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The Oilers-Canucks series provides Canada with its last hope to break the country's Stanley Cup drought.

Despite a 4-0 regular-season sweep over the Oilers that effectively won them the Pacific Division and earned them home-ice advantage, the Canucks are underdogs to the Oilers (like the Rangers in their series with the Hurricanes).

Edmonton's elite offense is more attractive to bettors, and the Oilers are rightly perceived as the more legitimate contender after five straight trips to the playoffs during the Connor McDavid era. But anything can happen in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, especially with the X-factors this series provides.

Let's continue to use the tools we've sharpened leading up to the postseason (even-strength play, skating talent, goaltending) to break it all down.

Advanced metrics glossary

• ES = Even strength
• xG% = Expected goals share
• HDCA/G = High-danger chances allowed per game
• GSAx/60 = Goals saved above expected per 60 minutes
• SNIPES = HDC goals + PP goals / HDC + PP chances

Oilers vs. Canucks

Tale of the tape

Converting scoring changes at a high rate and having above-average goaltending are crucial ingredients to playoff success. Let's look at predictive metrics for those two elements.

Skaters' scoring talent

Breaking the recipe for SNIPES down further, the Oilers' power play is the headliner. Edmonton figuratively giggled at Los Angeles' second-ranked regular-season penalty kill, going 9-for-20 in the first round.

The Predators scored on their first man advantage of the series, but the Canucks allowed one power-play goal the rest of the way (the semi-controversial tying goal in Game 5). Vancouver "limited" the Oilers to 25% in four regular-season games.

Goaltending matchup

There's a lot to unpack with goaltending in this series.

Stuart Skinner stole a pivotal Game 4 against the Kings, saving 2.6 goals above expected. That performance came despite largely mediocre play, as evidenced by his minus-0.13 GSAx for the series. Given the choice, the Oilers may take one win per series that's entirely attributed to their goalie, trusting their offense to win the other three.

Then there are the Canucks, who had three goalies register a win over the Predators, including rookie Arturs Silovs' shutout in Game 6 in Nashville (3.39 GSAx). Silovs has earned the first game against Edmonton, with the possibility of Thatcher Demko (the most reliable goaltender on either side) returning at any point still uncertain.

Team ratings

Oddsmakers create moneylines based on a numerical valuation of every team. Here's the market's most recent valuation compared to how I have them rated (based on the metrics above) for the full season and post-All-Star break:

Vancouver rated 6% above Nashville - considered an average NHL team - in Round 1. Meanwhile, the Oilers were 50-50 with the Kings at even strength, suggesting they were on par with a team rated 15% above average.

Best bet

Here are prices that would be considered valuable for each team on the road, at home, and to win the series.

You'll notice that odds in the betting market fall within the parameters of these valuable prices to bet, meaning the series and Game 1 are fairly priced, especially if you apply a small downgrade to Vancouver for not having Demko. At +220, theScore Bet offers odds long enough to back the Canucks as underdogs.

If it's Silovs versus Skinner, both have shown holes and the capability to steal a game. Rick Tocchet will drill into Vancouver that taking penalties isn't an option (though getting 37% of the power plays in Round 1 with over 50% of the even-strength expected goals was unusual).

What isn't likely to be discussed much leading up to Tuesday's Game 1 is the Canucks' 3-for-54 even-strength high-danger chance conversion rate against Nashville. Nine HDC per game is a fine average, but converting at 5.5% is an outlier, personified by Elias Pettersson's struggles.

Edmonton's surely a Stanley Cup contender, but not because of its defensive acumen. If Vancouver can convert HDCs at its usual rate (14%), four more goals may be at its disposal. And if Vancouver can kill a modest 75% of Edmonton power plays, that's four fewer goals for Edmonton, and an upset seems more palatable.

Of course, just because there's a valuable number available on the underdog doesn't mean you have to take the bet. However, its existence means there's value in derivative markets. I have the Canucks at -104 to cover a +1.5 series game line, so finding a plus price in that market is the conservative way to attack.

Best bet: Canucks +1.5 games (+115)

(Stats sources: Natural Stat Trick, Evolving-Hockey)

Matt Russell is the lead betting analyst for theScore. If there's a bad beat to be had, Matt will find it. Find him on social media @mrussauthentic.

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Florida Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov, Toronto Maple Leafs center Auston Matthews, and Carolina Hurricanes veteran Jordan Staal were named the finalists for the Frank J. Selke Trophy on Sunday.

The Selke Trophy is awarded "to the forward who best excels in the defensive aspects of the game," as voted on by members of the Professional Hockey Writers Association at the end of the regular season.

Barkov is the favorite to take home the honor after leading all full-time NHL centers in Evolving-Hockey's defensive goals above replacement in 2023-24. He won the award in 2021 and has been a finalist three times.

The 6-foot-3 Finn was a major reason the Panthers tied for the league lead in goals-against per game. While Barkov was on the ice at even strength, the puck was in the defensive zone just 35.3% of the time, which ranks in the 97th percentile of NHL skaters, per NHL EDGE tracking data.

