Playoff picture tightens fast
The NHL playoff field moved closer to final form as the Pittsburgh Penguins and Utah Mammoth clinched berths while the Colorado Avalanche secured the Presidents’ Trophy — a neat wrap of seeding storylines with only a handful of games left for many teams. Every club has five or fewer regular‑season games remaining, so standings and tiebreakers can still pivot quickly as teams jockey for matchups. (usatoday.com) (espn.com)
With three or four games left for most contenders, the National Hockey League standings have stopped being a long table and started looking like a traffic jam: on April 9, the Pittsburgh Penguins and Utah Mammoth grabbed playoff spots, and Colorado locked up the Presidents’ Trophy for the league’s best regular-season record. (nhl.com) (usatoday.com) Colorado is sitting on 112 points through 77 games, which put the Avalanche out of reach for every other team by late Thursday night and gave them home-ice advantage throughout the playoffs. Carolina is next in the East at 106 points, so the race for best-in-league is already over even though the schedule is not. (nhl.com) (dailyfaceoff.com) The Penguins did not just sneak in; they clinched second place in the Metropolitan Division with 96 points in 78 games, which means they are lined up for a first-round series against the Philadelphia Flyers, who hold third in the same division with 92 points. In the National Hockey League bracket, finishing second or third in your division matters more than a prettier overall record, because the first round is built inside each division. (nhl.com 1) (nhl.com 2) Utah’s clinch is the stranger and newer story because this is the first season the club has played under the Mammoth name, and the bracket now shows Utah in the first Western Conference wild-card spot. If the playoffs started today, that sends Utah straight into Colorado, the top seed in the West. (nhl.com 1) (nhl.com 2) That Western Conference wild-card line is still moving under Utah’s skates. Utah has 88 points in 77 games, Nashville has 84 in 78, and Los Angeles has 83 in 77, so one bad night can still change whether Utah opens as the first wild card or gets dragged back into the chase. (nhl.com) The Pacific Division is even tighter at the top than the wild-card race below it. Edmonton has 90 points, Vegas has 88, and Anaheim has 87, which means the difference between a division title and a road-heavy first round is basically one weekend. (nhl.com) The Eastern Conference bubble is a five-team knife fight for two spots. Ottawa holds the second wild card at 92 points, but Columbus is at 90, and Detroit, the New York Islanders, and Washington are all sitting at 89. (nhl.com) (espn.com) That is why the tiebreaker columns suddenly matter as much as the points column. The National Hockey League breaks ties first by points percentage if teams have played different numbers of games, then by regulation wins, then by regulation-and-overtime wins, then by total wins before it gets to head-to-head points. (nhl.com) You can see that pressure all over the current table. Boston and Pittsburgh are tied on 96 points, but Pittsburgh owns second in the Metropolitan Division while Boston sits in the first Eastern wild card because they are chasing different divisional races, and Ottawa’s 35 regulation wins give it a sturdier grip on the last berth than its two-point lead alone suggests. (nhl.com 1) (nhl.com 2) If nothing changes from the April 9 standings, the first round opens with Buffalo against Boston, Tampa Bay against Montreal, Carolina against Ottawa, and Pittsburgh against Philadelphia in the East. In the West, it would be Colorado against Nashville, Dallas against Minnesota, Edmonton against Utah, and Vegas against Anaheim. (nhl.com) The odd part of the final week is that almost every team is now playing two races at once. One race is to qualify at all, and the other is to avoid drawing Colorado, Carolina, or another division winner that has spent six months stockpiling points. (nhl.com)
