Explaining what happened in Carolina: Plus: Which teams should panic?

AtlanticBruinsCanadiensLightningMaple LeafsPanthersRed WingsSabresSenatorsMetropolitanBlue JacketsCapitalsDevilsFlyersHurricanesIslandersPenguinsRangersCentralAvalancheBlackhawksBluesJetsMammothPredatorsStarsWildPacificCanucksDucksFlamesGolden KnightsKingsKrakenOilersSharksScores & ScheduleStandingsPodcastsFantasyNHL OddsNHL PicksNHL playoff predictionsBracketStanley Cup tiersNHL Draft rankingRed Light NewsletterNewsletterExplaining what happened in Carolina: Plus: Which teams should panic?Carolina Hurricanes left wing Jordan Martinook celebrates after scoring the game winner in the second overtime against the Ottawa Senators. James Guillory / Imagn Images Share articleRed Light newsletter 🏒 | This is The Athletic’s hockey newsletter. Sign up here to receive Red Light directly in your inbox. Good morning to everyone except whoever let Ryan Nugent-Hopkins into this year’s Old Guy Without a Cup rankings. That guy is 14 years old and has been for the last decade and you can’t tell me otherwise. Now get off my lawn. Nobody sleeps in the playoffs. What if there’s overtime somewhere and you’re missing it? Pro tip: It’s completely fine to just drink the coffee straight out of the pot, pouring it into cups just wastes valuable ref-cursing time. That said, let’s get you caught up on last night, where everyone’s talking about what went down in Carolina. That one saw the Hurricanes outlast the Senators in double-OT to take a 2-0 series lead, with Jordan Martinook ending it. Yet somehow, the winner wasn’t the most memorable goal of the overtime. Let’s explain, with a lightning round version of No Dumb Questions. Wait, there was another goal in overtime? There sure was, and this one also involved Martinook. Late in the first extra session, he got a mini-breakaway but was hooked off the puck by Warren Foegele. The referee’s arm went up, and the Hurricanes sent on to apply almost a full shift of 6-on-5 pressure before Mark Jankowski buried the OT winner. Or so we thought. While the Hurricanes and their fans celebrated, the Senators were asking for a replay review. They eventually got it. Seriously, this is part of what makes the NHL process so dumb: There’s no explanation from the officials about what’s being looked at or why. In this case, it was the linesmen hunched around the iPad screen instead of the referees, so we knew it was an offside review. At first, the assumption was that the review was about a near-miss exit seconds before the goal. But it eventually became apparent that it was actually the original zone entry by Jordan Staal, at which point we all watched to see if Martinook had crossed the line a fraction of a second early. But that wasn’t right either. Eventually, the goal was waved off, with no further explanation. Only well after did we find out that it was actually Staal himself who was offside, because he didn’t have “possession and control” as he crossed the blue line with the puck. Don’t “possession and control” mean the same thing? Yes, really. Believe it or not, those terms are among the many that not well defined in the NHL rulebook. In other words, unlike most offside reviews, this one largely came down to a judgment call, not a black-and-white freeze-frame. And despite the rulebook’s insistence that the call on the ice should stand if there’s “any doubt whatsoever,” the officials apparently saw enough to overturn an overtime goal based on … this. Oh, we’re not at the weird part yet. Yeah. Remember that hook on Martinook’s mini-break? It turns out the ref wasn’t just calling a penalty, but a penalty shot. And on a second look, it was the right call. So after a goal that wasn’t and a long delay, we found out we were getting an overtime penalty shot, something that had only ever happened four other times in the history of the NHL. Wait, the penalty still counts? Wouldn’t the offside wipe that out? You might think so. Lots of fans did, including many who assumed the league had screwed up by letting Martinook shoot. But no, unlike “control and possession,” the rulebook is crystal clear on this one: Any penalties that happen after a missed stoppage still count. But why? If the offside had been called correctly, the breakaway never happens, meaning there can’t be a foul, meaning the penalty shot doesn’t exist in this alternate reality where … I’m going to stop you