an NHL playoff series. It’s not that dissimilar to his situation in Pittsburgh in 2016 playing behind Matt Murray.

And Gustavsson got off to a great start, stopping 51 of 53 shots from Dallas in Game 1 en route to victory.

• The equivalent series in the Eastern Conference is the Tampa Bay Lightning versus the Toronto Maple Leafs. This one also has “seven-game slugfest” written all over it.

Toronto had a better regular season, racking up 111 points. They’ll have home-ice advantage. The Lightning had 98 points and had some regular-season struggles at times.

But this series is as much about the Leafs trying to shake a history of postseason shortcomings versus Tampa’s recent run of success in the Eastern Conference than it is anything else.

The Lightning have won the conference three times in a row. The Leafs haven’t won a playoff series since 2004. Tampa Bay won this pairing in the first round last year. The Bolts rallied from a 3-2 deficit to win the best-of-seven series 4-3. Tampa scored a goal in overtime to win Game 6 and eliminated Toronto with a 2-1 win in Game 7.

That series begins Tuesday night along with the New Jersey Devils-New York Rangers showdown in the Metropolitan Division. The Las Vegas-Winnipeg series and Colorado-Seattle matchup also begin out West.

In this week’s hockey podcast, Tim Benz and Brian Metzer discuss this year’s NHL playoff bracket — the first one without the Penguins since 2006.

Listen: Tim Benz and Brian Metzer talk NHL Playoffs