The 2026 Stanley Cup playoffs are here. And they’re weird.
The Florida Panthers, back-to-back Stanley Cup champions, aren’t here. The Buffalo Sabres, who last made the playoffs when “Fast Five” was in theaters, are here.
The Toronto Maple Leafs, who appeared in nine straight NHL postseasons, aren’t here. The Utah Mammoth, who didn’t exist three years ago, are here.
But that’s why the Stanley Cup tournament is the greatest postseason in sports: the unpredictability. How a bad bounce or a hot goalie can turn a series around in an instant. Which, admittedly, makes the whole “predicting every series” thing a bit fraught, but hey, here we are.
Here is how the Stanley Cup playoffs will play out, from the opening round through the last game of the Stanley Cup Final. I apologize in advance for spoiling the next two months for you, as obviously all of this is going to happen exactly to script and none of these picks will be incorrect.
Let’s drop the puck, shall we?
More: Full schedule
Mega-preview
Lapsed fan’s guide
Stanley Cup odds
Flaws for each team
Eastern Conference first round
If there’s one true question mark looming over the first-place Sabres entering the Stanley Cup playoffs — a sentence 14 seasons in the making! — it’s the lack of postseason experience for most of their roster. As many preparatory yarns that Alex Tuch can spin about lengthy playoff runs with the Golden Knights, nothing prepares a player for how the game changes in the postseason.
I think the experience gap is less of a concern against the Bruins than some other teams in the Eastern Conference draw. Heck, Boston might ice a line of Fraser Minten, Marat Khusnutdinov and James Hagens that have a sum total of zero playoff appearances between them. The Sabres can let that home-ice advantage and youthful exuberance continue to power their playoff wagon, because I don’t think the Bruins are good enough to knock the wheels off.
Sure, squint hard enough and this is a series. Jeremy Swayman was easily one of the top-five goalies in the league this season, with 28.8 goals saved above expected. David Pastrnak (100 points) and Morgan Geekie (39 goals) continued their offensive magic, and while Buffalo has the depth advantage here, Boston did seem to find something to work with in Pavel Zacha‘s line with Casey Mittelstadt and Viktor Arvidsson. A veteran defense corps led by Charlie McAvoy, Hampus Lindholm and Nikita Zadorov could slow down the Sabres’ attack — although they’re just as liable to hand Buffalo a power play, too.
I don’t think the Bruins defend well enough to pull an upset here: They’re 26th in the NHL in expected goals against per 60 minutes since the Olympic break. For the season, their expected goals percentage was 46.7%, nestled in between the San Jose Sharks and Toronto Maple Leafs, which is not the neighborhood you want to be as a playoff team.
Bruins coach Marco Sturm said this week that “we are bigger, stronger, and we are more physical.” Even if that were true — and a glance at the rosters says it isn’t — the Sabres showed in their epic regular-season battles against the Lightning that they can take a punch, wipe their mouths and score the next goal. Despite their postseason pedigree, they’re ready for this.
Winner: Sabres eliminate the Bruins in five games.
Montreal might have the best line in the NHL: Nick Suzuki centering Cole Caufield and Juraj Slafkovsky. The trio finished with a preposterous 69.9% goals-for percentage, thanks in part to Caufield’s 51 goals and Suzuki’s first 100-point campaign in his seven-year NHL career. (Slafkovský was no slouch, hitting 30 goals for the first time.) They were just as dynamic defensively, as Suzuki is poised to win the Selke Trophy for the first time in his career. (True to form for the award for best defensive forward, it’ll come in his best offensive season.)
The key to this series is whether coach Marty St. Louis uses them, how he uses them and what the rest of the lineup does when they’re not on the ice.
Will the Habs run Suzuki against the Lightning’s top line with Nikita Kucherov, the NHL’s leader in points per game (1.71) this season? One of the reasons why the Florida Panthers ran through the Lightning in consecutive postseasons was keeping Kucherov in check at 5-on-5, as he generated just seven assists at even strength in 10 total games. Can Suzuki’s line limit him in the same way, or will Kucherov pop off without having Aleksander Barkov or Sam Bennett on the other side of the playoff ice for once?
