We’re heading to the second round of the NHL playoffs, and I have two questions.

1. Is Florida Atlantic’s goaltending good enough to hold up against the Toronto Maple Leafs?

2. Are Fairleigh Dickson’s second and third lines deep enough to handle the Dallas Stars?

Because the NHL postseason is living in an NCAA Basketball Tournament kind of reality right now.

Part of the magic and allure of the NCAA Tournament is when the Cinderella teams knock off the top seeds. Everybody loves rooting for the underdog in those scenarios.

Until the second weekend when your bracket is busted, and the Sweet 16 is featuring a bunch of players you really don’t know from schools you had never heard of before March Madness began.

This year’s tournament was a pretty good example of that, as No. 1 seed Purdue was stunned by Fairleigh Dickinson in the first round in Columbus. That resulted in a less than star-studded second-round showdown between FDU and Florida Atlantic, which FAU won. Then the Owls proceeded to survive and advance all the way to the Final Four.

Not that they weren’t deserving. The little-known Owls won four games in a row. No one else in their region did. Period. Cut down the nets.

But when the gates opened at the Final Four in Houston this year, no one better than a No. 4 seed was in it. UConn is historically a blueblood, sure. And Miami plays in a big-time conference. Yet, they weren’t favored by many to escape their regions. In the meantime, the other side of the bracket featured San Diego State and FAU. Two strong programs, just not a lot of cachet.

According to Anthony Crupi of Sportico, the Final Four on CBS averaged 12.276M viewers on CBS, down 16% from last year’s numbers.

The NHL may be dealing with some of that same phenomenon this year. Everybody was really engaged in watching the eighth-seeded Florida Panthers shock the Boston Bruins by eliminating them in a seven-game first-round series. After all, the Bruins were the biggest story in hockey entering the postseason, having set the NHL wins and points record in the regular season.

Now they are done. Everyone likes to see Goliath fall until they realize he can’t get back in the fight for the next round.

Similarly, out west, the defending Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche were just upset as the top seed from the Central Division by a second-year expansion franchise in the Seattle Kraken.

That’s a great story. For one round.

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But now the defending Cup champs are gone, and a franchise that wasn’t playing two years ago is in Round 2 against Dallas in what could’ve been an absolute slugfest if the Avs had advanced.

Maybe it still will be with Seattle playing the Stars instead. I just hope enough people watch to find out.

Even look at a series like the Devils-Rangers affair that went seven games. New Jersey was a worthy winner with a 4-0 victory to close it out — as the team with the better seed, by the way.

Yet given the star power of the Rangers and the attention that always swirls around any team from Manhattan, it still strangely feels like an upset. Maybe that’s because the Devils are a talented but young roster. Plus, the franchise hadn’t been to the second round since 2012.

Also, factor in that some traditional hockey markets in America — Pittsburgh, Washington, Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago and St. Louis — were left out of the playoffs this year. That doesn’t help, either. Stars such as Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin missed the postseason together for the first time since 2014 and just the second time since 2007. For Crosby and fellow future Hall of Fame teammate Evgeni Malkin, their Penguins missed the playoffs for the first time since 2006.

I’m sure no one is complaining in Canada. The Leafs are onto Round 2 for the first time since 2004, and the Edmonton Oilers — with superstar attraction Connor McDavid — are still alive. So maybe any concerns about the appeal of the bracket moving forward are being tamped down in the sport’s most engaged country. But I bet you’ll see repercussions here in the U.S.

Not to mention Toronto’s victim was the three-time defending Eastern Conference Champion Tampa Bay Lightning.

Initial television ratings for the playoffs appeared to be pretty good. For instance, Sports Media Watch reported that last Saturday’s Devils-Rangers first-round Game 3 averaged a 0.8 rating and 1.61 million viewers on ABC. That was the most watched first-round Game 3 since Penguins-Flyers on NBC in 2018 (2.29M).

With two of the three New York teams now eliminated, along with teams in the Boston, Los Angeles and Denver markets, let’s see how long those numbers sustain.

Another storyline that the NHL is going to have to overcome is the NHL itself. Regardless of how good or bad the quality of plays was in the first round, most of the conversation on a nightly basis seemed to be about which dirty hits from which games were going to be suspendible and which victims of said hits were going to have to miss time as a result.

Not exactly the easiest angle of the sport to sell.

Regardless, I bet Fairleigh Dickson gives it a good effort, but I’m still picking Dallas in six.

Brian Metzer joins Tim Benz to discuss the NHL playoffs, Jacob Trouba’s latest hit, and the Penguins’ search for a general manager.

Listen: Tim Benz and Brian Metzer talk NHL playoffs, Penguins’ GM search

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