NHL Playoff Push: Important games to watch
With plenty still to play for in the Stanley Cup Playoffs race, Rory Boylen offers up the most important upcoming games to watch.
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It’s hard to believe, but in just 11 days the Stanley Cup Playoffs will commence. And though some of the playoff races for final wild-card placements have cooled, there is much left to play for and plenty of games with great meaning the rest of this week.
At this time of year, it’s important to keep tiebreaking scenarios in the back of your mind. If two teams are tied in points, the first tiebreaker would be regulation wins (RW), and if that’s also a tie, then regulation and overtime wins (ROW) becomes the next deciding factor.
In the Atlantic, Toronto and Tampa Bay remain in a fight for the title and enter Tuesday tied in RW. In the East’s wild-card race, Montreal has opened up a gap on the teams behind it, but the Canadiens haven’t clinched yet and are tied with Detroit in RW but trail the Rangers by four.
In the West, we have a heated competition between Dallas and Winnipeg for the Central Division crown, with the Jets holding a slim lead in RW. The fight for the wild card, meantime, shows Calgary still alive and just four points back of Minnesota with five games remaining. However, it’d be more instructive to think of the Flames being five points out of a playoff spot since the Wild hold a decisive advantage in the RW category.
With plenty still to play for, here are some of the most important games with playoff implications on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, before our next look at the Playoff Push on Friday.
Tuesday: Ottawa Senators at Columbus Blue Jackets, 7 p.m. ET/4 PT
Winners of three in a row, the Ottawa Senators can officially get back to the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time since 2016-17 with a win over the slumping Blue Jackets. Even if the Senators were to get one point or none in this game, they could still clinch if the Detroit Red Wings lose in regulation to Montreal.
But heading into this game, the Senators should also be looking up. A win over Columbus and a loss by the Florida Panthers to Toronto would pull the Senators into a tie with Florida for third in the Atlantic. Though the Panthers would still hold the tiebreaker, Ottawa could be on the doorstep of snatching that, too. Both teams will have four games left after Tuesday.
The Senators have been scorching since the trade deadline, 11-4-1 and standing as the best team in the Eastern Conference over the past month. Scoring remains an issue with the squad — no player has a point per game pace in that time — but its 2.44 GAA is seventh-best in the league, and second-best in the East, over that span.
if (!res.ok) { throw new Error('Failed to fetch odds data'); }
const data = await res.json(); const oddsData = data?.data?.game?.details?.current_line; const visitingTeam = data?.data?.game?.visiting_team; const visitingTeamLogo = data?.data?.game?.visiting_team?.image_url_90; const homeTeam = data?.data?.game?.home_team; const homeTeamLogo = data?.data?.game?.home_team?.image_url_90; const gameTimestamp = data?.data?.game?.details?.timestamp;
return { oddsData, visitingTeam, visitingTeamLogo, homeTeam, homeTeamLogo, gameTimestamp }; }
async function renderBetMGM(componentId, league, gameId) { let oddsData, visitingTeam, visitingTeamLogo, homeTeam, homeTeamLogo, gameTimestamp, error;
const container = document.getElementById(componentId + '-odds'); if (!container) return;
try { ({ oddsData, visitingTeam, visitingTeamLogo, homeTeam, homeTeamLogo, gameTimestamp } = await fetchOddsData(league, gameId)); } catch (err) { error = err.message; }
if (error) { container.innerHTML = `
`; return; }
if (!oddsData) { container.innerHTML = `
`; return; }
let gameDate = new Date(gameTimestamp * 1000); const gameDateFormatted = gameDate.toLocaleDateString('en-US', { year: 'numeric', month: 'long', day: 'numeric' });
container.innerHTML = `
`; }
// Example usage renderBetMGM('block_95e776193d3e0b4b7495110efd764da7', 'NHL', '564787a7-ef42-4df4-a822-88bb8778aabb');
Tuesday: Toronto Maple Leafs at Florida Panthers, 7 p.m. ET/4 PT
Wednesday: Toronto Maple Leafs at Tampa Bay Lightning, 7 p.m. ET/4 PT
All these teams will make the playoffs, but there is still so much to play for in terms of seeding and who they all end up matching up against in the first round.
The Maple Leafs have finished first in their division only twice since 1967 — winning the Northeast in 2000 and the North Division in the pandemic-shortened 2020-21 season — and while they can’t clinch the Atlantic by winning both of these games, coming out with four points would put them on the edge of doing so.
As mentioned earlier, the Panthers are at risk of falling back into a wild-card spot, which they seem unbothered by as the team rests some of its players before the playoffs. Losers of five in a row and 5-8-1 since the trade deadline, Florida is either gearing up to be healthy for a run, or slowly walking in banged up after two consecutive runs to the final.
