This has to be one of the worst round 1's in a long time. The fact that only one round 1 series could only possibly go 7 (vegas/dallas) is bonkers. A crazy stat is if Dallas hadn't won to tie up the series 2-2, it would have been since the mid 80s that no series match up was at least tied 2-2. What a deflating playoffs so far.
I think the league is morphing into five tiers of teams:
1 - Elite Team with elite offensive talent
2 - Elite team missing elite offensive talent
3 - Mediocre team with elite offensive talent
4 - Medicore team without elite offensive talent
5 - Shit team
I feel like slowly, but surely, the spread between tier 1 and the rest of those tiers is growing further and further apart. This reality doesn't make itself apparent in the regular season, but when teams are giving 110% every night it shows itself.
Currently the matchups are like this:
Nucks (Tier 3ish) vs. Predators (Tier 4)
Oilers (Tier 1) vs. Kings (Tier 4)
Avalanche (Tier 1) vs. Jets (Tier 2)
Stars (Tier 2) vs. Knights (Tier 2)
Rangers (Tier 1) vs. Capitals (Tier 4)
Bruins (Tier 2) vs. Leafs (Tier 3)
Hurricanes (Tier 2) vs. Islanders (Tier 4)
Panthers (Tier 1) vs. Lightning (Tier 3ish)
Other than the Nucks/Predators series which should be much closer than it is, the only other series that is close is Stars/Knights - the two teams without elite talent. Elite talent is a massive, massive advantage that shows itself much more in the playoffs than through 82.