Updated 2026 NHL Playoffs Bracket Predictions 2 Weeks Before the Postseason
We are two weeks from the start of the 2025-26 Stanley Cup Playoffs, and there is still a lot to be decided in both NHL conferences.
At this point, only one or two matchups look close to settled as teams compete for both seeding and playoff spots.
With the season entering its stretch run, it is again time for a look at some playoff predictions.
Remember: These are predictions and not a look at the standings or the current matchups as of Wednesday. This is an attempt to predict how the standings will actually look and the matchups we could get.
Atlantic Division Bracket: Tampa Bay Lightning (Atlantic 1) vs. Boston Bruins (WC2)
1 of 8
Tampa Bay Lightning
The Tampa Bay Lightning enter play on Wednesday two points back of the Buffalo Sabres for the top spot in the Atlantic Division, but there are a couple of things still working in the Lightning favor when it comes to reclaiming the top spot.
The first is that they have a game in hand on the Sabres, which helps.
They also have a head-to-head game remaining against Buffalo, which could go a long way toward deciding the winner of the division.
Tampa Bay might simply be a better team. That is not a knock on the Sabres at all, it is just the fact that the Lightning have a bit more high-end talent, a bit more experience in these moments, and the better goalie with a proven track record of big-game success.
Boston Bruins
The Bruins are still within striking distance of a top-three spot in the Atlantic Division, but it is going to take some work to catch and pass the Montreal Canadiens for it. The first wild-card spot seems like a good bet for the Bruins.
They remain an incredibly difficult team to get a read on.
At different times this season they have been capable of extended winning streaks, extended losing streaks, and alternating between looking like a serious contender and a serious pretender.
David Pastrnak is still elite.
Morgan Geekie has been a breakthrough star since arriving in Boston.
Jeremy Swayman is playing like an elite goalie.
Those three players can change a game. But can they change enough games, and change enough to overcome some ugly underlying numbers on a team level? A 46.35 percent expected goal share (28th in the NHL) and allowing 2.95 expected goals per 60 minutes (30th in the NHL) is far from ideal. They need Swayman to be great to have a chance. Fortunately for them, he has been for most of the season.
Atlantic Division Bracket: Buffalo Sabres (Atlantic 2) vs. Montreal Canadiens (Atlantic 3)
2 of 8
Buffalo Sabres
It is almost over. The longest playoff drought in NHL history, currently sitting at 14 years, is on the verge of ending. One more win this week will do it. Then the Sabres are in. It will also be a well-earned playoff berth given the way they have turned their season around since mid-November.
Tage Thompson is playing like a star, Rasmus Dahlin is playing like a superstar, and they are playing wildly entertaining hockey, as any good Sabres team should.
The playoffs are going to happen. It is now just a matter of whether or not they win the division or get the No. 2 spot in the Atlantic.
Either way they will probably be getting home-ice in the first-round, which is something their fans absolutely deserve.
Montreal Canadiens
The Canadiens hit a little bit of a slump in early-mid-March that kind of pushed them back into the playoff bubble for a brief period of time. That slump seems to be over, and they remain in the driver's seat for the No. 3 seed in the Atlantic Division.
The young core of Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Juraj Slafkovsky, Ivan Demidov and Lane Hutson is fantastic, and should be the foundation of a contending team for the foreseeable future. The question is going to be whether or not they have enough depth and goaltending around them to help them take the next step in their development.
The playoffs were the expectation at the start of the season.
Now they have to win in the playoffs. If nothing else, a Buffalo-Montreal series would be highly entertaining with some of the best crowd environments in the first round and two really exciting young teams.
Metropolitan Division Bracket: Carolina Hurricanes (Metropolitan 1) vs. New York Islanders (WC2)
3 of 8
Carolina Hurricanes
Carolina is doing what Carolina always does and has really separated itself from the rest of the teams in the Metropolitan Division. Now the next task is securing the No. 1 spot in the Eastern Conference. And I believe it will.
The Hurricanes are as rock solid as ever, dominating possession and shutting down opposing offenses.
They are deep, well-balanced and do pretty much everything well. They are always a near-lock to win at least one round in the playoffs.
The question is whether they have enough offense and impact players to get through the truly top-tier teams. That remains the biggest obstacle they have to clear. We are getting close to a Stanley Cup-or-bust mentality here.
New York Islanders
Do we love the Islanders' chances right now? Not particularly. They do not have a great offense or many impact players beyond rookie Matthew Schaefer. They give up a ton of chances for a team that is regarded as tough and defensive.
What gives the Islanders a boost over everybody behind them, and what makes them such a potentially scary team in a potential best-of-seven series, is the presence of starting goalie Ilya Sorokin. He can steal games and completely change a playoff series.
Getting the No. 1 seed in the conference and having a seven-game series against him would be an extraordinarily tough draw.
.jpg?w=256 "Bills Broncos Football")
Metropolitan: Pittsburgh Penguins (Metropolitan 2) vs. Columbus Blue Jackets (Metropolitan 3)
4 of 8
Pittsburgh Penguins
The Pittsburgh Penguins really solidified their playoff chances and took a big step toward securing a spot to open this week with emphatic and convincing wins over both the New York Islanders (8-3) and Detroit Red Wings (5-1). They might have some flaws on defense and in goal, but their forward group is as deep as any team in the NHL. Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin are back in the lineup and still playing great, Rickard Rakell and Bryan Rust are still playing strong, Anthony Mantha and Justin Brazeau have been outstanding free agent signings, while Ben Kindel and Egor Chinakhov have brought some high-talent youth into the lineup and given them a couple of young stars to build around.
They also have Erik Karlsson playing some of the best hockey of his career right now. This might not be a Stanley Cup team, but it is a really good team with more scoring depth than most teams in the league. That will cause problems for teams. It has all season.
