With a salary cap comes parity. With parity comes tighter competition. And in the NHL’s ongoing playoffs, the margins for victory have — in nearly every game — been predictably slim. When the games are as close as they’ve been, two elements — goaltending and coaching — play a disproportionately large role in the outcomes. And when those two elements combine, the effect can be seismic.

Heading into his Thrashers’ first round series, Atlanta head coach Bob Hartley appeared to have had a huge edge over Rangers coach Tom Renney. For while Renney’s only postseason head coaching experience came in last year’s sweep at the hands of the Devils, Hartley was at the helm for a Colorado Avalanche team that reached the Western Conference Finals four years in a row (and won the Stanley Cup in 2001).

But instead, it was Hartley whose inexperience showed. While with the Avalanche, Hartley was able to depend upon Patrick Roy, one of the greatest netminders in league history. And because Roy’s place in the lineup was a foregone conclusion, he provided Hartley with uncommon stability at hockey’s most critical position.

With the Thrashers this spring, Hartley faced what was — for him — a very new challenge. He was forced to choose between young franchise netminder Kari Lehtonen and journeyman Johan Hedberg. Lehtonen is, without question, one of the brightest young goaltending talents in the NHL, while Hedberg (who enjoyed a great run of success between the pipes for the 2001 Penguins) is a solid second option.

Not surprisingly, Lehtonen struggled a bit in Game 1 — his first-ever experience with the NHL playoffs — but he was by no means the sole reason the Thrashers fell to the Blueshirts. Still, Hartley felt a coaching change was necessary and went with Hedberg in Game 2, thus risking Lehtonen’s confidence for the sake of giving his team the benefit of Hedberg’s postseason experience. The Thrashers lost again, with Hedberg performing admirably in defeat.

It was here that the wheels came off the Thrashers’ wagon. Rather than going with Hedberg for Game 3 at a volatile Madison Square Garden, Hartley made yet another switch, tossing Lehtonen to the wolves. And it took just 30 seconds for Michael Nylander to break in on an odd-man rush and open the scoring for what turned out to be a 7–0 drubbing, the only playoff game thus far whose outcome was never in doubt (only four of 31 games entering last night had been decided by more than two goals).

Without question, the Rangers’ performance throughout the series was stellar. But as much as the Blueshirts did to earn their victory, Hartley did to serve up the series on a silver platter, needlessly turning his seemingly solid goaltending tandem into a focal point of concern. Perhaps starting Lehtonen in Game 3 wasn’t as bad as then-Red Sox manager Grady Little’s failure to forcibly remove Pedro Martinez from the pitcher’s mound in Game 7 of their 2003 AL championship series against the Yankees, but it is certainly one of the decade’s most easily ridiculed coaching decisions.

Meanwhile, Tampa Bay Lightning head coach John Tortorella seems to have learned a valuable lesson in this regard. Tampa has failed thus far to find a suitable replacement for Nikolai Khabibulin, who left as a free agent after backstopping them to a Stanley Cup victory in 2004. Last spring, Tortorella essentially blamed netminder John Grahame for the Lightning ‘s failings, destroying his goalie’s confidence at what was without question the worst possible time.

This year, Tortorella has demonstrated newfound patience with Johan Holmqvist, a former Rangers farmhand who came out of nowhere to steal the starting job. With prospect Kari Ramo riding the bench and veteran Marc Denis a healthy scratch for the series’ first four games, it appears that Tortorella is prepared to win or lose the series with Holmqvist between the pipes.

Even after Holmqvist delivered a substandard performance in Game 1, Tortorella showed no lapse in confidence. As a result, while Hartley’s itchy trigger finger wreaked havoc on both his netminders, Tortorella’s patience paid huge dividends, as Holmqvist’s play improved from game to game. In fact, it could fairly be argued that he was never better than in Wednesday night’s overtime loss that knotted the series at 2–2.

Interestingly, on the other side of the ice, the Devils are managing to stay in this series despite receiving some uncommonly shaky goaltending from Martin Brodeur. Not only has he struggled to keep pace with the Lightning’s rapid-fire tictac-toe passing, but he’s surrendered some uncharacteristically bad goals as well.

Over the course of his storied career, Brodeur has never posted a goals-against-average higher than 2.82 in a single playoff year (and that came in a seven-game first round ouster at the hands of the Penguins). But though his numbers this spring (2.87 goals-against average, .884 save percentage) have been very un-Brodeur-like, the Devils have managed to hold serve through the series’ first four games.

Without question, the Lightning have frittered away a golden opportunity that likely won’t come again. And now that they’ve regained home-ice advantage, the Devils will probably emerge victorious in this first round series. But unless Brodeur turns things around and starts to again deliver lights-out performances, it’s difficult to imagine New Jersey going much further than round two.

Mr. Greenstein is the editor in chief of InsideHockey.com.