In all of major league sports, the NHL playoffs stand out as the most unpredictable.
The sheer velocity that NHL teams play at in the postseason is on another level to the regular season, being much more physical and demanding than during the 82-game slate.
It makes for an incredible spectacle, and at the end of it all, one team gets to walk away with the massive Stanley Cup and drink champagne out of the top bowl.
To find out more about the NHL playoffs, the Stanley Cup, and how it all works, just keep scrolling.
What are the NHL Playoffs?
The NHL playoffs, also known as the Stanley Cup playoffs, are the final stage of the NHL season, pitting the teams that qualified against each other in seven-game knockout series until a final winner is determined.
Since 1917, when the league commenced, the NHL has used the playoffs to decide its champion after a regular season to determine qualification. In 1926, the NHL playoffs started to contest for the Stanley Cup.
How Do Teams Qualify for the NHL Playoffs?
To qualify for the NHL playoffs, after playing 82 regular season games, a team has to finish in one of the top three places of their division or as one of the two next-best teams in the overall conference standings.
These final two places in each of the two conference standings are known as the wild card places.
They don’t necessarily result in one more team from each of the conference’s two divisions qualifying; wild card places go to the teams with the most points and are outside divisional playoff spots.
How Many Teams Qualify for the NHL Playoffs?
Since the 1979/80 season, 16 teams have qualified for the NHL playoffs each season.
Eight teams from the Western Conference and eight teams from the Eastern Conference qualify for the NHL playoffs to create a postseason of 16 teams to compete for the Stanley Cup.
Even in the pandemic-hit 2020 NHL playoffs, 16 teams played in the First Round, but a Qualifying Round was put in place prior to determine seeds five through eight in each conference bracket.
From the 2013/14 season of the NHL onwards, the Stanley Cup playoffs have guaranteed three competitors from each of the four divisions and a further two from each conference via wild card qualification.
Prior to this realignment, the modern era of the NHL (1993/94 onwards) went from sending the top team of each division along with the next best six teams in each of the two conferences, to the top of each of the three divisions in the two conferences as well as the next five best teams.
Do Higher-Seeded Teams Get an Advantage in the NHL Playoffs?
Higher-seeded teams do get an advantage in the NHL playoffs by way of potentially playing more home games than their lower-seeded opponents.
Each seven-game series has the same schedule of two games at the home of the higher-seeded team, two games at the stadium of the lower-seeded team, and then an alternate run of home-away-home for the higher-seeded team.
The thinking is that teams are generally better when playing at home, so not only does the higher-seeded team get the first two games at home, but also the first and final potentially decisive games if they lose at least one game.
How Do the NHL Playoffs Work?
The NHL playoffs are split into two brackets of eight teams: one for the Western Conference and one for the Eastern Conference.
First Round games are decided by regular season records. The division winner with the best record matches against the wild card team with the weaker record, and the other division winner matches with the other wild card team.
Second and third place in each division will also play each other in the First Round. This creates four series in the First Round of each conference bracket.
Each series is played in a best-of-seven format. This means that a team has to win four games against the other to progress to the next round.
The Stanley Cup playoffs has four rounds: First Round, Second Round, Conference Finals, and Stanley Cup Finals. At the most, a team will play 28 games to win the Stanley Cup or 16 games if they don’t lose in the NHL playoffs.
In the Stanley Cup Finals, a Western Conference team will play an Eastern Conference Team.
It’s only in the finals that two teams from separate conferences can meet in the NHL playoffs. This is why the NHL betting often has an Eastern and Western team as the top two in the odds.
What Happens if Games are Tied at the End of Regulation Time in the NHL Playoffs?
Each game in the Stanley Cup playoffs is contested over 60 minutes of regulation time, but at the end of that, if the score is tied, it goes to continual overtime periods and sudden death scoring rules.
NHL playoffs overtime periods last 20 minutes and are played in the usual 5-vs-5 format – unless a team has taken a penalty – until a goal is scored. One goal concludes the game.
Six periods of overtime is the most that teams have ever gone in the NHL playoffs, which made the overtime in the Detroit vs Montréal Maroons game of 1936 last for 116 minutes and 30 seconds.
What Do the NHL Playoffs Winners Get?
The winners of the NHL playoffs get the Stanley Cup. After claiming their fourth win in the Stanley Cup Finals round, the Stanley Cup is given to the captain of the winning team to hoist before the crowd.
The few exceptions to this tradition of the captain hoisting the Cup include Denis Savard in 1993 and Ray Bourque in 2001.
How Did the Stanley Cup become the NHL’s Trophy?
In 1892, Lord Stanley of Preston gifted what was then called the Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup as the prize for the best amateur ice hockey team in Canada.
It was then adopted as the prize for the winner between the best teams in the NHA and PCHA in 1915 before the NHL became the dominant professional league in North America.
In 1926, the Stanley Cup became the championship trophy of the NHL.
Which Team has Won the Most NHL Playoffs?
The Montréal Canadiens have won the most NHL playoffs, hoisting the Stanley Cup as the NHL’s championship trophy 24 times.
The next-best team is the Detroit Red Wings, with 11 wins.
In the salary cap era (since the 2004/05 lockout), the NHL playoffs have been won the most by the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Chicago Blackhawks, with both teams boasting three Stanley Cups up to the 2021/22 season.
Do the Favourites Always Win the NHL Playoffs?
If you consider the best team of the regular season the favourites to win the NHL playoffs, then the favourites rarely actually go on to win the Stanley Cup.
Awarded since the 1985/86 season, the Presidents’ Trophy goes to the team with the outright best record in the regular season, and these teams usually lead in the odds to win the Cup.
From the 1985/86 season to the 2021/22 season, which has seen 36 sets of NHL playoffs, only eight teams have won the Presidents’ Trophy and the Stanley Cup, and only a further three have made it to the Stanley Cup Finals.
This gives the assumed favourites from the regular season a 22.2 percent hit rate of winning the NHL playoffs, making the live betting online all the more popular among NHL fans due to the unpredictability of the sport.
What is the NHL Playoffs Picture?
The NHL playoffs picture is the up-to-date look of how the NHL playoffs First Round would look, regarding match-ups, if the league were to end on that day.
So, it would show the current top of the Pacific Division and Western Conference against the team in the second Western Conference wild card spot, for example.
When are the NHL Playoffs?
The NHL playoffs are at the end of the NHL’s regular season, which usually runs from early October to the middle of April. The 2023 NHL playoffs will commence on April 17, with the Stanley Cup Finals starting on June 8.
How Do NHL Playoffs Odds Work?
Before the NHL playoffs start, you can find odds for outright winners of the Stanley Cup in the Futures section. Once the NHL playoffs get underway, you can get odds on individual games, series, and to win outright.
The NHL playoffs odds will be presented as plus or minus numbers, with smaller numbers in the same market, such as -200 against +115 on the money line, indicating the favourite outcome, per the oddsmakers.
*Credit for all images in this article belongs to AP Photo*
FIRST PUBLISHED: 27th January 2023