The Lightning, meantime, have been the only East team with a better goals-against per game than Ottawa over the past month. Heck, since the calendar flipped to 2025, Tampa Bay has been 25-14-4, second in the East by points. Nikita Kucherov is heating up and making a run at the scoring title. Andrei Vasilevskiy has numbers comparable to Vezina front-runner Connor Hellebuyck — in fact, the Lightning netminder has more wins, shutouts, and a better GAA and save percentage than Winnipeg’s goalie since Jan. 1.
Is Tampa Bay, with all their past accomplishments in pocket, really the team to beat in this group?
if (!res.ok) { throw new Error('Failed to fetch odds data'); }
const data = await res.json(); const oddsData = data?.data?.game?.details?.current_line; const visitingTeam = data?.data?.game?.visiting_team; const visitingTeamLogo = data?.data?.game?.visiting_team?.image_url_90; const homeTeam = data?.data?.game?.home_team; const homeTeamLogo = data?.data?.game?.home_team?.image_url_90; const gameTimestamp = data?.data?.game?.details?.timestamp;
return { oddsData, visitingTeam, visitingTeamLogo, homeTeam, homeTeamLogo, gameTimestamp }; }
async function renderBetMGM(componentId, league, gameId) { let oddsData, visitingTeam, visitingTeamLogo, homeTeam, homeTeamLogo, gameTimestamp, error;
const container = document.getElementById(componentId + '-odds'); if (!container) return;
try { ({ oddsData, visitingTeam, visitingTeamLogo, homeTeam, homeTeamLogo, gameTimestamp } = await fetchOddsData(league, gameId)); } catch (err) { error = err.message; }
if (error) { container.innerHTML = `
`; return; }
if (!oddsData) { container.innerHTML = `
`; return; }
let gameDate = new Date(gameTimestamp * 1000); const gameDateFormatted = gameDate.toLocaleDateString('en-US', { year: 'numeric', month: 'long', day: 'numeric' });
container.innerHTML = `
`; }
// Example usage renderBetMGM('block_07315960b0efa09d469042f99084f96a', 'NHL', 'a1c53f64-f2ad-4714-bd33-eaa62eb31e26');
Tuesday: Detroit Red Wings at Montreal Canadiens, 7 p.m. ET/4 PT
After missing the playoffs by the whisker of a tiebreaker a season ago, the Red Wings are the first team out again as of Tuesday, but struggling to stay afloat. Detroit can’t be officially eliminated in this game, but a loss in regulation especially would put it on the brink, even with another four games to go.
Though Detroit has earned a point in its past four games (winning three of them), that followed a stretch where the Wings won just three times in 13 games, which they’ll look back on in regret unless they can claw into the race again. A regulation win Tuesday would be huge, and pull the Wings back to within just four points of Montreal while maintaining a game in hand. They play Florida and Tampa Bay on the road later this week.
Montreal, meantime, needs to take down this head-to-head before a couple of difficult road games of its own on Friday and Saturday in Ottawa and then Toronto. Winners of five in a row, the young Canadiens have not opened the door to hope for any team behind them and could squash further potential for an intriguing race with a Tuesday night win.
Wednesday: Philadelphia Flyers at New York Rangers, 7:30 p.m. ET/4:30 PT
If Detroit manages to hold Montreal to one or zero points on Tuesday, it would also keep the door open for the Rangers to jump back into the race on Wednesday. At the trade deadline, the Rangers held a wild-card spot, but a 5-8-2 record since has them on the brink of being eliminated.
New York will come into the game losers of two in a row: 4-0 in New Jersey and 5-1 at home to Tampa Bay. It’s possible the Rangers could be within four points of a playoff spot after Wednesday’s game, but they’d have only four games left at that point as well with a not-so-easy remaining schedule — road games against the Islanders, Hurricanes and Panthers before wrapping up at home against the Lightning.
Tuesday: Vancouver Canucks at Dallas Stars, 8 p.m. ET/5 PT
Starting with a look at the bottom, the Canucks have one win in their past five games and are winding down a nightmare season. From one of the most surprising stories in a good way last season, the Canucks have been a story for the exact opposite reason in 2024-25. Eight points out of a playoff spot with five games left heading into Tuesday night, Vancouver would be mathematically eliminated with a regulation loss.
And the Canucks will be playing a motivated Cup contender, as the Dallas Stars look to respond to Winnipeg’s Monday night win with two points of their own and keep pace in the race for the Central Division crown. With a 7-1-2 record in their past 10, the Stars need a win to pull to within three points of Winnipeg with four games left to go for both teams, and set up a heck of a showdown in two days.
Tuesday: Vegas Golden Knights at Colorado Avalanche, 9:30 p.m. ET/6:30 PT
It’s not mathematically official yet, but sitting seven points behind Dallas with just four games to go (and five points up on St. Louis), Colorado is all but locked into a third-place finish in the Central Division and just waiting to learn where it’ll travel for Game 1 of the playoffs.
