The Stanley Cup playoffs are here and the Eye on Hockey staff is getting you ready for the first round with five things to know about every series.Here, we take a look at the Eastern Conference series between the and the , two of the best offensive teams in the league that each have one of the best players in the NHL. It should be a fast, exciting series, especially when one of these teams has a really difficult time preventing goals.1. is actually a great playoff performerAlex Ovechkin is currently the best goal scorer in the NHL and one of the best to ever play the game.And it still seems to never be enough to satisfy his harshest critics who are always looking for something -- anything, really -- to hold against him. It Paul Millsap Jersey 's almost always wrong. If you're for some reason working under the a sumtion that he doesn't come through in the postseason because his team has never won a Stanley Cup or advanced beyond the second round of the playoffs with him, well, that too is wrong. Among players that have appeared in at least 50 postseason games since 2007 Ovechkin is first in the NHL in goals per game (0.56 per game ... the second best player, Henrik Zetterberg, is only at 0.46), fourth in points per game (1.05) and first in shots per game (4.74).In other words: He is simply a great player, whether it is the regular season or postseason.2. The Islanders still give up too many goalsGoal prevention was a problem for the Islanders during the 2013-14 season and it played a major role in the team taking a step backwards in the standings and mi sing the postseason. The biggest culprit in their slide was the play of their goaltenders, a position that was never addre sed after it played a major role in their first round postseason exit the previous year. When they added this past summer it was believed that if they could simply get league average goaltending from him this season (after getting some of the worst goaltending in the league a year ago) it would have meant a 35-40 goal swing in their favor, even if they gave up a similar number of shots.They did just that, while Halak gave them the league average goaltending they needed. Sure enough, they surrendered 37 fewer goals to help them get back into the postseason.That's the good news.The bad news is they're still giving up too many goals and they are still having a difficult time holding on to leads, . The Islanders enter the postseason last among all teams in goals against and the penalty kill, and nobody else is really even close to them. That makes a first-round matchup against the Ovechkin and the Capitals' league-best power play pretty much the worst po sible matchup.3. The Islanders also score a lot of their ownSay this for the Islanders, they did their part this season to boost the NHL's league-wide goal scoring numbers. While they give up too many, they are also one of the best offensive teams in the league, finishing the season fourth in the league in goal scored with one of the deepest, fastest and most skilled forward groups in the league.Mikhail Grabovski has been a big lo s from a depth perspective, but they still have some great top-end talent with , the runner up for this year's Art Ro s Trophy, leading the way. But it's not just about him. They have seven different players this season with at least 40 points, a number that only two other teams in the playoffs (the and ) can match. What's great about their forward group is that general manager Garth Snow has done a fantastic job locking a lot of them up to long-term, team-friendly contracts (Tavares' deal might be the best in the NHL) while also having players like , and hit the NHL on their entry level contracts. Getting great value on the veterans and having cheap talent come through the pipeline allowed them to be active in free agency to plug other holes (Leddy, Boychuk, Halak Grabovski, Nikolai Kulemin) even if they had to overpay a little.It's a lot easier to swallow a slight overpay in free agency when your best player, and one of the best players in the league, is probably by about $3 or $4 million per year. 4. could be a huge lo s for the IslandersThis kind of goes back to point No. 2, but with defenseman Travis Hamonic a defense that couldn't afford to lose any key players has lost an important one. The Islanders with and , but it's a relatively thin group after that which has led to some of their goal prevention problems. Hamonic is probably the best of the bench after the top two guys while no player on the team averaged more ice-time per game than him. Torrey Craig Jersey 5. has been one of Washington's most underrated playersThis season the Capitals allowed 37 fewer goals than they did a year ago, going from a bottom-tier defensive team to one of the best in the NHL. There are a lot of reasons for this, from new coach Barry Trotz to an overseason overhaul of the blue line that saw them bring in the underrated and underappreciated Matt Niskanen and in free agency. They paid a steep price for both of them (perhaps too steep) but it's all played a significant role in turning the Capitals back into a playoff team and one that might have a chance to make some noise in the postseason.Another reason for the improvement defensively has been the play of starting goaltender Braden Holtby.Holtby set a career high with 71 starts, played more minutes than any other goalie in the league (which might be a small concern heading into the playoffs) and finished with the eighth best save percentage in the NHL. Given what happened this season with Carey Price, Devan Dubnyk and Andrew Hammond it was easy for pretty much every other goalie in the league to get lost in the shuffle but Holtby was right there this season at the top of the league, both due to his stellar play and his durability to stay in the lineup and be the Capitals' workhorse.
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