The Eastern Conference Playoff Race Is a Bloodbath

Four teams at 83-84 points. Two more right behind them. Three playoff spots. And the team with the best analytics profile on the bubble isn't even in a playoff spot right now.

It's a mess in the best possible way. The top of the conference is mostly settled, but the fight for the final three spots is producing the kind of chaos that makes the last three weeks of the regular season worth watching every single night.

So where does it all stand?

 

Carolina and Buffalo are locked in at the top. Tampa is safe despite playing terrible hockey lately. Everything else is a fight.

#The top is settled. The middle is chaos.

Carolina at 94 points has been the best team in the East for months. Sebastian Aho is one point from his third consecutive 70-point season, and their defensive structure grades out near the top of the league all year. Not much more to say. They're in, and they'll have home ice.

Buffalo at 92 points is the best story in hockey right now. Since December 9, the Sabres have gone 32-6-2. That's not a hot streak. That's a team that flipped a switch and became one of the best in the league. Tage Thompson put up 15 points in 11 games during that surge. Alex Lyon posted 10 consecutive road wins, becoming just the fifth goalie in NHL history to hit that mark. A top-five penalty kill at 82.9% is the kind of thing that holds up in April. This team is real.

Tampa Bay at 88 points should be comfortable, but they're going 3-7-0 in their last 10 and the cracks are showing. Vasilevskiy posted a .925 save percentage during a 17-0-1 stretch earlier in the season. Now the team around him is sputtering. Their 46.9% expected goal share confirms this isn't bad luck. They're genuinely getting outplayed.

The good news for Tampa: the points cushion is big enough that they'll be fine. The bad news: if they carry this form into the playoffs, the first round will be short.

#The wild card bloodbath: 84-83 points

Five teams between 83 and 84 points. Three playoff spots available (Atlantic 3rd, plus two wild cards). Someone is going home. Probably two someones.

MTL, PIT, BOS, DET all at 84 pts. CBJ, NYI at 83. Six teams, three spots, two weeks left.

#Montreal Canadiens (84 pts, A3)

Montreal holds the third Atlantic spot right now, but only by tiebreaker over Boston and Detroit. All three sit at 84 points. Games in hand help, but one two-game losing streak and they could drop from third in their division to ninth in the conference.

Ivan Demidov is putting together a rookie season that has him in the Calder conversation. 46 points through 55 games, tied near the top of the freshman class. The young core is delivering, and that's what Montreal needed this year. Not a deep playoff run necessarily, but proof that the rebuild is working on schedule.

#Pittsburgh Penguins (84 pts, M2)

Pittsburgh was supposed to be rebuilding. Instead, Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin decided they had other plans.

They blew past their preseason over/under of 77.5 points weeks ago. Rough patches? Sure, including an eight-game losing streak. But they keep finding ways to stay in it. Crosby just returned from a lower-body injury he picked up in the Olympic quarterfinals against Czechia and scored in his first game back.

The catch: a 48.3% expected goals share says they're getting outplayed at 5-on-5 more often than not. The point total is running ahead of the underlying play, and that kind of gap usually closes over the final 15 games.

But Crosby has been closing those gaps for 20 years. Betting against him in a playoff push feels wrong even when the numbers suggest it.

#Boston Bruins (84 pts, WC1)

Boston currently holds the first wild card spot, but they have the toughest remaining schedule in the NHL.

Their road record is 12-14-7, the worst among any team still in the playoff picture. Remaining schedule loaded with quality opponents plus an inability to win on the road? That math gets ugly fast.

Underlying numbers aren't great either. Beyond Pastrnak and a few key contributors, the forward depth thins out quickly. If the top line goes cold, there's not much behind it.

#Detroit Red Wings (84 pts, WC2)

Detroit might be the most confusing team on the bubble. Top-6 in the league in 5-on-5 expected goals percentage. By the numbers, they should be comfortably in a playoff spot.

Instead, they rank 26th in actual goals scored. The gap between expected and actual production is enormous. Detroit is creating quality chances at an elite rate and just not finishing them. That usually corrects over time, but "over time" might not include the 13 games they have left.

Losing Dylan Larkin to a lower-body injury makes everything harder. He went down right around the trade deadline, and the offense has felt it. They added Justin Faulk from St. Louis to shore up the blue line, but losing your captain and top center during a playoff push can sink a season.

#Columbus Blue Jackets (83 pts, first out)

Columbus is one point out of a playoff spot. One point. And they might be the best team in this entire group.

Since Rick Bowness took over as head coach on January 12, the Blue Jackets have gone 17-2-4. That's not a small sample anymore. That's 23 games of dominant hockey. They're 7-0-3 in their last 10. They're a top-half team in every major 5-on-5 possession metric. And they hold winning records against both Buffalo and Tampa Bay this season.

