How can some of the NHL's top offences be slowed down?

There’s little value in explaining the correlation between generating a high volume of shot attempts in prime scoring locations to a team’s actual offensive prowess, but we’re in the final eight, and two teams stood alone in this regard. In the process of posting 110-plus point campaigns, the Florida Panthers and Calgary Flames soared above the league as both teams posted over 4,150 shot attempts at 5-on-5 — Florida led the NHL with an 4,300, and it’s little surprise why it became the first team to average more than four goals per game since the 1995-96 Pittsburgh Penguins.

It’s pedantic to preclude the Colorado Avalanche from this tier as well. Colorado finished seventh with 4,008 shot attempts at 5-on-5 during the regular season, but the Central Division juggernaut seemingly operates at a different pace from every other team. The Avalanche are the fastest team in the NHL and if their Game 1 OT victory over the Blues provides any indication of how the series will go, the 2019 Cup winners will have to adapt to the high-tempo circumstances.

So, how do the Tampa Bay Lightning, Edmonton Oilers and St. Louis Blues offset the shot parade? Through each of their second-round openers, we’ve seen three diametrically different responses.

Lightning’s bottom-six flummoxes the Panthers, while Kucherov operates unimpeded

Tampa Bay’s roster flexibility through its forward corps is perhaps one of the essential reasons why it is marching forward through its bid for a three-peat, an unprecedented task in the salary cap era. Brayden Point was ruled out of Game 1 against Florida with an injury suffered in Game 7 of Tampa’s first-round series against Toronto. Tampa’s response: cool, no problem, we can offset the loss of a superstar with ease!

To the Panthers’ credit, they played well and operated with the same shot-creation profile that catapulted the team to the Presidents’ Trophy, outchancing the Lightning 41-31 at 5-on-5, while controlling a 52.5 percent share of the expected goals. Unfortunately for the Panthers, the game is greater than 5-on-5 supremacy and they got absolutely cooked by Nikita Kucherov, along with the Lightning’s bottom-six.

Replacing their third line was a seemingly impossible task, but after adding Brandon Hagel and Nick Paul at the deadline, in addition to stellar off-season signings Pierre-Edouard Bellemare and Corey Perry, the Lightning once again said f— your rigid notions of team-building, we’re going all-in again! And it paid dividends. Bellemare and Perry were menaces in the cycle, and the former’s diligence led to Tampa’s lone even-strength goal of the contest. When Bellemare was on the ice at 5-on-5, the Lightning controlled 77 percent of the expected goals, while all of Tampa’s nominal bottom-six forwards created more than five shot attempts at even-strength. Florida cannot allow this to happen, or else it’s going to be a short series.

Tampa Bay converted on three of its six power play attempts and Kucherov was the principal engineer behind its glowing success. Kucherov diced up the Panthers’ stellar defense and nuance be damned, we can explain his Game 1 exploits in two plays.

Kucherov’s ability to switch gears is nearly unmatched and it’s a fatal idea to give him an inch of space, let alone a head of steam. Even the best defensemen in the league are susceptible to his unique brand of wizardry.

After Florida took a 1-0 first-period lead into the intermission, Kucherov responded with a vengeance on the power play, carrying the puck up the ice. Kucherov doesn’t appear to be moving past first gear, surveying the ice for options as he enters the zone. Defending Kucherov often defies conventional wisdom, but he took Aaron Ekblad to school on this play here. You reach, I teach, and that’s pretty much what happened as Ekblad over-commits to Kucherov, who deftly swoops around his stick-check and leaves him swinging at air. Nobody picks up a crashing Corey Perry, who taps the puck in to tie it at 1-1. Ekblad is no slouch — this might’ve been the year he would’ve won the Norris had he remained healthy throughout the regular season — but one mistake against Kucherov and it will be punished.

It’s easy to become a spectator while watching Kucherov, his opponents have admitted as much. But it’s a cardinal sin to allow the one of the game’s most dynamic playmakers, a one-of-one talent when it comes to his natural agility and puck tricks, operate in open space unimpeded. Kucherov ripped the Panthers apart on the power play again to take a 3-1 commanding lead. On first glance, it could be brushed off as a spectacular, seeing-eye shot from one of the NHL’s deadliest forwards. But there’s a lot for the Panthers to correct here. Although Florida does an excellent job of sealing off the passing lanes, Sam Bennett has plenty of room to close out Kucherov and refuses to, despite his linemates sealing off the cross-ice route. Mackenzie Weegar — who played at an All-Star level this season — is even more culpable, freezing completely, while allowing Anthony Cirelli to set a screen for several seconds. Sergei Bobrovsky had no chance.

We’re all weary to draw conclusions from a one-game sample, but Tampa Bay’s bottom-six went off, while Kucherov took the space he was afforded and made Florida pay dearly. Florida can get up as many high-quality looks as they want, but they can’t let Tampa’s bottom-six produce like stars, and can’t let Kucherov draw up new designs on the power play.