Beyond the top line, the Lightning have depth at forward and the Canadiens, until proven otherwise, do not. Sure, one can expect Ivan Demidov — the second-best rookie in the league this season — to do more than he did last season, which was nothing. But the bottom six for Montreal don’t match the quality of Tampa Bay’s, and not just because they don’t have playoff X factor Corey Perry.
Speaking of Perry: It would be shocking if coach Jon Cooper’s game plan wasn’t to physically maul players like Caufield and star defenseman Lane Hutson at every opportunity. The Lightning can be guilty of running around a little too much, sacrificing some of their identity as an offensive juggernaut (3.49 goals per game), but that’s exactly what’s necessary against the Habs.
The status of defenseman Victor Hedman, who took leave from the team for personal reasons last month, and the overall health of the Lightning lineup is a concern — although Montreal has its own injury concerns with defenseman Noah Dobson. But for the reasons stated above, and their advantage in goal with Andrei Vasilevskiy, the Lightning power through a Canadiens team that’s probably one year and a couple of players away from real Cup contention.
Winner: Lightning eliminate the Canadiens in six games.
Sometimes you hear things during a season that stick with you. Like when one NHL team executive told me the team they wanted to avoid in the playoffs would be the Senators, whose underlying numbers reveal an extremely difficult team to play against if their play was supported by quality goaltending.
They got enough of it to make the playoff cut, as Linus Ullmark went 12-4-3 with a .902 save percentage since the Olympic break. But the issue I had with Ottawa casting its lot with Ullmark as a franchise goalie was his postseason numbers, which are a horror show: .885 save percentage and a 3.28 goals-against average in 16 games. Last season, in six games for Ottawa, he had a .880 save percentage.
Look, goalies with bad playoff numbers can finally find their games and great success — looking at you, Marc-Andre Fleury. But I can’t trust it enough with Ullmark to put Ottawa over Carolina, although more than a few people do.
These teams play a similar style and are fairly well matched. They both have a balanced scoring attack. They both have outstanding defensive forwards, with Shane Pinto and Michael Amadio vs. the likes of Jordan Staal. Both teams have some offensive pop from the blue line, although I’m a little concerned about the health status of Jake Sanderson and Thomas Chabot for Ottawa. And they both have their questions in goal: For Carolina, it’s “who’s starting Game 1?” between single-season sensation Brandon Bussi and playoff veteran Frederik Andersen.
You know what coach Rod Brind’Amour does best, besides embarrassing his players in the weight room? Winning in the opening round of the playoffs. His teams have never lost an opening-round series, counting their qualifying round win against the Rangers in the 2020 COVID postseason. That streak won’t stop here, despite the Senators’ best efforts.
Winner: Hurricanes eliminate the Senators in seven games.
This rivalry series is a study in contrasts, and not just “Sheetz vs. Wawa.”
The Penguins are one of the NHL’s top offensive powers this season under first-year coach Dan Muse, finishing third in the NHL in goals per game (3.54). They like to pass the puck. The Flyers are one of the NHL’s stingiest defensive teams, with especially impressive underlying numbers under first-year coach Rick Tocchet. They like to prevent you from passing the puck.
The Penguins are third in the NHL at inner slot shots at 5-on-5 (11.6 per 60 minutes). The Flyers are third best at preventing them (8.5 per 60). The Penguins are fourth in expected goals (2.9 per 60). The Flyers are third in expected goals against (2.4). To use the old wrestling cliché, it’s the irresistible force vs. the immovable object.
Look, getting Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin back into the playoffs is a delight. We’ve missed you. You make things much more interesting. And so one becomes compelled to rubber-stamp a series win against the Flyers, who seem like the inferior team on paper. But I’m swerving here. I like the Flyers.
Defense wins championships, and Philadelphia is easily the superior defensive team in this series. That includes goaltending, where Dan Vladar (13.8 goals saved above expected) ended up on my Hart Trophy ballot for fixing the most glaring weakness on this roster. Meanwhile, the Penguins have Stuart Skinner and Arturs Silovs in goal, whose postseason experiences could put most roller coasters to shame.
