NHL Teams I'm Excited to See in the Postseason Hunt

The quest for the most lucrative prize in all of sports comes to a head with the end of the regular season on Saturday. The NHL Stanley Cup playoffs will narrow the field down to 16 teams. Granted, the current playoff format isn't the best. However, it's still an exciting time to be a hockey fan. Anyways, here are the NHL teams I'm excited to see in postseason contention.

• Dallas Stars (clinched postseason berth): The Stars can suffocate you with their backcheck, only allowing 2.43 goals a game (second-best in the NHL). They are also stingy on the penalty kill with an 82.4% success rate (6th in the NHL). Miro Heiskanen's arrival has kickstarted a quest for a second Stanley Cup in Big D.
• Carolina Hurricanes: These "bunch of jerks", as called by Don Cherry, are on the cusp of their first playoff appearance in a long time. Behind a stellar goaltending tandem and the emergence of Sebastian Aho, the Hurricanes are making hockey exciting in North Carolina.
• Tampa Bay Lightning (clinched President's Trophy): The Lightning fell short of the 1995-96 Red Wings record, but this team is still a force to be reckoned with. Any one of this team's lines can outscore and beat you and Andrei Vasilevskiy is a stellar goaltender.
• Vegas Golden Knights (clinched postseason berth): The Golden Knights' magical run last season was the start of something beautiful. Now with Max Pacioretty in tow, the Knights look to complete their quest for their first Stanley Cup in franchise history.
  
• Arizona Coyotes: The Coyotes may not make the postseason this year. However, they do have the groundwork to contend for the future. A weakened Pacific division could mean that the Coyotes make the postseason next year with the right moves (i.e. more scorers and puck-movers).
• New York Islanders (clinched postseason berth): With Barry Trotz manning the bench for the Islanders, it's possible for New York to make noise in the playoffs. It's also possible that the Islanders could make a further playoff push than ex-Islander John Tavares. Now that's something Islanders fans can go "YES, YES, YES" about!