I'll add a 4th possible contributing factor: "puck luck". Most agree that hockey is much more "variable" than other major sports, i.e., more-or-less "random" events can influence the outcome of a game more often. A hit post that a fraction of an inch difference would have gone in (or vice verse), a missed or bad call, a rut in the ice, a fluke bounce off an opponent, etc. Of the 8 games between the two teams so far this year, I believe all but 2 were extremely close, and could have gone either way. Four regular season games is not a huge sample size, a couple breaks could mean the difference between 0-4 and 1-3 or even 2-2. Given how close most of the games were, I wonder if some of that might have contributed to the actual end results?