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Good morning, hockey folks. Another busy one with 13 games last night, so let’s get you up to date on what’s happening around the league as the regular season winds down.
Who’s up and who’s down in the stretch run?
It’s hard to believe, but there are only 22 days left until the postseason. Even that close to the finish line, there is a lot of spots up for grabs, with nearly half the league still vying to make it in.
Here are the teams I think we can likely call at this point, based on the probabilities:
Nine locks to make the playoffs (94% chance or higher)
East: Carolina, Tampa Bay, Buffalo, Montreal
West: Colorado, Dallas, Minnesota, Anaheim, Edmonton
Eight locks to miss the playoffs (6% chance or lower)
East: Toronto, N.Y. Rangers, Florida, New Jersey
West: Vancouver, Calgary, Chicago, St. Louis
That leaves another 15 teams still in play, including 13 that were in action last night (Boston and Detroit being idle). Excluding the 17 locks I mentioned above, here are the teams trying to make a playoff push that shifted their odds last night:
East
Pittsburgh 80% 
85%
Columbus 91% 
82%
Ottawa 76% 72%
N.Y. Islanders 37% 48%
Washington 6% 7%
The Penguins’ 4-3 shootout win over the beat-up Senators was one of the night’s biggest results, especially with how many teams are after what looks like four open spots in the East.
That was five openings until the Canadiens toppled red-hot Columbus 2-1 on Zachary Bolduc’s third-period goal, lifting Montreal to 90 points with 11 games to go.
The Islanders and Capitals, meanwhile, pulled out really impressive wins over strong West teams Dallas and Utah, beating them 2-1 and 7-4, to improve their playoff chances.
West
Utah 95% 91%
Los Angeles 58% 68%
Nashville 39% 27%
Seattle 5% 10%
Winnipeg 16% 9%
San Jose 11% 9%
Utah would have been firmly in the playoff lock category with a win, but allowed four third-period goals at home against Washington. Edmonton, meanwhile, jumped into the lock group with a 4-3 overtime win over struggling Vegas (five losses in its last six).
The Kings made short work of the last-place Canucks in a 4-0 win that improved them to 5-3-4 in their last 12 games, enough to boost them in the West’s wild-card turtle derby in part thanks to newcomer Artemi Panarin’s 15 points in that span.
And the Kraken’s gritty 4-3 overtime win over Tampa Bay keeps their hopes alive, while Nashville, Winnipeg and San Jose all had tough losses against New Jersey, Colorado and St. Louis.
Bruce Bennett / Getty Images
Three can’t-miss stories this week
We may be in this odd in-between time after the trade deadline and before the playoffs get going, but my colleagues have certainly pumped out the gold of late.
Here were a few pieces that were my favorites the past few days:
The Aura Shift: Macklin Celebrini and the NHL’s Gen Z takeover
By Dan Robson
If you’re born before 1990, this one will make you feel extra old.
Key quote: “A decade ago when a guy was growing up through youth hockey and college or junior, they learned how to play the game. Hockey sense was taught early, and skills were taught late — and now hockey sense is taught late.”
The NHL’s growing goaltending crisis: ‘Everybody’s making bad decisions’
By Harman Dayal
An interesting look at why so many formerly good goalies with big contracts have bad numbers.
Key quote: “Interestingly, there is zero statistical correlation between how much each team spends on its goaltending tandem this season and the club’s overall goaltending results.”
How bad can an NHL team be at five-on-five and still compete for the Stanley Cup?
By Murat Ates and Shayna Goldman
Is your team a dark horse to do damage in the playoffs, even as a lower seed? Here are some numbers that could back that up.
Key quote: “Stanley Cup champions tend to be elite five-on-five teams. All but one Cup champion going back to 2007-08 won those minutes during the regular season before its championship.”
Let’s move on …
This week’s MirTrivia: Alex Ovechkin hit a bit of a weird milestone earlier this week when he became the second player to ever net 1,000 goals, regular season and playoffs combined. (Wayne Gretzky has the record with 1,016.)
