Welcome back to another edition of the NHL Playoff Report, a monthly look at the league through the eyes of each team’s chances of making the playoffs: who’s up, who’s down and why.
After each night’s slate of games, our playoff projections page is updated, taking into account the results from those games and fresh new data to feed into the model. Every night, everything changes and those changes add up quickly, especially if a team goes on a heater (or cooler). Those changes can also be difficult to view at a glance and it’s good practice to take stock regularly of what’s been happening.
We missed a month thanks to the 4 Nations break, but here’s what has happened since January.
The East bubble
Five spots are essentially locked up and while the Devils should be fairly safe, a potentially lengthy injury to Jack Hughes does leave some room for error. Assuming they still make it, that leaves two spots up for grabs.
Ottawa and Columbus are in the driver’s seat at the moment with odds just a little over 50 percent. The model still views the Senators as a stronger team than the Red Wings, with a massive schedule advantage in Ottawa’s favor. The Senators play 13 of their remaining 22 games at home with an average opponent Net Rating of minus-6, the sixth-easiest schedule in the league. In contrast, Detroit has the hardest schedule with 13 of 22 games on the road and an average opponent Net Rating of plus-19. Columbus, at plus-11, is second, which is partly why its chances aren’t quite as safe yet despite a four-point cushion on Ottawa.
The Rangers are still hanging around and could make things interesting, but a lot depends on the severity of Adam Fox’s injury status, which is still unknown. They have the strongest priors of any team in the running given they were a contender as recently as last season — but their weak showing this season has obviously lowered their standing. Monday’s game against the Islanders was a big one and is part of the reason for the current 20-percentage-point gap between the two teams. The win arguably kept the Rangers in the race and pushed the Islanders out of it.
The Bruins, Flyers and Canadiens could make a surprise run, but the current belief in their respective rosters and tough schedules (especially for Montreal) work against them.
The West bubble
Seven spots in the West are essentially safe, but the race for the final spot has become a lot more intriguing of late due to the Vancouver Canucks’ increased ineptitude. The spot should be theirs for the taking in a weak West, but the Canucks have done everything in their power to make things as interesting as possible.
Vancouver holds all the cards as the best team in the race with the easiest remaining schedule (13 of 22 at home, average opponent Net Rating of minus-7) on top of that. But Utah is finally healthy and looking better lately, and the Flames have managed to hang around all season despite significant roster deficiencies. The Blues have also turned things around under Jim Montgomery; their presence should not be discounted. St. Louis’ schedule down the stretch is also among the easiest.
Vancouver has the personnel to make the playoffs, but they have to live up to their usual standard to be worthy of the team’s current 63 percent odds. They haven’t all season, and if that continues, it’s not hard to envision Vancouver’s hold on the last playoff spot slipping away.
On the rise
Detroit Red Wings
Two months ago, no part of me thought the Red Wings were a credible playoff threat. Maybe they’d get a new coach bump from Todd McLellan, but they seemed too far gone with too tough a path ahead and too weak a roster.
Boy, was I wrong — now look at them.
Since the last Playoff Report, the Red Wings are one of the hottest teams in the league, mustering a 12-6-2 record backed by a scorching hot power play that has scored 13.3 goals per 60. There may still be issues at five-on-five (47 percent xG) and on the penalty kill (11.3 goals against per 60), but their power play has given them enough of an edge to propel them into a playoff spot. It’s the driving force of the team’s Offensive Rating, which has improved from minus-31 to minus-11 over the last two months. In terms of Net Rating, only one team has improved its standing more than Detroit.
McLellan has made an obvious impact that has helped this roster show what it’s capable of, and while there are still flaws, the core group looks effective enough to be playoff caliber. That’s a massive improvement over where they were trending with Derek Lalonde: back to the lottery.
The coaching change saved Detroit’s season and put the Red Wings in the thick of the playoff race, but there’s still an uphill battle ahead of them — especially after two regulation losses to Columbus. Those losses cut Detroit’s chances in half from 42 percent to 20 percent.
That may seem harsh for a team currently in a playoff spot, but the model is still being cautious, given the team’s priors and that its five-on-five numbers still look weak. Combine that with an incredibly difficult upcoming schedule and the Red Wings still have a lot to prove.
That’ll be the real test for McLellan’s team — one that, at the very least, Detroit looks much better equipped to handle.
Columbus Blue Jackets
The Blue Jackets might actually do it. They might actually make the playoffs in what would be one of the greatest recent stories in sport. After back-to-back regulation wins over Detroit, the Blue Jackets are officially more likely to make the playoffs than miss with a 53 percent chance. That’s up 34 percentage points from where they were two months ago thanks to an inspired 11-5-2 run.
