The Atlantic Division race was the NHL's most exciting throughout the 2025-26 regular season, so it's fitting there are a pair of divisional battles in the opening round of the playoffs: the Buffalo Sabres vs. Boston Bruins and Tampa Bay Lightning vs. Montreal Canadiens.
Buffalo was the league's most surprising team throughout the campaign as it overcame an 11-14-4 start to skyrocket up the standings en route to an Atlantic Division title and the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference while breaking a 14-year playoff drought.
Meanwhile, Boston was ticketed by some observers to endure another transition year. Instead, the B's rode the strength of the league's second-best home record (29-11-1) back to the NHL postseason for the ninth time in the past 10 years.
The Bruins won three of the four games in the teams' season series, but two of those meetings came all the way back in October, long before the Sabres started their turnaround. Almost every metric suggests this will be a closely contested, hard-fought series between the rivals.
So, the question is: Which players will have the biggest impact on determining which team advances to meet either the Bolts or Habs in the second round?
6. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen (Sabres goalie)
A month ago, there was uncertainty about whether Luukkonen or Alex Lyon would serve as Buffalo's starting goaltender in the playoffs. A continued evenly split rotation, which is exceedingly rare for NHL teams at this point in the campaign, was even on the table.
Then Lyon suffered an injury, leaving rookie Colten Ellis as the backup and putting UPL back in the unquestioned starter role. Lyon may return at some point during the opening round, but the crease now belongs to the 27-year-old Finland native.
Luukkonen was injured to open the campaign and struggled initially upon his return, but he's played the best hockey of his career in recent months. He's posted a .918 save percentage in his last 14 starts, and the Sabres are 11-2-1 in those games.
Some fans may have expected to see him higher on this list, but Buffalo's fifth-ranked offense (288 goals scored) gives it a better opportunity to overcome any potential struggles between the pipes.
5. Morgan Geekie (Bruins center)
Boston's true upside in the 2026 NHL Playoffs may hinge on what version of Geekie shows up.
The center finished the regular season with 39 goals, which is tied for 15th in the NHL, but check out these splits:
- First 36 games: 25 goals
- Last 45 games: 14 goals
Here's the promising news for the Bruins: Geekie showed signs of finding top form as the regular season wound down, tallying five goals over the final four games, highlighted by a hat trick in a 6-5 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes.
If the 6-foot-3 Canadian is lighting the lamp at an elite rate, the Bruins are not only a danger to the Sabres, but the rest of the Eastern Conference field, as well.
4. David Pastrnak (Bruins winger)
One area Boston has a clear upper hand in this series is its power play, which ranks ninth in the NHL with a 23.4% conversation rate this season. Buffalo is 21st at 19.5%, and its play with the man advantage was horrendous during the stretch run of the campaign.
Pastrnak is the driving focus behind the Bruins' PP success, tallying 33 of his 100 points in those special-teams situations (10 goals and 23 assists). He scored just one power-play point (an assist) across the four regular-season matchups with the Sabres, though.
Buffalo appears to have a slight 5-on-5 advantage over Boston, so it'll be crucial for the B's to take advantage over their chances with the man advantage to keep pace offensively. And the group must overcome the Sabres' fourth-ranked penalty kill (81.9%), too.
It puts a lot of pressure on Pastrnak to generate high-danger chances, but the Bruins can live with that if that's how the series is ultimately decided.
3. Tage Thompson (Sabres center)
The Sabres don't have a singular offensive force like Pastrnak. They rely more on their terrific forward depth to keep consistent pressure on opposing blue lines, and for the most part it's worked well.
That said, there will come a moment in this series, which could very well feature a couple overtimes games, where Buffalo needs a moment of greatness from one of its forwards to steal a game. Thompson, who notched his third 40-goal campaign in the past four years, is the most likely option.
The lanky center looked a little sluggish down the stretch, which perhaps isn't a surprise since he played the first 81 games (along with a goal medal run as part of Team USA at the 2026 Winter Olympics) before getting a night off to rest in Wednesday's loss to the Dallas Stars.
Buffalo will hope a handful of days off allows Thompson to recharge before the playoffs get underway because it's going to need him to deliver in a major way if a deep playoff run is in the cards.
2. Rasmus Dahlin (Sabres defenseman)
Dahlin will be among the NHL leaders in time on ice during the 2026 playoffs. He's going to see ample minutes in all three phases (even strength, power play and penalty kill), and he'll probably rarely come off the playing surface for any games that go into overtime.
The dynamic Swede made a late push into the Hart and Norris Trophy discussions as the Sabres made a push toward the top of the East. While he may not capture those awards, there's no doubting his greatness after he scored 45 points over his final 38 games.
There's one other factor when he comes to Dahlin: taking way too many penalties. He racked up 76 penalty minutes during the regular season and a lot of those were preventable mistakes. Buffalo badly needs him to stay out of the box in this series (and future ones).
Dahlin has an opportunity to state his case as the NHL's best defenseman if he can put the Sabres on his shoulders for the next few months.
1. Jeremy Swayman (Bruins goalie)
If Boston overcomes Buffalo to advance, Swayman will almost surely be the main reason behind the upset.
The University of Maine product faced a lot of questions coming into the year after a poor 2024-25 campaign where he compiled an .892 save percentage. He bounced back in a massive way with a .907 SV% in 55 appearances this season.
He's been in particularly strong form as of late, recording a .920 SV% in 16 games since the start of March. That string of strong performances is why the Bruins started to emerge as a team most opponents would have preferred to avoid to open the playoffs.
Swayman also has a track record of high-end success in the postseason, tallying a .933 SV% in 12 games during Boston's last playoff appearance in 2024. If he plays like that in this series, the high-flying Sabres will be in serious danger.
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