Columbus Blue Jackets
The Blue Jackets were one of the hottest teams in the league for a two-month stretch and played their way back into a playoff spot. They have cooled off considerably over the past two weeks, and enter Wednesday having lost five of their previous six games.
Cause for concern? Potentially. But they are still in a playoff position and still have time to get things straightened out. There is also the question of whether or not you can trust any of the teams behind them to do enough to pass them.
Central Division Bracket: Colorado Avalanche (Central 1) vs. Los Angeles Kings (WC2)
5 of 8
Colorado Avalanche
Even though the Avalanche hit a little bit of a slump in the middle of the season, this is clearly the best team in the NHL this season. The Presidents' Trophy and the top-seed in the Western Conference look to be theirs, and they made a huge trade deadline addition to get Nazem Kadri to significantly improve their center depth.
Having Nathan MacKinnon, Brock Nelson and Kadri down the middle is a championship level trio of centers. Add in defenseman Cale Makar, who is again playing at a Norris Trophy level, and two goalies that have played at an elite level this season and you have got an absolute powerhouse team. The only question is who they play in the opening round.
Los Angeles Kings
The Western Conference wild-card race is a mess at the bottom, mostly because none of these teams are any good and none of them deserve a playoff spot at the moment. But somebody has to get it.
So why not Los Angeles, even with all of its flaws?
The Kings have several head-to-head games against teams they are competing with, including two with the Nashville Predators, one with Seattle and one with the St. Louis Blues, and also play most of their remaining games -- and biggest games -- at home.
They can win these games.
And they should be able to win enough of them to sneak into that second wild-card spot. Sneaking in would be an appropriate way to describe it, given that entering play on Wednesday they have just 19 regulation wins this season, the second-lowest total in the league.
Central Division Bracket: Dallas Stars (Central 2) vs. Minnesota Wild (Central 3)
6 of 8
Dallas Stars
This is the one first-round matchup that you can pretty much lock in at this point, and it is also the most controversial.
What makes it so controversial is it calls the NHL's playoff system into question given two of the four best teams in the NHL are going to play each other in the first round, guaranteeing one of them is going to be eliminated right away.
The winner will likely then have to play Colorado, another of the four best teams in the league, meaning two of them are guaranteed to not even make it to the Conference Final.
This should be a Conference Final matchup or at least a strong second-round series. Having it in the first round is going to produce great hockey and an amazing series, but it still seems like it's too soon in the playoffs.
Dallas is the Western Conference version of the Carolina Hurricanes in the sense that it keeps getting close, but has been unable to break through and win a championship with this core. Could this be the year? If it is, the Stars are going to have to run a gauntlet in their bracket to get there.
Minnesota Wild
The Wild made one of the biggest moves at the NHL trade deadline to acquire defenseman Quinn Hughes from the Vancouver Canucks, and it has paid off.
His addition gives Minnesota another superstar to pair with Kirill Kaprizov, and the results have been spectacular.
The biggest question for the Wild is going to be whether they have the type of true No. 1 center Stanley Cup-winning teams tend to have. Dallas and potentially Colorado are both going to have major advantages down the middle.
Pacific Division Bracket: Anaheim Ducks (Pacific 1) vs. Utah Mammoth (WC1)
7 of 8
Anaheim Ducks
Not only are the Ducks on track to end their playoff drought, they look like a solid bet to win the Pacific Division.
Bet you did not see that coming at the start of the season.
They can score, and they are loaded with young talent at forward. But their defensive play leaves a lot to be desired and could be their undoing in the playoffs. But the Pacific Division bracket is going to be so wide open that it would not be a shock to see anybody go on a run.
Utah Mammoth
The Mammoth should be considered a potential sleeper team to make a run at the Stanley Cup Final. They are good, but because they play in the Central Division they are a very distant fourth behind the three top contenders in that division (Colorado Avalanche, Dallas Stars, Minnesota Wild) and in the conference. But because they seem poised to get the top wild-card spot, that will put them into the Pacific Division bracket with a likely first-round matchup against the Ducks.
They can win that series.
They can win the next series against either the Vegas Golden Knights or Edmonton Oilers.
If they can do those two things, that puts you in the Western Conference Finals where anything can happen at that point.
Utah has some exciting young talent and plays a fast-paced brand of hockey. They will not be an easy out. Especially in this divisional bracket.
Pacific Division Bracket: Edmonton Oilers (Pacific 2) vs. Vegas Golden Knights (Pacific 3)
8 of 8
Edmonton Oilers
The Oilers have their flaws, and they are significant. Goaltending is a concern (again). The depth beyond Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl is a concern (again). The defense after Evan Bouchard is a concern (again).
However, they still have McDavid and should have Draisaitl back when the playoffs begin. Those two guys can mask a lot of flaws and carry a team a long way, especially in a wide-open division without a single dominant team.
It is just a question of whether they can carry the Oilers back to the Cup Final and actually win it.
Vegas Golden Knights
There is not going to be a more fascinating team going into the playoffs than the Vegas Golden Knights, simply because of the late-season coaching change that saw them replace Bruce Cassidy with John Tortorella.
Will it help? Maybe, but Vegas is already good at the things Tortorella's teams excel at.
The Golden Knights defend well, have strong underlying numbers and have pushed possession for most of the season. When healthy, they have a really good core led by Jack Eichel and Mitch Marner.
The two biggest issues for them this season have been injuries and their netminders struggling. No team in the NHL has allowed more goals above expected than Vegas, a pretty good indication that goaltending is holding them back.
Given that and Edmonton's own issues in net and on defense, this could be an extraordinarily high-scoring series.
.jpg?w=480 "Bills Broncos Football")
