Ah, the NHL playoffs: the most beautiful time of the year.
While the magic of regular season hockey is usually more than enough, the next-level pace, thrill, stakes, and animosity of playoff hockey is just beyond comparison. Fans wait all season long for the playoffs, and so far, the 2020-2021 postseason has not disappointed.
With all that being said, if fans love the playoffs so much, then we can’t imagine the extent to which the people who actually play in the NHL love this time of the year. While just being in the NHL is already a lifelong dream achieved, we know that what a lot of these guys truly work for is that coveted Stanley Cup.
Unless of course, their teams have already been eliminated. Then this time of the year is probably fairly lame.
We were curious about how NHL players who aren’t in the NHL playoffs feel about the playoffs, so to find out more, we anonymously polled 50 of them to figure out the general consensus, and the results are very interesting.
The first thing we were interested in: would players even want to watch NHL playoffs that their respective teams hadn’t made the cut for? We weren’t sure. I mean, do you want to watch your friends’ Snapchat stories of a party you weren’t invited to? Isn’t it kind of the same thing?
Of the 50 players we polled, 25% said they wouldn’t be watching. We also followed up and asked why they weren’t watching, to which most players’ answer was a different variation of the same sentiment: because they’re not playing, obviously.
Even though they’re the chosen ones who get to live out all of our childhood dreams, underneath it all, NHL players are just like us; they’re hockey fans. In light of that, we wondered whether or not NHL players ever cheer for other teams once their own gets eliminated. The answer was mostly no, with the few ‘yes’ responses generally being for friends and former teammates. The Leafs also got a couple nods, which kind of makes sense when considering that a lot of the players we polled are from the GTA.
Then, we got into hockey.
Nobody who’s currently playing in the playoffs can give an honest answer about who they actually think is the most legitimate team in the postseason picture, so we asked these players’ thoughts on who they think has the edge this offseason, who surprised them, who should have made the playoffs, and an upset pick in the first round.
Best team that didn’t make the playoffs:
Dallas Stars: 25
Anaheim Ducks: 1
Arizona: 3
Calgary: 4
Philadelphia: 6
New York Rangers: 11
Which team surprised you the most this year?
Arizona: 1
Montreal: 1
Carolina: 14
Florida: 9
Toronto: 5
Minnesota: 16
Senators: 3
Penguins: 1
Name an upset pick for the first round of the playoffs (one player didn’t answer this question)
Blues: 3
Canadiens: 14
Panthers: 6
Islanders: 7
Jets: 5
Predators: 8
Wild: 6
Interesting to see how much love the Golden Knights got! Of course, once we got past hockey, we made sure to ask what they’d be up to this summer. In true hockey player fashion, golf was the overwhelming response.
What’s your summer sport? (They were allowed to give multiple responses)
GOLF: 37
BALL HOCKEY: 1
WATER SPORTS: 1
BASKETBALL: 1
ROLLER HOCKEY: 5
SQUASH: 1
TENNIS: 5
PICKLEBALL: 1
LACROSSE: 4
We’ve seen what the players think, but as we all know, playoff hockey is an unpredictable beast - and we like it that way.
