There are still a few regular season games to be played tonight, but they won’t have any effect on the NHL standings.
That means the playoff bracket is officially set ahead of the 2025 post-season, which will get underway this weekend.
Five Canadian teams made the dance and are hoping to end the country’s 32-year Stanley Cup drought.
The Vancouver Canucks and Calgary Flames both fell short of the post-season, finishing with the two highest point totals out of all non-playoff teams.
Here’s a look at how the first round of the NHL playoffs shapes up:
Western Conference
The Winnipeg Jets won the Central Division, and the Presidents’ Trophy as the league’s top regular season team, and will take on the St. Louis Blues in the opening round. The Blues were one of the league’s best teams after the 4 Nations break and earned the second wildcard spot.
One of the most intriguing matchups is the 2v3 battle in the Central, which will see the struggling Dallas Stars taking on the Colorado Avalanche. While the Stars have home-ice advantage, they’re dealing with injuries and are actually the underdog against a healthy Avs team that just got captain Gabriel Landeskog back after a three-year absence.
In the Pacific, the Vegas Golden Knights won the division crown with 110 points and will go up against the top wildcard seed in the Minnesota Wild. The perennial contenders from Vegas aren’t getting as much hype as previous years, but are still poised to make a run. They’ll have their hands full with the Wild, however, who are just getting healthy with the return of Kirill Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson Ek.
The 2v3 matchup in the Pacific will see the Los Angeles Kings and Edmonton Oilers go head-to-head for the fourth straight playoffs. The Oilers have won each of the last three, but the Kings have home-ice advantage this time around and have been nothing short of elite at Crypto.com Arena this season.
Eastern Conference
There’s no shortage of excitement for the Atlantic Division matchups this year, especially for Canadian fans who will get to see the Battle of Ontario for the first time in more than 20 years. The Leafs are Atlantic Division champions for the first time, while the Sens rode a hot second half into the top wildcard spot in the East.
The other Atlantic matchup is the Battle of Florida, which will see the defending Stanley Cup champion Panthers take on the back-to-back champs in 2020 and 2021 in the Lightning. Tampa Bay has home ice advantage, but Florida is getting Matthew Tkachuk back just in time for what should be a heated series.
Over the Metropolitan Division, the top team in the east, the Washington Capitals, will take on the young and exciting Montreal Canadiens in the first round. Montreal earned the final playoff spot in the league with a win over the Carolina Hurricanes on Wednesday and will be looking to upset Alexander Ovechkin and the Caps.
And the final matchup will see the Hurricanes take on the New Jersey Devils, who will be without superstar Jack Hughes after a season-ending injury in early March. The Devils have been a bit of a forgotten-about team since then, but are getting blue liner Dougie Hamilton into the lineup for round one. The Hurricanes, on the other hand, will hope to finally overcome some playoff demons with a long post-season run.
The Jets-Blues and Stars-Avalanche series will start on Saturday. The Hurricanes-Devils, Maple Leafs-Senators and Golden Knights-Wild series kick off on Sunday. Then the Capitals-Canadiens and Kings-Oilers series begin on Monday before the Lightning-Panthers matchup is the final series to get underway on Tuesday.
If you’re looking to wager on the playoffs, the BCLC’s PlayNow has the Stars and Jets as the co-favourites at +650 (a $10 bet would return your original wager plus $65).
The Oilers and Jets are the top Canadian teams odds-wise at +900, with the Leafs at +1200, the Senators at +3500 and the Canadiens as the biggest underdog at +9000.
Thumbnail photo courtesy of NHL.com.
