The NHL playoffs have gone off the deep end

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The Stanley Cup champions are gone. The best* regular-season team in history is gone. The Leafs won a series for the first time in a generation. And the odds of a Canadian team hoisting the Cup for the first time in three decades suddenly look quite a bit better. Let's untangle it all after a completely bonkers weekend in the NHL playoffs:

The Kraken slayed the Stanley Cup champs.

With the dynamite young trio of Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar and Mikko Rantanen leading the way, the Avalanche looked like a dynasty in the making as they buried everyone in their path to the Cup last year. The Avs lost some key supporting players in free agency and battled injuries throughout an unimpressive regular season, by their standards. But they still won the Central Division, and most expected them to flip the switch for the playoffs.

Instead, Colorado suffered a shocking first-round defeat to the Seattle Kraken as the second-year expansion franchise scored a 2-1 upset in Game 7 last night in Denver. After winning the first playoff series in its brief history, Seattle will face the Dallas Stars in the second round, starting Tuesday night.

The big, bad Bruins are out.

Whether they're really the greatest regular-season team ever is up for debate, but Boston did set the all-time NHL records for wins and points. If anyone could break the Presidents' Trophy curse (none of the past seven regular-season champs got past the second round), it was surely this playoff-tailored Bruins team that allowed the fewest goals in the league (by a mile) and finished second in goals scored. At the very