We don’t often look at combined stats like this in the NHL. But our trivia today gets into three players who highlight how different regular season and playoff production can be:
Which player with 600-plus regular-season goals in their career has scored the fewest playoff goals (only 21)?
Which two players in the all-time top 10 in career playoff goals failed to get to the 500-goal mark in the regular season?
Answers at the bottom.
Charles LeClaire / Imagn Images
Should MacKinnon be up for the Selke, too?
Our graphman, Dom Luszczyszyn, has been busy this week breaking down a few interesting awards-related trends, including the rise of the MVP defenseman and the need for a defensive defenseman award (and who should win it this year).
I’m on board with both of those, including the idea that a blueliner should be winning the Hart more than once every 54 years. (Only Chris Pronger has since Bobby Orr in 1972.)
Dom also served up his regular awards watch column, and it highlighted just how tight things are going to be for league MVP, the Norris, the Vezina and the Art Ross. In fact, basically everything except the Calder – where Isles wunderkind Matthew Schaefer is running away with things – could be tight.
The biggest mystery, however, is what’s going to happen with the Selke for the top defensive forward. The threesome of Aleksander Barkov, Patrice Bergeron and Anze Kopitar has won it 10 of the last 12 years, but with one injured, one retired and the third playing out his final season, the field is wide open for someone from the new guard.
Dom’s leading candidate is Montreal’s Nick Suzuki, who’s one of the league’s top scorers this year (86 points) and has finished 13th in Selke voting the past two years. After Suzuki, however, it’s an eclectic list, including several pure checkers who haven’t topped 40 points. (No one who fits that description has won the Selke since Kris Draper in 2004.)
Dom calls this particular race “weird” given the absence of Barkov and other star-level competition for Suzuki. But one really interesting candidate is Nathan MacKinnon, who has put together a terrific all-around season with one of the highest defensive ratings among all forwards. What he doesn’t do is kill penalties for the Avs, which could leave him off many writers’ ballots.
“I’m going to stay consistent with how I’ve always voted, which is that there needs to be some penalty killing to qualify,” Dom says. “But it’s definitely a discussion worth having because there are some players – Auston Matthews five years ago or Leon Draisaitl last season – who were strong enough to warrant merit based on their five-on-five play but were too important (to their teams) offensively to waste time in a PK role.
“Perhaps an exception can be made. Sometimes not being used on the PK is telling, but there are times where it’s not born out of ability, but optimization.”
Doug Gilmour and Sergei Fedorov (twice) won the Selke during 100-point campaigns, so it’s not unheard of. Food for thought.
Coast to Coast
Sidney Crosby left last night’s game against the Senators with an injury, which would be a crushing loss for a Penguins team on the verge of a shocking playoff berth.
Harman Dayal provides his annual look at the most disappointing players this season. Surprisingly, it’s not all Maple Leafs.
We’re out of the bottom half in Scott Wheeler’s 2026 NHL prospect pool rankings, and the now-mighty-again Anaheim Ducks are No. 14. Maybe Goldberg makes it next year.
This year’s PWHL draft rankings are heavy on U.S. talent, with the top Canadian all the way down in ninth.
👀 Power rankings look at a focus for every team as the playoffs approach.
On a special edition of The Athletic Hockey Show Prospect Series, we preview the CHL playoffs and the NCAA men’s hockey championship, including a debate on whether Gavin McKenna or Canadiens prospect Michael Hage is the best college player heading into the tournament.
MirTrivia Answer
Let’s see how well you know your hockey history.
The 600-goal scorer with the fewest career playoff goals is Marcel Dionne, who piled up 731 regular-season goals but scored just 21 times in 49 postseason games. (Jarome Iginla is second with 37 playoff goals.)
And the two top 10 playoff scorers who didn’t make it to the 500-goal club? Glenn Anderson (498 regular-season goals and 92 in the playoffs) and Claude Lemieux (379 and 80).
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