My lack of faith in the Penguins’ goaltending leaves open the possibility that the Flyers can score enough here to get by Pittsburgh. I think they have enough elite offensive talent — the resurgent Trevor Zegras, the defiant Matvei Michkov and Porter Martone, the NCAA import with 10 points in his first nine NHL games — to prey on Penguin mistakes for transition goals. They also have a healthy Tyson Foerster, their glue guy, as Philly has gone 18-9-2 with him in the lineup.
But they don’t have Sidney Crosby, which is the reason I’m not exactly oozing with confidence making this pick. But nonetheless, the pick is made.
Winner: Flyers eliminate the Penguins in six games.
2:19
Sidney Crosby explains why Penguins’ rivalry with the Flyers is so special
Sidney Crosby joins “The Pat McAfee Show” to preview the Penguins’ playoff matchup against the Flyers.
Eastern Conference second round
On March 8, these two teams met in Buffalo and produced an instant classic with 15 goals and 102 penalty minutes. But more importantly, it was a proof-of-concept game for the Sabres. The Lightning wanted to come in and brutalize their divisional opponent. Buffalo took the punishment, dished out some of its own and grew from the experience.
Buffalo went 3-0-1 against the Lightning in the regular season. Now, we all know the past isn’t prologue in the Stanley Cup playoffs, but that’s important to note when one of the keys to the series is intimidation, either through depth of talent or superstar players or championship pedigree. The Sabres will have banked a playoff series win and hung with the Lightning — albeit a team that had its share of significant lineup absences — this season.
So this is going to be a long series. If Buffalo is, in fact, the next version of the 2019 St. Louis Blues — a team that finds itself within the regular season, transforms into a wagon and can’t be stopped — it has the talent and the mindset to advance past the Lightning.
But ultimately, I lean Tampa Bay here. Its collection of two-way players, lineup depth and elite scoring talent gives it an advantage, as does Andrei Vasilevskiy. I’ll take Jon Cooper and his staff figuring out how to grind down the Sabres’ “pond hockey” offense. Bonus points if Cooper wears his Stadium Series outfit.
Winner: Lightning eliminate the Sabres in seven games.
Just an absolute grind of a series. Watching a Rick Tocchet team against a Rod Brind’Amour team is like watching someone try to saw an oak tree with a nail file.
To paraphrase Batman villain Bane: “I was born flooding the defensive zone with bodies and then counterpunching offensively to win one-goal games … you merely adopted it.”
The Flyers are built to beat a team like the Penguins. I don’t think they have the maturation as a contender — or the scoring depth — to take out this Hurricanes team.
Winner: Hurricanes eliminate the Flyers in five games.
Eastern Conference finals
The Hurricanes finally avoid having to play the Panthers and run smack-dab into Florida’s other powerhouse.
I picked Carolina to win the East before the season, and I’m sticking with that. What has held the Hurricanes back in previous seasons was their inability to score a key goal at a key juncture of a series. So they went big-name hunting for players like Jake Guentzel (at the 2024 trade deadline) and Mikko Rantanen, who obviously didn’t stick around. Though they don’t have that kind of star on this roster, they might have the most offensive depth of any Rod Brind’Amour-coached team.
Taylor Hall and Logan Stankoven were both involved in Rantanen-related trades. Nikolaj Ehlers was a tremendous offseason signing, and best of all played 82 games. Jackson Blake took a leap forward this season with an increased role. Players like K’Andre Miller and Alexander Nikishin are delivering offense from the back end.
Assuming the goaltending doesn’t cost them against the Lightning, I like Carolina to finally break through the Eastern Conference ceiling. Those fans deserve a banner.
Winner: Hurricanes eliminate the Lightning in six games.
Western Conference first round
Congratulations to the Kings for avoiding a fifth straight elimination at the hands of the Oilers. Condolences to the Kings for having to play the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Avalanche instead.
Look, the Kings aren’t terrible. They had the 12th best goals-for percentage and 10th best expected goals percentage since the Olympic break. They have impactful offensive stars like Adrian Kempe (36 goals), Quinton Byfield (24 goals) and Artemi Panarin, who has 27 points in 26 games with his new team. If they can get Kevin Fiala back from his horrific injury at the Olympics, even better. Interim coach D.J. Smith has presided over a pretty good defensive team since the Olympic break. They’re not a bad hockey team. They’re just not the Avalanche.
