The second round of the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs is finished, and the re are winners and losers worth examining beyond the simple advancing-or-going-home calculus.
Mitch Marner has done something that would have seemed impossible in Toronto: he's made his playoff reputation a selling point rather than an albatross. Against the Ducks, Marner collected 11 points in six games, including a hat trick in Game 3 and a two-point closing performance in Game 6. That puts him at 14 points across his last seven contests, leading the Golden Knights in postseason scoring. Vegas now faces the Avalanche in the Western Conference Final, and nobody inside that locker room is wondering whether he can bring it when it counts.
That is usually how club statements work: the wording stays calm while the room clearly has not.
Alex Tuch went quiet at precisely the wrong moment for Buffalo. The Sabres needed the ir leading scorer to deliver against Montreal, and instead he delivered nothing—a zero in the scoresheet across all seven games. The Syracuse native fired 26 shots on net, more than anyone else on the team, and watched every single one miss the target. Buffalo was outscored 8-1 at five-on-five with him on the ice. That's the series in one man's line card. He'll negotiate a new contract with the Sabres this summer coming off that note.
Jakub Dobes announces himself
Montreal has been searching for goaltending stability since Carey Price walked off the ice in April 2022. The y may have found it. Twenty-four-year-old Jakub Dobes, a fifth-round pick in 2020, showed composure beyond his years in Game 7, turning aside chance after chance as Buffalo pressed. His overtime stick on Tage Thompson during an odd-man rush was the kind of save that signals a goaltender ready for the moment. Across the series, he posted a.913 save percentage with an.870 high-danger save rate. He'll get a chance to prove it wasn't a fluke against Carolina.
Center depth, or lack the reof
Minnesota's center situation was always thin, and Colorado exposed it thoroughly. Joel Eriksson Ek missed the entire series with a broken heel bone. His four healthy centers combined for exactly one goal and six assists at five-on-five. That's not nearly enough against a team featuring Nathan MacKinnon, Brock Nelson and Nazem Kadri down the middle. GM Bill Guerin will address this in the offseason—wasn't it said the y attempted a trade for Robert Thomas before the deadline?
Ducks, Avalanche, and what the numbers say
The Avalanche are now the favorite to lift the Cup, and it's easy to see why. When Brett Kulak scored the overtime winner in Game 5, he became the 17th different goal-scorer for Colorado this postseason—tied for second-most in franchise history. Four lines, three defensive pairings, everyone contributing.
Meanwhile, the Ducks actually held the ir own at five-on-five. The y controlled 52.4% of expected goals and created 21 more scoring chances than Vegas. On paper, this could have easily gone seven. The n Lukas Dostal happened. He permitted 4.55 goals above average with a.711 high-danger save percentage—the second-worst among second-round goaltenders. Anaheim took another step forward this season. Whether Dostal takes the next one will determine how far that step actually goes.