there because the whole thing spirals into freshman philosophy if you let it. Think of it this way: If there’s another Matt Duchene-level obvious missed call someday, should it be prison rules until the next stoppage? That’s the scenario the league wants to avoid, which is why they make it clear that there are no freebies even after a missed stoppage. Anyway, after all that, Martinook’s penalty shot was stopped by Linus Ullmark, the first overtime ended, everyone spent the intermission freaking out about how they’re convinced the rules should work, and then the hockey gods got together and decided “puck don’t lie.” And now it’s 2-0 Carolina. The other big emerging story in the Eastern Conference is the Flyers, who’ve gone from playoff longshot to up 2-0 on the Penguins. It’s been a team effort in grinding the Penguins down, but rookie Porter Martone has been the big breakout star. In the Western Conference, we had a monster hit in a Stars win to even their series with the Wild. And the Oilers survived a scare, coming back late to take a 4-3 win over the Ducks in the last of the openers. You’re never in trouble in a playoff series until you’ve lost a game at home, says the old cliche. Nonsense, reply the equally old sportswriters, you’re in trouble when we say you are. But all trouble isn’t created equal, so let’s take a look at the seven teams that are trailing a series and divide them up based on how worried they should be. Tier 1: It’s (almost) all going according to plan Teams: Kings, Bruins, Mammoth, Ducks You never want to lose a playoff game, period. But each of these teams came into their first-round series as underdogs, knowing they weren’t likely to sweep their favored opponents. All of them put up a good fight in their openers. The Bruins and Ducks obviously won’t like blowing those late leads, and the Kings may have just woken up a sleeping giant. But for now, one loss doesn’t move the needle much for anyone here. Tier 2: Not a great start, but we’ve still got time The Lightning have a recent history of looking off in Game 1, and they’ve recovered just fine in some of those series. But the Canadiens have looked electric for the last month, and at the very least, we can say that they won’t be remotely intimidated by Tampa’s championship aura. The Lightning absolutely need a win tonight. As for the Senators, it’s possible last night’s weird loss was a killer, but I’m not convinced. They’re getting A+ goaltending from Ullmark and just need an extra bounce or two, so we won’t write them off until we see how the two games in Ottawa go. Tier 3: It’s already time to panic Uh oh. The Penguins went 0-for-2 on home ice, and it’s not like the Flyers stole either game. Philadelphia was the better team in both, and by a decent margin. We went into the series wondering if Sidney Crosby and friends could pull off one more “Last Dance” run; now the bigger question is whether the home fans may have already seen the last of them. Hint: I’d say that two of these teams are relatively obvious if you think about it, two more are trickier, and one was (for me at least) a surprise. Answer down below. ✈️ Murat does a good job of capturing the two paths available to the Jets, and the urgency for them to choose one and follow it. ⛽ The pressure is mounting in Edmonton, where they need to convince Connor McDavid to stay, and Kevin Lowe is sick of the city being used as a punchline. 🧮 A reminder: We’ve reached the point where the projections page will update after each night of action, and those odds are going to swing wildly based on every game. 🏆 Our writers weigh in on their picks for the major awards (which a lot of them have ballots for). 🎙️ On the Monday episode of “The Athletic Hockey Show,” Max, Laz, and Jesse recap an excellent opening weekend of playoff hockey, checking in on every series. Listen here. Did you enter the playoff contest? If not, you’re a coward. And it’s too late now, so don’t come crawling in with your excuses about why you need an extension. Let me guess, your dog ate your bracket. Sure it did. You’re a spineless coward. Unless you did enter, in which case you’re cool. Not sure why I got so cranky in that last paragraph. I think the playoffs are getting to me. Let’s bring it in for a group hug. Where were we? Right, the playoff contest. Here’s what we learned from nearly a thousand readers who entered because they are not cowards. There’s