The Kings have one real advantage in this series and it’s supernatural. Since 1985-86, there have been 39 teams to finish with the NHL’s best record and win the Presidents’ Trophy. Only eight of them went on to win the Stanley Cup — and an equal number of them lost in the opening round of the playoffs.
In any event: Fare thee well in retirement, Anze Kopitar.
Winner: Avalanche eliminate the Kings in five games.
I know we’re all tired of this lament, but once more with feeling: After 82 games, the No. 3 team in the NHL has to face the No. 7 team in the NHL, playing for the right to face the No. 1 team in the second round.
What are we even doing here?
That established: What an absolutely awesome series this could end up becoming.
The Stars have made the Western Conference finals for three straight seasons. Their inability to break through led Dallas to part ways with coach Peter DeBoer — well, that and some goalie controversy — and hire Glen Gulutzan for his second tour of duty with the franchise.
The Stars weren’t a team that blew the doors off you analytically in the regular season, ranking 12th in expected goals percentage at 5-on-5 (50.9%). Their quality over quantity approach to offense actually left them 27th in shot attempt percentage (47.5%), just ahead of the San Jose Sharks. But you can afford to be picky at 5-on-5 when you’re shooting 10.8% as Dallas did. Combine that with a blistering power play (28.6%), and the Stars boasted some grandiose offensive numbers from players like Jason Robertson and Wyatt Johnston (45 goals apiece) and Mikko Rantanen (77 points in 64 games).
The Wild’s season can be marked by what happened on Dec. 12, when they swung that blockbuster for defenseman Quinn Hughes from the Canucks. Pre-Hughes, the Wild averaged 2.81 goals per game and had a .629 points percentage in the standings; with Hughes, they averaged 3.55 goals per game with a .637 points percentage.
Like the Stars, they had a ripping good power play (25.2%) and a few elite players carrying the goal-scoring load in Kirill Kaprizov (45 goals) and Matt Boldy (42 goals).
I lean Dallas here, with one significant caveat: the health of defenseman Miro Heiskanen and forward Roope Hintz. It sounds like Heiskanen will answer the bell for this series. Hintz is going to miss at least the first two games. (Forward Tyler Seguin is done for the season.) Both of those players are vital to the Stars’ success. Even if they come back, how effective will they be?
But ultimately, it’s the difference-makers with the postseason bona fides that have me seeing Stars. Mikko Rantanen has shown he can win a series on his own. Wyatt Johnston has something to prove after last season’s playoff stats regression. Jake Oettinger‘s ability to steal a series has been overstated for years, but he can still be the difference in a tight game.
Winner: Stars eliminate the Wild in seven games.
One of the classic Stanley Cup tropes is seeing a young, high-flying, offensively talented team get a harsh education in its first postseason sojourn when it realizes how hockey is a completely different sport in the playoffs. This usually coincides with meeting a stout defensive team.
Which brings us to the Mammoth vs. the Golden Knights. Utah was tied for 10th in the NHL offensively, with young stars like Dylan Guenther (40 goals), JJ Peterka (25 goals) and Logan Cooley (43 points in 54 games) as well as veterans Clayton Keller (1.07 points per game) and Nick Schmaltz (33 goals) powering the Mammoth.
Vegas knew what was headed its way in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Whether it was Utah or Edmonton or Anaheim, the Golden Knights needed to get their act together defensively after having averaged 3.18 goals against per game from the Olympic break to March 29. So they fired Bruce Cassidy and hired John Tortorella with eight games remaining in the season in an attempt to give their players a swift kick to the backside and realign the team’s defense.
It worked. The Knights averaged 1.71 goals per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 in those games, going 6-0-1 in the process to win the Pacific.
Getting to the playoffs in Year 2 and having fans in Salt Lake City experience postseason home games is a great accomplishment — and it may even result in a win or two against Vegas in this series. But most of all, this is going to be a harsh but necessary education about what works and what doesn’t against a team of cagey defensive pros in the postseason. And Utah will be better for it.
Winner: Golden Knights eliminate Mammoth in six games.
