Canadiens Tie Atlantic
The Montreal Canadiens’ recent win pushed them to a tie atop the Atlantic Division at 102 points, a meaningful late‑season surge that reshapes playoff seeding scenarios. That tie creates immediate implications for who gets home advantage and which teams face tougher travel stretches in the first round. (x.com)
Montreal went from chasing a playoff spot to sharing first place in the Atlantic Division in one week, and the jump came after a 4-3 shootout win over the Florida Panthers on April 7, when Nick Suzuki tied the game with 20.1 seconds left and Cole Caufield scored the shootout winner. That result lifted the Canadiens to 102 points and pulled them even with the Buffalo Sabres and Tampa Bay Lightning at the top of the division. (nhl.com) That kind of tie matters because the National Hockey League does not seed the East from one to eight after the regular season. The top three teams in each division qualify automatically, and the team that finishes higher in the standings gets home ice in the first round and second round. (nhl.com) Home ice in hockey is not just a louder building. The home coach gets the last line change, which means Montreal can wait to see the other team’s forwards hit the ice and then send out the matchup it wants against them. (nhl.com) The Atlantic race got crowded fast because Montreal’s late push overlapped with Tampa Bay cooling off and Buffalo staying in front. On April 7, NHL coverage listed Montreal, Buffalo, and Tampa Bay all on 102 points with only a handful of games left. (usatoday.com) Montreal’s surge was not a fluke built on one lucky night. After the Panthers game, the Canadiens were 46-22-10 and had gone 9-1-0 in their previous 10 games, which is the kind of run that can erase a gap in the standings before anyone has time to adjust. (nhl.com, inplaymagazine.com) The next twist is the tiebreaker. In the National Hockey League, teams tied on points are separated first by regulation wins, which strips out overtime and shootout results and rewards teams that finish games in 60 minutes. (palmbeachpost.com) That rule can make 102 points feel very different from 102 points. A team that piled up extra shootout wins can look equal in the standings but still lose the division to a team that collected more regulation wins. (palmbeachpost.com) Who finishes first also changes the route immediately. The Atlantic winner opens at home against the first wild card or the lower Atlantic seed depending on how the bracket settles, while the second and third teams in the division are locked into playing each other right away. (nhl.com) That is why every point this late feels bigger than a normal April game. One shootout win over Florida did not just add two points to Montreal’s total; it shoved the Canadiens into a three-team fight where the prize is home games, cleaner matchups, and a shorter path through the first two rounds. (nhl.com, nhl.com)
