So let\u2019s assess the situation and talk about what\u2019s to come.<\/p>\n
![\"Real](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/SNPodcast_RealKyperBourne_1280x720-640x360.jpg\")
Real Kyper and Bourne<\/p>\n
Nick Kypreos and Justin Bourne talk all things hockey with some of the biggest names in the game. Watch live every weekday on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+ \u2014 or listen live on Sportsnet 590 The FAN \u2014 from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n
Full episode<\/a><\/p>\n When the NHL schedule comes to a close each year and you sort the standings by goal differential, you\u2019ll notice a remarkably basic thing: Teams that are in the black — as in they have a positive goal differential — tend to make the playoffs, while the opposite is also true (with the odd exception). Seven playoff teams in each conference had positive goal differentials last season, and only two teams in the league that finished with a positive goal differential missed the post-season.<\/p>\n So, here are what the goal differentials are for the Canadian teams as of Dec. 3:<\/p>\n Winnipeg:\u00a0+2 These tend to be decent indicators of what teams really are, and more than a quarter of the way into the season, it ain\u2019t pretty.<\/p>\n Now, there are plenty of excuses, and a few that are legit.<\/p>\n The Oilers are off back-to-back Cup Final runs, and they\u2019ve been badly hurt by injuries to key forwards (they also have the league\u2019s worst team save percentage, though that\u2019s not a justifiable excuse, as those goalies happen to play for your team and aren\u2019t separate from it). But still, their underlying numbers haven\u2019t been good for long stretches of play, so it\u2019s not just been goaltending. Fully healthy now, everyone looks to be slotted in their right spot and so you\u2019d expect the Oilers to take a series of steps from \u201copenly bad\u201d to \u201coutright good.\u201d We know that group can do it.<\/p>\n Edmonton has to be the favourite of all the Canadian teams that are outside the playoffs looking in to get things sorted out. A heavy road schedule to start the season wouldn\u2019t have helped either, so again, things should improve here. They\u2019ll need some saves for that to happen (little help here, Mr. Bowman?), but anything better than \u201cdead last\u201d in save percentage would be a step up at this point.<\/p>\n Injuries have hurt the Leafs for long stretches of action, the Canucks too, and Connor Hellebuyck<\/a> being out isn\u2019t going great for the Jets.\u00a0<\/p>\n I don\u2019t like watching people hand-wave away reasonable excuses like injuries, particularly when the Leafs were without Auston Matthews<\/a>, Matthew Knies, Chris Tanev<\/a>, Brandon Carlo, Anthony Stolarz, Scott Laughton<\/a>, and more. You\u2019d hear people say \u201cWell other teams have injuries too.\u201d Sure, but who your injured players are matters, and the Leafs went from a janky start with four new forwards right into the emergency room. Healthier now (but still without their top two right-handed defencemen), the time for those excuses are done.<\/p>\n The Canucks were the league\u2019s number one \u201cIf they stay healthy, they could be a playoff team\u201d team, as in, they had talent but their margin for error was tracing-paper thin, and the injury bug just destroyed them down the middle right out of the gate.<\/p>\n Those Jets lost their two best defensive performers in Dylan Samberg<\/a> and Adam Lowry<\/a> early, and now sit without Hellebuyck.<\/p>\n So yes, teams get injured, but they are differently affected by those things.<\/p>\n Now, our other Canadian teams are not the same as the ones we\u2019ve just discussed.\u00a0<\/p>\n Fringe teams on the fringe<\/p>\n Last year Ottawa and Montreal finished in the East\u2019s two wild card spots, which is to say, they were more fringe playoff teams than great ones. Now in fairness, Ottawa was just a point shy of Florida for third in the division, finishing with 97 points, six better than the Canadiens, who were two points better than Columbus.\u00a0<\/p>\n You have to separate the two, as Ottawa was far more competitive, owning a plus-nine goal differential while the Habs were minus-20, which was the lowest goal differential to make the playoffs by a good distance.<\/p>\n Still, Montreal added legitimately good players this offseason in Noah Dobson<\/a> and Zachary Bolduc<\/a>, and expectations were higher. Combined with a great start, it looked like they were moving into the next tier of competitors, going from \u201cplayoff team\u201d to \u201ccould win playoff rounds.