At 30-22-8, the Blue Jackets have banked a lot of points here and that’s the main thing contributing to the team’s currently high chances. While the model believes in Columbus’ roster significantly more than it did at the start of the season, the team’s Net Rating didn’t improve much over the last two months despite all the wins.
The reason for that is simple: Columbus’ underlying numbers remain questionable. Over the last two months, the Blue Jackets earned just 47 percent of the expected goals, yet still enjoyed 59 percent of the actual goals. Essentially, they’ve been getting all the bounces.
Usually that’s a red flag that suggests a pullback might be in order, and Columbus’ upcoming schedule only furthers the possibility that the Blue Jackets might be in tough.
With just 22 games left, regression is a possibility — not an inevitability. Maybe the team’s Cinderella run ends, but the Blue Jackets are in full control of their destiny. It’s impossible not to root for the magic to continue.
But while a 53 percent shot is exciting, it’s important to pair the current optimism with a small dose of caution. There’s still work to do — time to finish the job and make the playoffs.
Winnipeg Jets
Somehow, it doesn’t feel like the league’s best team this season is getting enough respect. No team saw a bigger improvement to their Stanley Cup chances over the last two months than Winnipeg, going from 7.4 percent to 11.9 percent. That jump makes the Jets the second-most likely team to win after Edmonton.
Winnipeg is not just Connor Hellebuyck and friends. The Jets look deep and when a team can earn 54 percent of the expected goals in front of the league’s best goalie, great things can happen. Add an elite power play on top of that and the Jets have a clear recipe for success going into this year’s playoffs. There’s been no slowing down for Winnipeg, which has gone 14-3-2 since the last Playoff Report.
One other key change since then: the return of Dylan Samberg. I’m not sure many people outside of Winnipeg realize how impactful he’s been this season. Since returning from injury, he’s been Winnipeg’s clear No. 2 defenseman. His Net Rating saw the biggest jump of any Jet over the last two months, going from plus-1.5 to plus-4.1 — that’s top-pair territory. Samberg has helped elevate Neal Pionk’s game to the point that the second pair is rocking a 55 percent xG rate on the season while taking on much tougher assignments over the last two months. Combine that with Josh Morrissey’s pair and the Jets’ top four looks rock solid.
The Jets aren’t a perfect team and can still shore up some holes around the lineup, but what they’ve managed to accomplish this season is no fluke. The Jets are the real deal and look like a real threat to go deep this season.
Florida Panthers
After the Jets, the Panthers have seen the second-biggest jump in Stanley Cup chances over the last two months, going from a dark horse at 6 percent to one of the teams to beat at 10 percent.
There are two parts to that jump.
The first is the team ramping up their play. Call it regular-season fatigue after winning it all, but the Panthers were looking a little stale in the season’s first half. Florida was still controlling play with a 53 percent expected goal rate but was break-even on the scoreboard. All that has changed; the Panthers have been the league’s top five-on-five team over their last 20 games, earning 59 percent of the expected goals and 65 percent of the actual goals. They are extremely back.
The other part is the big news from Saturday night: Seth Jones is a Panther. His acquisition is huge, pushing Florida from 8 percent to 10 percent in Cup odds. Jones is still a top-pair defenseman and has the exact offensive skill set that the Panthers needed on the back end. He’s a strong puck-mover who should make for a substantial improvement to the team’s top four.
With Jones replacing one of its third-pair defenders, Florida’s Net Rating jumped from plus-40 to plus-48. Once again, the Panthers are the team to beat in the East (assuming Matthew Tkachuk comes back for the playoffs, that is).
Honorable mentions: Vegas Golden Knights, New York Rangers
Falling off
Vancouver Canucks
In a sense, the Canucks are lucky there aren’t many legitimate threats to the playoff spot they currently occupy. The Flames are a rebuilding team, Utah might not be there yet, and the Blues are still digging out of an early season hole.
Because of that, Vancouver’s playoff chances have only dropped 11 percentage points despite the team’s projected point total dropping by five. The Canucks are 11-10-1 since the last Playoff Report and it barely mattered — that’s how weak their competition has also been.
That weakness is what makes Vancouver’s current position so disappointing, as the team simply isn’t what many thought they were.
The Canucks have failed to build on last season in any meaningful way outside of Quinn Hughes and it’s left the team looking painfully mid. While it was fair to expect some PDO regression for the club, the drop in expected goals feels almost inexcusable. Over the last two months, the model has finally come around to the fact the Canucks simply aren’t that good. Their 16-goal drop in Net Rating is the largest non-injury-related drop for any team during that time frame.
