{"id":615816,"date":"2026-04-18T21:16:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T21:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/615816\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T21:16:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T21:16:10","slug":"nhl-stanley-cup-playoffs-begin-with-3-canadian-teams-in-contention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/615816\/","title":{"rendered":"NHL Stanley Cup playoffs begin with 3 Canadian teams in contention"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\tDescrease article font size<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\tIncrease article font size<\/p>\n<p>Hockey fans across Canada lean into excitement as the <a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/tag\/nhl\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">NHL<\/a> playoffs begin Saturday, with three Canadian teams set to compete for hockey\u2019s top prize, the Stanley Cup.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/70c8fc80.png\" alt=\"\" style=\"position:absolute;width:1px;height:1px\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/tag\/ottawa-senators\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Ottawa Senators<\/a> opened the playoffs on the road against the Carolina Hurricanes, marking the first Canadian appearance in this year\u2019s post-season.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/tag\/montreal-canadiens\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Montreal Canadiens<\/a> are scheduled to begin their run Sunday against the Tampa Bay Lightning, while the <a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/tag\/edmonton-oilers\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Edmonton Oilers<\/a> are set to open their series Monday.<\/p>\n<p>The Oilers, led by one of the league\u2019s most potent offences, are widely seen as Canada\u2019s strongest contender heading into the post-season.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"170\" height=\"225\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/national.jpg\" alt=\"Get daily Canada news delivered to your inbox so you'll never miss the day's top stories.\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\tGet daily National news<\/p>\n<p>Get daily Canada news delivered to your inbox so you&#8217;ll never miss the day&#8217;s top stories.<\/p>\n<p>The team, led by a high-powered offence featuring Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, enters the playoffs after struggling through the regular season and deep recent runs, including a trip to the Stanley Cup final the last two years.<\/p>\n<p>Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Sixteen teams qualify for the playoffs, with the format based largely on divisional standings and wild-card spots.<\/p>\n<p>The top three teams in each division earn automatic berths, while the remaining four spots go to the next highest-ranked teams in each conference.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\tMore on Sports<br \/>\n\t\t\tMore videos\n\t\t<\/p>\n<p>Each round is played as a best-of-seven series, with teams needing four wins to advance.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/news\/topic\/playoffs\/2026-nhl-stanley-cup-playoffs-predictions-by-nhl-com-staff\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">In a poll by NHL.com<\/a>, only one expert predicted a Canadian team would reach the final, with the Canadiens losing to the Vegas Golden Knights.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately for <a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/tag\/toronto-maple-leafs\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Toronto Maple Leafs<\/a> fans, Canada will be without representation from its largest hockey market this year, after the team was eliminated from playoff contention.<\/p>\n<p>The opening weekend also features several U.S.-based matchups, including Dallas hosting Minnesota and Pittsburgh facing Philadelphia on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>The playoffs will continue Sunday and Monday as the full first-round schedule gets underway.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t&amp;copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Descrease article font size Increase article font size Hockey fans across Canada lean into excitement as the NHL&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":615817,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,2065,3275,3915,5790,575,6597,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-615816","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-edmonton-oilers","12":"tag-hockey","13":"tag-montreal-canadiens","14":"tag-nhl","15":"tag-ottawa-senators","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=615816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/615817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=615816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=615816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=615816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}