A new champion will be crowned thanks to San Jose’s elimination, and there’ll be no Cinderella stories these playoffs, as the top two seeds in the Plante and Sawchuk all move on to the conference finals.

(1) El Dorado Lynx (50-19-13) vs. (2) Charleston Chiefs (48-25-9)

Head-to-head record: CHA won 3-1-2
Top scorers:
EDH: O’Reilly (82, 31-54-85), Nylander (82, 35-49-84), Keller (77, 46-30-76), Kempe (77, 25-46-71)
CHA: McCann (80, 43-64-107), Point (81, 43-51-94), Boeser (81, 44-44-88), Mittelstadt (80, 19-45-64)
Goaltenders:
EDH: Bobrovsky (58, 2.90, .909), Quick (24, 3.05, .905)
CHA: Georgiev (36, 3.23, .896), Stolarz (27, 2.49, .927), Grubauer (19, 2.88, .900)

The Plante Conference’s top two seeds both made it through their first round matchups but you wouldn’t call either series a cakewalk as El Dorado took out Baltimore in 7 while Charleston ousted Pittsburgh in 6. There’s plenty of intrigue heading into this conference final.

The Lynx had the better overall record, yet the Chiefs won the season series, taking all three games at home (and scoring 18 goals along the way) and managing a couple of road ties. Charleston’s special teams were better than the Lynx’s, and while the Chiefs’ roster definitely lacks El Dorado’s excellent forward depth, it’s shown it has no trouble scoring. The Chiefs’ Adam Fox had 7 points in 6 games against Pittsburgh, and the Lynx don’t have a weapon like that on the back end, a couple of clutch goals from John Marino notwithstanding. William Nylander leads El Dorado in scoring so far this postseason, with 7 goals and 12 points. Shockingly, Alex Ovechkin has yet to record a goal.

As in the last round, Charleston will likely deploy Anthony Stolarz early in the hopes of getting a cushion in the series, then go to Philipp Grubauer. Stolarz was definitely better in his playoff appearances (.938 in three games), but Grubauer still managed to get the job done. Still, he’s a big step down from Sergei Bobrovksy, who overcame some tougher games to finish the last series strong and represents El Dorado’s single biggest edge in this series.

(1) Adirondack Aces (59-14-9) vs. (2) Farmington Fighting Saints (51-27-4)

Head-to-head record: ADI won 5-1-0
Top scorers:
ADI: Kreider (82, 61-57-118), Kaprizov (75, 43-70-113), Karlsson (70, 41-58-99), Hintz (80, 36-61-97)
FFS: Miller (81, 75-74-149), Rantanen (80, 40-88-128), Fiala (82, 51-69-120), Toews (82, 16-58-74)
Goaltenders:
ADI: Varlamov (27, 2.80, .921), Tarasov (22, 2.85, .908), DeSmith (17, 3.45, .890), Soderblom (16, 3.26, .880)
FFS: Lindgren (33, 3.50, .898), Thompson (29, 3.26, .894), Samsonov (20, 3.69, .896)

Are the Adirondack Aces stoppable? After an eye-opening regular season, which saw them score a ridiculous 436 goals — 5.3 per game — the Aces swept Boston and now only the Farmington Fighting Saints stand between them and a berth in the Atkinson Cup Final.

It says a lot about the greatness of the Aces’ season that they finished 21 points ahead of Farmington, since the Saints had an excellent season of their own, driven by league points leader JT Miller. Miller and his line with Kevin Fiala and Mikko Rantanen were huge in their win over defending champ San Jose, with Miller and Fiala each scoring 8 points in the deciding game alone. The Aces and Saints both have top-flight scoring depth, but shutting down that Miller/Fiala/Rantanen line, which has combined for 53 points so far in these playoffs, has got to be Adirondack’s #1 priority.

The Aces dominated the season series, with Farmington managing a 4-1 road win in the second quarter, but that’s not to say the Saints have no chance in this series. Adirondack will be forced to use a goalie platoon, and which they were able to outscore Casey DeSmith’s very shaky play (.864) in his two starts in the last round, there’s opening there to steal a couple of games. And while the Aces swept BOston, two of those wins came in OT — that series could easily have looked very different.