This game is bigger for the Golden Knights, who can’t clinch the Pacific on Tuesday, but could pull as many as seven points up on Los Angeles, which still has five games remaining. Both the Kings and Golden Knights are running red hot and Vegas followed two losses last week with back-to-back 3-2 road wins in Calgary and Vancouver over the weekend to reclaim a strong hold on the top spot.
if (!res.ok) { throw new Error('Failed to fetch odds data'); }
const data = await res.json(); const oddsData = data?.data?.game?.details?.current_line; const visitingTeam = data?.data?.game?.visiting_team; const visitingTeamLogo = data?.data?.game?.visiting_team?.image_url_90; const homeTeam = data?.data?.game?.home_team; const homeTeamLogo = data?.data?.game?.home_team?.image_url_90; const gameTimestamp = data?.data?.game?.details?.timestamp;
return { oddsData, visitingTeam, visitingTeamLogo, homeTeam, homeTeamLogo, gameTimestamp }; }
async function renderBetMGM(componentId, league, gameId) { let oddsData, visitingTeam, visitingTeamLogo, homeTeam, homeTeamLogo, gameTimestamp, error;
const container = document.getElementById(componentId + '-odds'); if (!container) return;
try { ({ oddsData, visitingTeam, visitingTeamLogo, homeTeam, homeTeamLogo, gameTimestamp } = await fetchOddsData(league, gameId)); } catch (err) { error = err.message; }
if (error) { container.innerHTML = `
`; return; }
if (!oddsData) { container.innerHTML = `
`; return; }
let gameDate = new Date(gameTimestamp * 1000); const gameDateFormatted = gameDate.toLocaleDateString('en-US', { year: 'numeric', month: 'long', day: 'numeric' });
container.innerHTML = `
`; }
// Example usage renderBetMGM('block_bf775ade51d4d7d5b32b9fd1d6ffd057', 'NHL', '67859d28-bd14-4063-afd3-29ae3adad24f');
Wednesday: San Jose Sharks at Minnesota Wild, 8 p.m. ET/5 PT
Wednesday: Calgary Flames at Anaheim Ducks, 10 p.m. ET/7 PT
Minnesota’s fall back began when Kirill Kaprizov left the lineup to injury in January, but since centre Joel Eriksson Ek also went down on Feb. 22, Minnesota is 9-10-3, a worse mark than any other team still holding on to a playoff spot. Between that and St. Louis’ surge, the Wild — one-time holders of second place in the Central — are now in the second wild-card spot and looking over their shoulder.
Sunday’s OT win over Dallas was huge for the Wild to keep a leg up on the Calgary Flames and ended a four-game losing skid. But after Calgary answered with a win of its own on Monday, the Wild again will be feeling some pressure.
On Wednesday night, both the Flames and Wild will be facing non-playoff teams, and the result of these games will set up a monstrously important Friday night showdown.
For the Flames, the best-case scenario is to come out with two points and the Wild to get none — which would get Calgary to within two of the wild card while maintaining a game in hand. The worst-case scenario for Calgary is two points to Minnesota and none for the Flames, which would put them six back with four games remaining.
Either way, Calgary and Minnesota will meet on Friday at the Saddledome, and the game is guaranteed to have playoff implications. That game could be an opportunity for Calgary to pull into a tie for the second wild card (though Minnesota is likely to win the tiebreaker), or it could be a chance for the Wild to clinch a post-season berth. Exactly what is on the table for that showdown will be determined by these two games on Wednesday night.
Thursday: Winnipeg Jets at Dallas Stars, 8 p.m. ET/5 PT
After the holiday season, Dallas trailed the Jets by 10 standings points, but has been the NHL’s best team since Jan. 1, with a 28-9-4 record and a .732 points percentage. In that time, the Stars have the league’s best offence (3.59 goals per game) and a top-10 defence (2.56 goals per game).
Not that Winnipeg has been a slouch in that span. Since Jan. 1, the Jets are the only other NHL team with a points percentage of .700 or better, and have carried a 26-10-3 record. But, little by little, the Stars have been able to chip away at Winnipeg’s lead.
Winnipeg halted St. Louis’ winning streak at 12 with a 3-1 win Monday night that pulled them five points clear of Dallas again. The Stars have a chance to get two points closer on Tuesday night, but either way this showdown on Thursday is massive.
Both teams will enter the game with four games remaining. There is a chance Winnipeg could clinch the division with a win, but there is also a chance that Dallas could pull to within one point of Winnipeg and even pull into a tie for the first tiebreaker, depending on how its Tuesday night game goes (the Jets are likely to stay ahead in the second tie breaker, ROW).
It’ll be the final meeting of the season between the two and should have a playoff atmosphere.
