What's at stake over the final week of the NHL season

Jesse Campigotto · CBC Sports

· Posted: Apr 10, 2025 4:29 PM EDT | Last Updated: 2 hours ago

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With 8 days and conscionable a fistful of games near for each team, we person immoderate absorbing races for playoff spots and idiosyncratic awards connected our hands.

Let's look astatine the playoff representation first, with a absorption connected the Canadian teams.

In the Eastern Conference, 7 of the 8 playoff berths are officially spoken for, portion Montreal has each but clinched the last chaotic paper with six consecutive wins heading into Friday night's crippled astatine Ottawa. If the Stanley Cup playoffs started today, the Canadiens would look Alex Ovechkin's top-seeded Washington Capitals.

The Senators, who are returning to the post-season for the archetypal clip since 2017, presently clasp the apical wild-card spot and are successful enactment to look Toronto successful the archetypal Battle of Ontario bid successful 21 years.

The Maple Leafs tightened their grip connected archetypal spot successful the Atlantic Division (and the No. 2 effect successful the conference) with a large 4-3 overtime triumph past nighttime astatine Tampa Bay. Matthew Knies scored the victor to implicit a chapeau instrumentality and enactment Toronto 3 points up of the Lightning, who are pointed toward a Battle of Florida against the Stanley Cup champion Panthers.

One Eastern matchup is locked in: Carolina volition look New Jersey successful the archetypal round, and the Hurricanes volition apt person home-ice vantage arsenic they pb the Devils by 7 points for 2nd spot successful the Metropolitan Division. Washington clinched archetypal spot successful the Metro earlier this week.

WATCH | Ovechkin scores No. 895, breaking Getzky's coveted extremity record:

In the Western Conference, 3 of the 8 playoff entries are technically inactive up for grabs. However, Edmonton has a seven-point pb connected Calgary for the Pacific Division's 3rd spot with conscionable 4 games left, portion the Flames way chaotic cards St. Louis and Minnesota by five. Calgary has 2 games successful manus connected the Blues and 1 connected the Wild, truthful we shouldn't number them retired yet. But their likelihood of making it are nether 10 per cent, according to Money Puck's model. Vancouver was officially eliminated past night.

Looking astatine the apical of the standings, Winnipeg has a three-point pb implicit Washington successful the contention for the Presidents' Trophy for the league's champion record. Perhaps much importantly, the Jets are 4 points up connected Dallas for archetypal spot successful some the Central Division and the conference. The apical squad determination gets a favourable first-round matchup against a chaotic card, portion the runner-up has to look high-octane Colorado, featuring reigning MVP Nathan MacKinnon and Norris Trophy favourite Cale Makar.

Having said that, those chaotic cards abruptly don't look similar specified casual outs. St. Louis won 12 games successful a enactment earlier losing its past two, portion Minnesota's offence exploded past nighttime with the instrumentality of a brace of injured stars. Joel Eriksson Ek scored 4 goals successful his archetypal crippled since precocious February, and Kirill Kaprizov potted 2 (including the OT winner) successful his archetypal crippled since Jan. 26 to springiness the Wild a, well, chaotic 8-7 triumph implicit San Jose.

Vegas is poised to instrumentality the Pacific Division and look a chaotic card, meaning we're looking astatine yet different opening-round bid betwixt Edmonton and Los Angeles. They've met 3 years successful a row, with the Oilers winning each time.

Draisaitl is expected backmost from his lower-body wounded successful clip for the playoffs, and helium should bent connected to triumph his archetypal goal-scoring title. He leads second-place William Nylander of Toronto and Tage Thompson of Buffalo by 8 with conscionable 4 oregon 5 games near for those guys.

The contention for the Art Ross Trophy is much interesting. It's a two-horse contention betwixt MacKinnon and Tampa Bay's Nikita Kucherov, who are neck-and-neck with 116 points each — 10 much than the third-place Draisaitl. But MacKinnon has been ruled out of tonight's crippled against Vancouver and could miss each of Colorado's last 3 games owed to an undisclosed injury.

MacKinnon captured his archetypal Hart Trophy arsenic league MVP past twelvemonth but has ne'er won the Art Ross. Kucherov took some trophies successful 2019 and won his 2nd Art Ross past year.

Winnipeg's Connor Hellebuyck is simply a fastener for his 2nd consecutive Vezina Trophy and 3rd of his vocation arsenic helium leads each the large statistical categories for goaltenders. He's adjacent gathering a beardown MVP lawsuit arsenic the champion subordinate for the league-leading Jets, and could go the archetypal goalie since Carey Price a decennary agone to triumph the Hart.

Montreal defenceman Lane Hutson is favoured to triumph the Calder Trophy for rookie of the twelvemonth aft helping the Habs to the brink of a astonishing playoff berth. The 5-foot-9, 162-pound American's 64 points are already tied for the sixth astir ever by a rookie defenceman and are the astir since Hall of Famer Brian Leetch enactment up 71 successful 1988-89. San Jose guardant Macklin Celebrini made the Calder contention a small much absorbing past nighttime with a chapeau instrumentality and 2 assists, bringing the No. 1 wide draught prime up to 24 goals and 62 points successful 66 games.

Of course, the biggest idiosyncratic communicative of the play came to a satisfying decision past play erstwhile Alex Ovechkin scored his 895th vocation goal to interruption Wayne Gretzky's NHL record. Ovechkin, who ranks 4th successful the league with 42 goals contempt missing six weeks with a breached leg, has 5 games near to scope 900 earlier the extremity of the season. He'll request to mean a extremity per game, but it's not retired of the question aft helium scored six successful his past 5 to surpass Gretzky.

Here's a look astatine tonight's clinching scenarios and projected playoff matchups from the NHL.