The only way the Ducks were going to be serious playoff contenders this season was if the young team’s defensive metrics improved steadily as the season went on. That didn’t happen: From the Olympic break to the end of the season, Anaheim was 29th in expected goals against (3.2 per 60 minutes). In the previous 56 games, they had an xGA of 2.8. So things actually got worse defensively.
Being a defensive sieve and praying that Lukas Dostal can steal a series is not exactly a recipe for success against Connor McDavid. That’s especially true when Dostal, who had been a safety net for coach Joel Quenneville’s team during much of the season, had a .868 save percentage and a 3.46 goals-against average in 18 games after the Olympic break.
Is it possible the Kings would have given Edmonton a tougher challenge in the fifth straight edition of their playoff series? We’ll never know.
Winner: Oilers eliminate the Ducks in four games.
Western Conference second round
This is what it looks like when the Western Conference finals is a second-round series. Of course, these two teams famously met in the first round last season, as Mikko Rantanen faced his old mates and torched them for 12 points in seven games.
What’s different this time could be the Avalanche goaltending. Mackenzie Blackwood started all seven games against Dallas last postseason, sporting a .892 save percentage. The primary starter for the Avalanche this season, and one of the key factors behind them finishing first overall, was Scott Wedgewood. The former Stars goalie had a career year, with 22.1 goals saved above expected.
Also different: the incredible center depth the Avalanche now have with Nazem Kadri and Nicolas Roy joining Nathan MacKinnon, Brock Nelson and Jack Drury up the gut. Florida might be the only team that boasted that kind of quality in the middle in recent years. And we know where that got them.
Winner: Avalanche eliminate the Stars in seven games.
Back when the NHL expanded in the 1967-68 season, it put all the new teams in one division and had the Original Six in their own division. Which is why the St. Louis Blues played for the Stanley Cup in three straight seasons and got swept three straight times: Someone had to emerge from the inferior division to face the powerhouses for the championship.
I’ve jokingly referred to the Pacific Division as the “’67 Blues Division” this season, because someone had to emerge from that ooze to face a Central Division titan in the conference finals. That’s obviously disparaging to the Golden Knights and Oilers, two good hockey teams that nonetheless finished behind the Washington Capitals in points percentage, a team that didn’t make the playoffs in the Eastern Conference.
The Oilers have made some lineup tweaks since last playoff run. Some of them worked, like adding Matt Savoie to Connor McDavid’s wing and acquiring Connor Murphy for their second defense pairing. Some of them are less than effective. GM Stan Bowman addressed his goaltending with the disastrous swap of Stuart Skinner for Tristan Jarry, and by acquiring the much better Connor Ingram from Utah.
Besides John Tortorella, the Golden Knights made their biggest swing last summer when they acquired Mitch Marner on a long-term deal. He had a Marner-esque season, with 80 points in 81 games and dynamic defense. The big question: What does his playoff output look like away from the searing Toronto spotlight and having taken away lessons from those painful disappointments?
Speaking of painful disappointments: McDavid sees his season end well short of a third straight trip to the Stanley Cup Final.
Winner: Golden Knights eliminate the Oilers in seven games.
Western Conference finals
The two division champs meet for the chance to play for the Stanley Cup.
This is where the Avalanche really flex their depth. If players like Mitch Marner, Jack Eichel and Mark Stone manage to keep Nathan MacKinnon and Martin Necas in check, it falls to players like Valeri Nichushkin (49 points) or Parker Kelly (21 goals) or Ross Colton or Nazem Kadri to play the hero.
In the end, Colorado has just too many of them for John Tortorella and his players to contain.
Winner: Avalanche eliminate the Golden Knights in six games.
Stanley Cup Final
I didn’t get a lot correct in my preseason standings predictions. (He says, wincing at the Leafs, Panthers, Devils, Rangers and Canucks all making the playoff cut!)
But my Stanley Cup Final back in September was the Avalanche vs. the Hurricanes, and by golly I’m sticking to that.
Which means I’m also sticking with my 2025-26 Stanley Cup champions: The Colorado Avalanche in five games.
Provided they don’t blow it in the first round. Presidents’ Trophy curse and all …