There’s still time to turn things around, and that ultimately comes down to the team’s core forwards. Over the last two months, the biggest drops in Net Rating have come from Conor Garland (seven points in 20 games), Elias Pettersson (seven points in 20 games) and Brock Boeser (10 points in 20 games). The latter two have gotten absolutely crushed at five-on-five on top of that. If the top guys aren’t going, what hope does the team have of any relevancy?
Naturally, it’s Pettersson at the top of the blame list, and it’s fair to say this is an entirely different season if he plays anywhere close to expectations. Going into the year, his projected Net Rating was plus-17. Through 54 games, he’s at plus-2.8 — second-line-forward caliber. Part of the reason there’s still a 63 percent hope of Vancouver salvaging this season is that the model expects Pettersson to bounce back in some capacity, even if it’s not quite to the same level expected at the start of the season.
With how Pettersson has looked over the last month, that hope might be misplaced.
Edmonton Oilers
For almost the entire season, the Oilers were the Stanley Cup favorite. Was the model too high on them at certain points? Certainly, but because of how strong the team’s core looked, it felt fair to put the Oilers in a higher echelon. While anything above 20 percent was probably too high, it was still Edmonton and then everybody else. With all their flaws in mind, the Oilers looked like the team to beat.
That’s changed over the last month, as the Oilers have looked vulnerable and their flaws have been exposed. Edmonton has just one regulation win over its last 10 games and had a five-game losing streak after the 4 Nations break in which the team looked completely out of sync. Since Feb. 1, the Oilers have a 47 percent xG rate, one of the worst marks in the league — and they’ve paid the price for it with a 40 percent goal rate. That’s not just bad goaltending either, as the team has been especially porous defensively while struggling to finish.
This recent stretch has erased any assumed separation the Oilers have built against the rest of the pack. They may still be the favorites, but their lead over the next best teams has narrowed to the point that the top of the league feels wide open again.
One reason to stay calm: The Oilers go as Connor McDavid goes, and he’s going through one of the worst stretches of his career. Once he gets back on track — and he will — the wins will return.
One reason to panic: Mattias Ekholm was the primary catalyst for Edmonton ascending into the contention tier, and it’s not as certain he will get back on track. He’s looked rough over the last month, including at the 4 Nations Face-Off where he slid down Sweden’s depth chart after struggling against the best in the world. If that’s a sign of things to come for the 34-year-old, the Oilers may be in even more trouble than some already believe.
New Jersey Devils
Losing Jack Hughes is a big deal, one that dropped New Jersey’s playoff chances by 5 percentage points and Stanley Cup odds by 1.1 percentage points. The latter is the chief cause for concern here as it put a stamp on a difficult trend, one that’s seen the Devils’ Cup odds fall from as high as 10.4 percent in mid-January to 3.5 percent now. As it stands, the Devils are not a serious contender. No team saw a bigger drop in Cup odds over the last two months.
This is partly because of the strengthening of the two teams above them in the Metropolitan Division. The Capitals continue to prove themselves as a force and the Hurricanes made a huge splash by adding Mikko Rantanen. That pushed the Devils firmly into the Metro 3-spot, where they would likely be sizeable first-round underdogs to Carolina.
It’s also partly due to the team’s own play. Over the last 19 games, the Devils have a 45 percent xG share at five-on-five, the fourth-lowest mark in the league. They’ve struggled mightily to dominate play to their usual degree and have been saved only by stellar goaltending. The Devils are 8-8-3 since the last Playoff Report for good reason.
The Devils need to find a way back on track — a tall task without Hughes in the fold for the foreseeable future.
Boston Bruins
The writing has been on the wall for a while, but the last month has confirmed it: This might be it for these Bruins.
Going into the deadline, Boston has dropped eight of its last 11 games and has seen its playoff odds crash all the way down to 13 percent. Over the last two months, no team’s playoff chances have dropped more than Boston’s 26 percentage point loss. The Bruins aren’t totally cooked, but if they needed the hockey gods to give them a sign regarding what path to take on deadline day, they just got one.
The frustrating part is that this has all happened while David Pastrnak has played his best hockey of the season. Since the last Playoff Report, he has 15 goals and 33 points in 19 games — and it hasn’t even mattered as the rest of the team has struggled. Boston’s defense has really felt the burn without Hampus Lindholm, and Charlie McAvoy’s recent absence has only hampered things further.
Time to sell.
Honorable mentions: Pittsburgh Penguins, Minnesota Wild
Here’s how the entire league has changed over the last two months.
(Photo: Jason Mowry / Getty Images)
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