This marks Matthews' first time as a Selke finalist after regularly contributing to the penalty kill this campaign for the first time in his career. He ranked fourth among full-time centers in defensive goals above replacement, second among NHL skaters with 85 takeaways, and tied for second among forwards with 93 blocked shots.

Matthews may need a bigger trophy case, as he also won the Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy by leading the league with 69 goals and is nominated for the Lady Byng Trophy. Matthews is the first player to win the "Rocket" and be nominated for the Selke in the same season. He's also expected to be a Hart Trophy finalist.

Staal has long received down-ballot Selke votes, but this is the 35-year-old's first time being a finalist since his age-21 season in 2009-10 with the Pittsburgh Penguins. That 14-year gap is the longest in NHL history for a voted award.

The rugged veteran was a key cog in Carolina's No. 1-ranked penalty kill, logging the most shorthanded minutes of the team's forwards. Staal also ranked sixth among full-time centers in defensive goals above replacement and fourth in faceoff percentage among players who took at least 1,000 draws this campaign. He took the ninth-most defensive zone draws in the NHL but ranked second among all skaters in five-on-five shot-attempt percentage.

Future Hall of Famer Patrice Bergeron won the Selke for a record sixth time in 2023.

The 2024 winner is expected to be announced on June 27.

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The Winnipeg Jets had an excellent regular season. They had 46 regulation wins, more than any team in the National Hockey League. Even with the statistical noise of loser points, the Jets finished with the second-best point total in the Western Conference, at a cool 110.

For this, they were granted a first-round matchup against the 109-point Colorado Avalanche, who carpet-bombed them into oblivion. (Technically a 4-1 series loss.)

The Carolina Hurricanes also had an excellent regular season. They racked up 111 points, had the most regulation wins in the Eastern Conference at 44, and perhaps most impressively, played before sold-out crowds all season in a place that's been a wasteland at various points in its NHL life. Great job, Canes.

For this, even after dusting off the New York Islanders in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Hurricanes have been granted a second-round date with the New York Rangers, the only team in the East that finished above them in the regular season.

Welcome, again, to the NHL's incredibly frustrating divisional playoff format. It's one of the dumbest things the league continues to abide by - and this is the same NHL that for years insisted everything was going tickety-boo with the Arizona Coyotes.

Every spring, the divisional format spits out unfair pairings. Fairness is, admittedly, a fuzzy concept in professional sports, but in this case, it refers to the idea that the NHL regular season has meaning beyond simply being an 82-game dress rehearsal for the restart of the playoffs. Teams that perform well over that six-month slog should earn a decided edge in the initial playoff rounds. The NHL even acknowledges this to a point, giving the four division winners first-round matchups against the four wild-card teams. But instead of seeding the conferences one through eight, the second- and third-place teams in each division are paired.

Leaving aside the problematic instances when wild-card teams have more points than playoff teams in weaker divisions, the system really falls apart when one division is decidedly stronger than the other, which happens often. This year's Central has three teams with more points than any team in the Pacific other than the Canucks. The Metropolitan's two top teams, the Rangers and Hurricanes, had more points than any Atlantic team. This is how you end up with the Jets stuck against the Avalanche instead of a softer matchup against the Predators or Kings. The Oilers, six points back of Winnipeg in the West and with seven fewer regulation wins, end up paired with the 99-point Kings and brush them aside without much fuss.

This inequity would be easier to understand if there were some kind of benefit to it. The NHL thinks there is, with commissioner Gary Bettman insisting whenever he's asked about it that the league wants to preserve regional matchups in the early rounds to take advantage of classic rivalries. But that rarely happens. Three of the four divisions are geographically immense, meaning the system is just as likely to result in a pairing of teams that have nothing approaching a regional rivalry.

Edmonton has now played Los Angeles in three straight playoff seasons. They're about 30 hours apart by car, maybe a bit less if you really pin it. The Maple Leafs have been stuck trying to crawl out of the Atlantic Division, hockey's version of the deep and difficult American League East, which often matches them against a Florida-based team that has no rivalry with Toronto unless it involves tourists adding to the lines at Walt Disney World.

There's also the unintended consequence of the divisional playoff format, which is that it sucks the life out of what could be frenzied jockeying for postseason seeding as the regular season draws to a close. If one team jumps out to a big division lead, the next two can know by January that they're likely playoff opponents. Instead of a playoff picture full of uncertainty until the final days of the regular season, most of the pairings become evident weeks earlier.

It's not like any of this is new or unexpected. Other than the blip of the COVID season, this format has been around since 2013-14. Its problems have been evident for a decade. The solution is dead simple: Seed teams one through eight, then reseed after each round. The best regular-season teams get the easiest path. The teams that just sneak through as the 8-seeds have to play tougher opponents as they progress. Don't like it? Don't finish eighth.

Of course, that potential solution has been sitting there for a decade, too. And it's not like it's an alien concept: the NHL has used conference-wide seeding and reseeding before. Despite the flaws of the current system, it just refuses to go back to that format now.

It can be stubborn, this league. But one can hope. It did eventually come around on the Arizona thing, after all.

Scott Stinson is a contributing writer for theScore.

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