Zach Werenski has 68 points and 20 goals from the blue line. Second among all NHL defensemen in scoring and a legitimate Norris candidate. He's driving this team on both ends of the ice.

One number that should scare the rest of the East: Stathletes gives Columbus a 57% chance of reaching the second round if they get in, with a 25.4% shot at the conference finals. Highest deep-playoff projection of any bubble team in either conference. Nobody wants to draw them in Round 1.

Columbus is the team in this race that the model likes most relative to their standing. One point out, but the analytics say they belong in.

#Bubble analytics at a glance

How do the six bubble teams compare under the hood? The standings say they're even. The analytics say otherwise.

 

Detroit at 35% playoff odds despite holding a wild card spot. Columbus at 84% despite being outside. The models and the standings are telling two different stories right now.

#The teams on the outside looking in

#NY Islanders (83 pts)

Tied with Columbus at 83 points but on the wrong side of the tiebreaker. They've been hot at 7-3-0 in their last 10, and adding Brayden Schenn from St. Louis at the deadline gives them the kind of physical, experienced forward you want for a playoff push.

Matthew Schaefer, the rookie defenseman, has 50 points including 21 goals in 65 games. Those are absurd numbers for a first-year blueliner. He's the Calder Trophy frontrunner, and he's playing like it matters every night.

Fun fact: they're the first team ever to win their first 10 overtime-decided games. Nice stat, but overtime luck is exactly that. If those games start going the other way, they drop fast.

#Ottawa Senators (79 pts)

Five points back with roughly 14 games to play. Big gap, but Ottawa has been playing at a pace that could close it. They've gone 12-3-2 in their last 17, scoring 3.5 per game and allowing just 2.5. Tim Stutzle has 70 points. Drake Batherson has been on a tear with 8 goals and 10 points in the recent stretch.

Ottawa needs to go roughly 11-3-0 down the stretch while teams above them stumble. That's asking a lot. But two weeks ago, nobody thought Columbus would be one point out either.

#The disappointments

A few teams that were supposed to be in this race and aren't.

Florida Panthers (71 pts). Back-to-back Stanley Cup champions, sitting 13 points out of a playoff spot. Aleksander Barkov tore his MCL and ACL in the preseason and missed the entire year. That's the whole story. You don't replace your best player and Selke-caliber center.

Toronto Maple Leafs (71 pts). Their centennial season, and they're 29-28-13 with a -26 goal differential. Those 13 overtime losses are brutal. Each one is a point, but each one is also a loss. Toronto has been trading depth pieces and looking ahead to next year.

New York Rangers (64 pts). The worst team in the East. Igor Shesterkin and Adam Fox both went down with injuries at the same time, and the roster behind them wasn't equipped to handle it. They sold Artemi Panarin at the deadline. This season has been over for a while.

#Games to watch this week

Every one of these is a four-point swing between teams fighting for the same spots.

BOS vs MTL . Original Six with playoff seeding on the line. Both at 84 points.

CBJ vs CAR . Columbus has three games left against Carolina. Win these and they're in. Lose and the surge stalls.

DET vs BUF . Detroit has losing records against Buffalo, Carolina, and Tampa. All three are on the remaining schedule.

Check today's predictions for full win probabilities on every game.

#What the numbers say about the stretch run

A few things the model is watching heading into the final 13-15 games:

Columbus is undervalued. Their playoff odds sit around 62% on MoneyPuck despite having fewer points than Detroit (35%) or Boston (~68%). But the analytics profile is stronger than both of those teams. Two months of winning hockey, and the models are starting to catch up.

Boston is overvalued. Holding a wild card spot with the league's toughest remaining schedule and the worst road record among playoff contenders is a fragile position. ~68% playoff odds might be generous.

Detroit's finishing problem could correct. Top-6 in expected goals, 26th in actual goals. If Detroit's shooters start converting at even a league-average rate in the final two weeks, they jump from "clinging to a spot" to "comfortable." If they don't, Larkin's injury buries them.

Tampa's slump is real. The 46.9% expected goal share since the Olympic break isn't a sample size issue anymore. Something changed. The question is whether it changes back before the playoffs start.

#This race comes down to the final weekend

Three spots. Six teams with a legitimate case for each one. Margins of one or two points. Somebody at 84 points right now is going to miss the playoffs. That's the cruelty of a race this tight.

Columbus is the team nobody saw coming. Detroit is the team the numbers say should be higher. Boston is the team the schedule might bury. And Pittsburgh is the team with Sidney Crosby, which counts for something that doesn't show up in expected goals.

Check today's predictions for the latest probabilities, or see how these teams stack up on the power rankings.

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Stats current as of March 21, 2026. Rankings from PuckCast power index using NHL standings data.