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n But a run of brutal goaltending has been part of what\u2019s got them right back to where they were last year, sniffing around a playoff spot (currently two points back), with a minus-eight goal differential. There\u2019s talk of them adding a top-end centre, and that could legitimately make all the difference, allowing other good players to face softer competition. Sportlogiq\u2019s expected goals data actually shows they defend just fine (the goalies need to be better), but they don\u2019t produce enough going the other way.\u00a0<\/p>\n As far as the Sens go, it doesn\u2019t seem like a mistake that they\u2019re the one Canadian team holding down a playoff spot (tied for second in the Atlantic Division at 30 points with Boston and Detroit, with Montreal one point behind). They started the season getting dicey goaltending, and hung on. They lost their captain Brady Tkachuk for a long stretch, and hung on. They endured a brutal road trip, and head back home as the only team in the Atlantic with more home games remaining than road games, all while having hung on. <\/p>\n Tkachuk is back, Linus Ullmark is playing well, and they seem like Canada\u2019s most sure thing to be a playoff team. Their defence corps is a great mix of good skaters and good defenders. But I mentioned how tight the standings are around them, and again, the margins look thin.\u00a0<\/p>\n Heck, the Leafs have been a complete trainwreck so far this season, and they\u2019re just three points back of Ottawa. Anything can happen there.\u00a0<\/p>\n Let it goo, let it gooooo<\/p>\n That 96-point season in 2024-25 was incredible. So much went right, they worked like dogs and grinded out every point.\u00a0They\u2019re doing it again now, having earned points in seven of their last 10 games, which has them up to \u2026 tied for 15th\u00a0in the Western Conference.\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s admirable, and they\u2019re well-coached and proud and competitive. But the roster isn\u2019t there, the next draft is strong, and I think even Flames fans would say they\u2019d be very content preparing their team to be competitive when the new arena opens in 2027.<\/p>\n Trades are looming, and it\u2019s just a matter of time.<\/p>\n So, how many of these teams do we think will make playoffs?<\/p>\n Oilers:\u00a0I\u2019m sticking with yes. That roster is too good to be this bad.\u00a0<\/p>\n Senators:\u00a0Another yes. They\u2019ve got good pieces at every position and they compete.<\/p>\n Jets:\u00a0I can\u2019t believe they\u2019re in here after they just won the Presidents’ Trophy, but a lot has gone wrong. There were the early injuries, but also Jonathan Toews hasn\u2019t been quite who they\u2019d hoped he\u2019d be, and I\u2019m sure he\u2019d say the same about his own game. The pair of Luke Schenn and Logan Stanley has been truly awful for them, at least statistically. And they play in the Central, which is the Group of Death. They aren\u2019t far out of it, but with Lowry and Samberg back they need to start playing better to buy time for Hellebuyck to return. I think they’ll get a wild card spot in the West.<\/p>\n Leafs:\u00a0I hate myself for this, but I do think they\u2019ll make it (barring another run of bad injury luck). There\u2019s too much talent there to not finish with a point total in the 90s even if they don’t add anything, and I also think they\u2019d rather add at the deadline than just sit quietly on their hands and finish with 90 points.\u00a0<\/p>\n Canadiens:\u00a0I think they’ll make it. That defence corps skates as well as any in the league, and their goaltending isn\u2019t this bad. And if they add, as rumoured, they should get back into the mid-90s in points pretty easily. Their fans should aggressively be rooting against Boston and Detroit the rest of the way, to go with their usual Leafs hatred.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Canucks:\u00a0They\u2019ve got some talented players and can win any game they\u2019re in. But when you need everything to go right, and things start this bad, they snowball in the wrong direction. The outbound trades said to be looming will be the nail in the coffin here.<\/p>\n Flames:\u00a0Nope, nor should they want to make the playoffs.<\/p>\n In the end, I\u2019ve put the same five Canadian teams from last season back into this season’s playoffs. It\u2019s a bold stance, I know. But I can\u2019t see any of them worth burying yet. Just given their potential, they should be able to make the climbs back up the standings. <\/p>\n Here\u2019s to hoping, because the worst-case assessment of the above information could look awfully grim with a more pessimistic eye.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Sportsnet\u2019s Hockey Central we do panel predictions each Friday for the Saturday night games that involve Canadian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323723,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-323722","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Toronto:\u00a0-1
Ottawa:\u00a0-2
Montreal:\u00a0-8
Edmonton:\u00a0-15
Vancouver:\u00a0-18
Calgary:\u00a0-21<\/p>\n