The NHL regular season has roughly a dozen games left for most teams, and the playoff picture in both conferences remains genuinely unresolved. Colorado and Dallas have clinched berths in the Western Conference, but everything else is still being decided. In the Eastern playoff, no team has clinched anything, and the race has turned into something that makes scoreboard watching unavoidable even for the players trying to ignore it.
Connor McDavid recently called the Pacific Division race a pillow fight. Nobody in the Eastern Conference would use that description for what is happening there.
The Eastern Conference Playoffs has become a war of attrition
Five spots remain in the Eastern Conference playoff field. Three of them, belonging to Carolina, Tampa Bay and Buffalo, look fairly secure. That leaves two wild-card positions being contested by seven teams that have collectively gone 52-29-17 since the Olympic break, a points percentage of .617. Two of those seven will miss the playoffs entirely, and either or both could finish with a point total that would have guaranteed a postseason spot in almost any other season.
The traditional benchmark for making the playoffs has long been 94 points. Only four teams in the salary cap era have reached 96 and been left out. Some of this year’s losers could approach or pass that mark.
Boston holds the first wild-card spot at 86 points. Ottawa sits in the second position at 85, and the New York Islanders are one point back at 85 but currently outside the top eight on a tiebreaker. Detroit is right behind at 84 points.
Ottawa has been the most impressive of the group since mid-January, going 15-3-2 over a stretch that started January 25 and carried the Senators from near the bottom of the conference back into contention. The Islanders own an advantage in home games remaining, playing eight of their final ten on home ice. Boston faces a demanding schedule with games against Minnesota, Columbus and Dallas still on the calendar.
The Senators, the Islanders and the Red Wings are all chasing the same two spots, and none of them can afford to drop games while waiting on the others to slip. Ottawa forward Lars Eller described the situation plainly: there is no cushion, and every game is a fight to stay in the race.
Unlikely runs have defined this season
The stories driving the Eastern race are not conventional. Buffalo spent the early months of the season in last place in the Atlantic Division. After general manager Kevyn Adams was fired in December and replaced by Jarmo Kekalainen, the Sabres went on a run that carried them from the bottom of the conference to first in the Atlantic by early March. They now sit at 96 points.
Columbus was last in the East on January 12. A coaching change from Dean Evason to Rick Bowness preceded a 19-3-4 stretch that lifted the Blue Jackets to second in the Metropolitan Division. Pittsburgh is third in the Metro at 86 points, locked in a tight race for that final guaranteed division berth.
The Western Conference Playoffs is closer than it looks
The Central Division is settled at the top. Colorado leads at 104 points, Dallas is second at 97, and Minnesota is third at 92. All three look secure.
The Pacific is where McDavid’s pillow fight comment applies. Anaheim leads the division at 84 points, just six ahead of Vegas in third. Edmonton sits in second at 79. Nine Eastern Conference teams currently have more points than the division leader in the Pacific.
The wild-card spots out West belong to Utah at 80 points and Nashville at 77. Los Angeles is three points back at 74, Seattle is at 72, and Winnipeg and San Jose are both at 70. Nashville has been playing well down the stretch and sits at a comfortable distance from the pack, but the Kings in particular have enough games remaining against Utah and Nashville to force their way back in with a strong finish.
What the final weeks will look like
The Eastern Conference regular season ends April 14 and 15. The West wraps April 16, and the playoffs begin April 18. That means the teams currently on the outside looking in have fewer than two weeks to resolve questions that have been building all season.
Several of those teams have already shown they can sustain runs under pressure. The question now is which ones can do it long enough.