Jordan Binnington and the power play are the Blues’ only hope of surviving

If it looked like the Blues were holding on for dear life Tuesday against the Avalanche, well, it wasn’t entirely unexpected. St. Louis entered the playoffs as one of the league’s hottest teams, despite appearing to benefit from unsustainably hot shooting, an excellent power play and a goaltending tandem that is perhaps the envy of the league. The latter parts are still applicable, as Jordan Binnington took the starter’s job back from Ville Husso after Game 4 of the first round, while St. Louis has converted on 33.3 percent of its power play attempts thus far. If St. Louis is to upset Colorado, it’ll need its powerplay and goaltending to reach another level, which is a Herculean task.

By the eye test and every metric imaginable, Colorado crushed St. Louis in Game 1. Colorado generated 54 shots on 106 — yes, 106 — shot attempts in all situations, as Jordan Binnington played his best game of the season in a losing effort, making 51 stops. St. Louis did score on the power play as well: Jordan Kyrou took advantage of an awful Avalanche line change, charged into the zone, pulled off a sweet toe-drag and equalized the game in the third period.

Kyrou’s goal only provided temporary reprieve for the Blues, who were outchanced 17-2 in the extra frame until Josh Manson’s seeing-eye shot from the point ended the contest. It was a fair result, and the Blues really have one real adjustment as far I can see: they can go back to Ville Husso for a momentum boost, as he was excellent during the regular season, but that would make little sense at this juncture considering how well Binnington played Tuesday.

It’s going to be a long series for the Blues at this rate. They played into their strengths and illustrated what their regular-season profile indicated: a team that relies on hot goaltending and a searing power play could be in deep trouble if they cannot keep up at 5-on-5.

The Battle of Alberta has turned into a gunfight, much to Edmonton’s chagrin.

For all the reverence of the 1980s rivalry, Wednesday’s Game 1 provided more goals than any games played between the Flames and Oilers in their iconic 1984, 1986 or 1988 series. You’d expect teams with high-end offensive profiles like the Flames and Oilers (eighth in shot attempts, seventh in goals for in all situations) to get into a shootout, but few could’ve expected a 15-goal barnburner and if the series continues this way, advantage, Flames, who skated away with a 9-6 victory.

Mike Smith was dreadful for the Oilers in Game 1, surrendering two goals in 51 seconds. Mikko Koskinen stepped in and through 53 minutes, didn’t fare much better. After Wednesday’s nightmare, Smith still boasts a .930 save percentage throughout the playoffs and he simply has to be better. Koskinen isn’t a playoff-caliber goaltender it’s like inserting a middle reliever to pitch seven innings without warning. He will get lit up with aplomb.

Although Edmonton tried several adjustments, it had no answer for the Matthew Tkachuk-Elias Lindholm-Johnny Gaudreau line, who outshot their opponents 15-7 at 5-on-5, while Tkachuk scored a hat-trick to cap off a dominant performance. Calgary ran its scheduled forward lines without any in-game changes and though it blew a four-goal lead, there was lots of room for optimism. Jacob Markstrom played what’s almost certainly going to be his worst game of the postseason, Blake Coleman was an all-around menace as his playoff reputation suggests while chipping in with two goals, and they completely neutralized Edmonton’s two superstars.

It’s cruel to suggest that Connor McDavid should be doing more as he submitted the quietest four-point evening you’ll ever see, but he was outchanced 28-17 when he was on the ice at 5-on-5 and 32-24 in all situations. McDavid did try to disrupt the Flames physically with four hits, but his genuine lack of attention to detail on the defensive side is becoming more than a well-worn trope at this point.

Leon Draisaitl was also outchanced 27-19 in all scenarios and they’re going to have to be the two best offensive players in the series for the Oilers to mount a genuine comeback. Edmonton can perhaps make up the vast differences at 5-on-5 through its powerplay, but it was completely lifeless through four attempts on the man advantage.

As for suppressing the Flames’ shot onslaught, well, the Oilers may be toast on the defensive end. Darnell Nurse, Tyson Barrie, Duncan Keith and Cody Ceci were brutal throughout the game, failing to suppress shots in any meaningful way, contributed nothing offensively, and showed zero positional awareness. There was always the fear the Oilers lacking a true top pairing would come back to haunt them in the postseason, the investment in the over-the-hill Keith with the idea that his playoff pedigree would matter above all was a faulty bet, and there’s no help in sight.

Edmonton operated throughout the season under the premise that it could outscore its opponents at will, Smith would be just good enough to propel the team into genuine contention and despite its lack of a shutdown defensive center or a true top-caliber defense pairing, the run-and-gun style would prove to be overwhelming. The Oilers got beat at their own game, they have no answer for the Flames’ top-six, Nurse played the worst game of his career, and unless McDavid, Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins commit to both ends, the Battle of Alberta will be a one-sided sparring.

*All advanced stats from Natural Stat Trick unless noted otherwise

More from Yahoo Sports