The NHL’s final-week shuffle is loud in all the usual ways—skates buzzing, benches talking too much—but there’s also a new kind of spectacle on the concourse. The Utah Mammoth unveiled its ZAMMOTH, a retrofitted Zamboni for interactive fan rides. It’s the kind of side story that pops up while the standings do the real talking.
By the end of the night on Monday, April 13, every team could carry a “clinched” or “eliminated” symbol by its name in the standings—at least, that’s the expectation. Then the season’s main job becomes deciding the seeding. As of Sunday, thirteen of the 16 playoff spots were already filled. The remaining three were on the line Monday for the Philadelphia Flyers, Anaheim Ducks and Los Angeles Kings, all of whom can clinch.
The Flyers did their part early—beating the Carolina Hurricanes 3-2 in a shootout—and that sets up a first-round matchup with the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Ducks, meanwhile, needed help. They got it when the Predators took a 3-2 regulation loss, giving Anaheim the path to clinch. It’s not a small moment for the Ducks either; the Ducks and Flyers have been out of the playoffs a combined 12 seasons, so when those symbols start appearing, people feel it.
There’s also a domino effect rolling through both conferences. Carolina’s point mattered because they wrapped up the Eastern Conference title when they got it in the overtime loss. That home-ice advantage doesn’t just sound good; it shapes the first three rounds. In the other big race, the Buffalo Sabres can clinch the Atlantic Division title on Monday.
The clinching scenarios basically read like a checklist of who needs what to happen, and then where it ends. The Kings hang on by beating the Kraken 5-3 to clinch a playoff spot, with Anze Kopitar extending his final season by setting up Adrian Kempe’s game-winning goal. Los Angeles holds the second wild-card spot and would face Colorado in the first round. But they’re also one point out of the first wild-card seed and third place in the Pacific Division—so yes, there’s still some wiggle room. Seattle’s able to get close, but Kempe scored to make it 4-2 with less than eight minutes left in the third.
Buffalo’s route to control was a rout, too—beating Chicago 5-1 to clinch the Atlantic Division title. That’s a big turnaround from early December, when the Sabres were in last place in the Eastern Conference. After changing general managers, they ended a record 14-season playoff drought and won their first division title since 2010. They’ll face the first wild card, currently the Bruins.
Meanwhile, the tiebreakers are there for the inevitable “what if” questions. If two teams are tied on points, the first tiebreaker is regulation wins, then regulation and overtime wins (ROW), then total wins, and then head-to-head results with the detail that if teams had an uneven number of meetings, the first game played in the city that has the extra game is excluded. When more than two clubs are tied, it gets even more specific—percentage of available points earned in games among each other (not including any odd games). Then it moves to goal differential and total goals.
Here’s who’s in the 2026 NHL playoffs as it stands: Eastern Conference has Carolina, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Montreal, Tampa Bay, Boston, and Ottawa; Western Conference has Colorado, Dallas, Minnesota, Edmonton, Vegas, Anaheim, and Utah. And if you’re wondering what’s next on the calendar, the regular season is scheduled to end on Thursday, April 16, with six games—then the Stanley Cup playoffs are scheduled to begin on April 18. After that, it’s just matchups… and maybe, for some teams, a lot less uncertainty than Monday’s kind of chaos.
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