a clear favorite: And to nobody’s surprise, it’s Colorado. That makes sense – both the oddsmakers and our local panel of experts agree, as does the standings page. The shocker here is the degree to which they’ve lapped the field in your view: Roughly 50 percent of you listed the Avalanche as the first team on your entry, meaning you think they’re going to win more playoff games than anyone else. That’s not quite the same as saying they’re going to win the Cup, but it’s pretty close, and it was over five times as many picks as the next team, the Hurricanes. Even in a contest where going against the grain is a good strategy, you folks were overwhelmingly on the Avs bandwagon. One series definitely won’t produce the Cup winner: At least according to you. In terms of the teams that were most often listed last on an entry – which is to say, the team you think will win the fewest playoff games – the top two spots were no surprise. The Kings were a runaway pick, as you’d expect given how much you love the Avs. The Ducks were next, and that checks out. But the third and fourth teams came from the same series: The Penguins and Flyers, who each edged out the Senators and Mammoth among the apparently hopeless. The most confusing team in the postseason is … : The Boston Bruins, who appeared on the fewest entries of any playoff team, narrowly beating the Mammoth and Ducks. That’s interesting, in part because the Bruins’ opponents, the Sabres, were a relatively popular team, coming in fourth behind Colorado, Tampa and Edmonton, and usually confidence in one side of a matchup should inspire equal but inverse confidence in the other. This isn’t new territory for Boston, who’ve confused you before. But it does set up a nice “nobody believes in us” narrative – because nobody thinks you’re all that good, but apparently they’re not confident your bad either. Eight was the magic number, again: If you’ve followed the contest over the years, you know that “how many teams should I pick?” is the key strategic question. And for the last two years running, the winning entry has used eight teams. So it’s no surprise that eight was most common number this year, with roughly a quarter of you going along with the crowd. Shout out to the 16 of you who picked just one team, the 78 of you who went all out and picked 16, and the one single and apparently unsuperstitious entry that took 13. Four games tonight, with nicely staggered start times. 📺 Canadiens @ Lightning 7 p.m. ET on ESPN2 / Sportsnet / CBC / TVA The Canadiens got the overtime win in the opener after Jake Guentzel chose a bad time to try out for the Team USA baseball team. We know that Montreal will be buzzing for Games 3 and 4, so the Lightning really need a win tonight if they’re going to avoid a fourth straight opening round exit. 📺 Bruins @ Sabres 7:30 p.m. ET on ESPN / SN360 / TVA The opener served up 50 minutes of the Bruins putting on a road playoff clinic, followed by 10 minutes of the Sabres unleashing 15 years of pent-up playoff frustration. Here’s hoping the encore can be as entertaining. 📺 Mammoth @ Golden Knights 9:30 p.m. ET on ESPN2 / Sportsnet / CBC / TVA The Knights took care of business in Sunday’s late game, although the Mammoth didn’t make it easy. Utah will need more from big guns Clayton Keller and Nick Schmaltz, who were held off the scoreboard but were on the ice for plenty of Vegas offense. 📺 Kings @ Avalanche 10:00 p.m. ET on ESPN / SN360 / TVA To their credit, the Kings gave the Avalanche a game on Sunday. It wasn’t enough to win, but it at least made you rethink some of those “Avs in three” jokes. There’s no close enough in the playoffs, though, so the Kings need to find another level tonight. Full NHL schedule here. Try streaming games like these for free on Fubo. The two teams that most of you should get are the Sharks, who are by far the winningest playoff team of the cap era who haven’t won a Cup, and the Oilers, who’ve been to the final three times. Next up are the Rangers and the Canadiens, two teams that each have a trip to the final mixed in with a few conference final trips. And the surprise team is the Sabres, who’ve only won 26 playoff games since 2005 but have also lost just 22, the fewest in the league among teams that have existed for the entire era. 📫 Love Red Light? Check out The Athletic’s other newsletters. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms