Pens open playoffs with trip to Long Island

Associated Press

Three of the top seven teams in the NHL are packed into a four-team murderers’ row playoff bracket and only one can reach the Eastern Conference final.

The Tampa Bay Lightning’s reward for finishing 21 points ahead of the rest of the league during the regular season is a first-round matchup against Artemi Panarin, Sergei Bobrovsky and the all-in Columbus Blue Jackets.

The Boston Bruins and Toronto Maple Leafs meet for the second consecutive year in the other Atlantic Division series.

It’s not much easier in the Metropolitan Division half of the East bracket where the defending Stanley Cup champion Washington Capitals face the Carolina Hurricanes, who just ended the league’s longest playoff drought, and Barry Trotz’s New York Islanders meet the 2016 and 2017 champion Pittsburgh Penguins.

“Every game’s going to be tough,” said Islanders center Valtteri Filppula, who faced Pittsburgh in the playoffs last year with Philadelphia. “It’d be pretty much the same [no matter] who we’d play, it would be tough games. Hopefully we can play well and get a good start at home and get the playoffs started the right way.”

For all the championships won by the Bruins, Penguins and Capitals over the past eight years, the East has plenty of fresh blood. The Islanders have home-ice advantage in the first round for the first time since 1988, the Hurricanes are in the playoffs for the first time since 2009 and the Blue Jackets are looking to win their first series in franchise history.

PENGUINS-ISLANDERS

Game 1 at New York is on Wednesday.

Nassau Coliseum will be rocking after the Islanders went from allowing the most goals in the league last season to the fewest this season and finished second in the Metropolitan Division. Trotz brought the structure that helped the Capitals win the Cup to Long Island, and goaltenders Robin Lehner and Thomas Greiss have been much improved.

Pittsburgh is still dangerous because of the high-end talent of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Phil Kessel.

“It starts with Sid,” Trotz said. “Sid’s still the standard.”