Wednesday night’s game between the Calgary Flames and the Winnipeg Jets is the biggest one on the slate as far as playoff positioning is concerned. The Jets lead the Flames by two points in the standings and have four more regulation wins. The teams each have won once in the season series, with each team winning, 3-2, on home ice. Winnipeg hosts Nashville and San Jose before heading to Minnesota and Colorado to finish the regular season after Wednesday’s game. Calgary heads to Vancouver before hosting Nashville and San Jose to wind things up. According to FiveThirtyEight, Winnipeg has a 79% chance to advance to the postseason, while Calgary’s chance is just 12%. Let’s look at the current playoff picture as you think about your NHL betting choices for the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
NHL Playoff Picture with 1 Week Left in the Regular Season
Current Playoff Matchups
Eastern Conference
- A1 Boston Bruins vs WC2 New York Islanders
- A2 Toronto Maple Leafs vs A3 Tampa Bay Lightning
- M1 Carolina Hurricanes vs WC1 Florida Panthers
- M2 New Jersey Devils vs M3 New York Rangers
Western Conference
- C1 Colorado Avalanche vs WC1 Seattle Kraken
- C2 Dallas Stars vs C3 Minnesota Wild
- P1 Vegas Golden Knights vs WC2 Winnipeg Jets
- P2 Edmonton Oilers vs P3 Los Angeles Kings
- A = Atlantic Division
- M = Metropolitan Division
- C = Central Division
- P = Pacific Division
- WC = Wild Card
- Left-hand team in each matchup has home ice advantage in the first round
As of this writing, the only team that has clinched a division title is Boston, as the Bruins have also clinched the President’s Trophy for the top record in the league. This means that all of the other division titles are in play. In the Eastern Conference, there are six teams still alive for the two wild-card positions; in the Western Conference, four teams could still get the two wild cards.
In the Central Division, Colorado, Dallas and Minnesota all have 98 points, but the Avalanche have a game in hand. Dallas has 35 regulation wins (the first tiebreaker after points), but the other two have just 32.
Edmonton has a 60-goal scorer in Connor McDavid, a 50-goal scorer in Leon Draisatl and two 30-goal scorers (Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Zach Hyman). Can you imagine how unstoppable they would be if they had an ironclad defense and an elite goaltender?
Colorado has 92 points from Mikko Rantanen through 75 games. Last year, he had 92 points for the whole season. This time around, he has 49 goals; last year, he had just 36. Getting to the net more often, and finding ways to put goals on the board, has helped the Avalanche out big-time in a season when other key players have missed time due to injury.
Los Angeles has been terrific for over a month now, even without star forward Kevin Fiala in a lot of those contests. He returned on March 26, and he put up four points in his first three games back. The Kings already had plenty of scoring, and now they have even more.
Carolina has only scored on 7.5% of their shots since March 4 – the lowest percentage in the NHL. The Hurricanes are still generating chances, but they’re not finishing. At some point, their luck has to change. Right?
The Rangers have seen Igor Shesterkin save 10.87 goals above average since March 1, according to Natural Stat Trick, the best number in the NHL. The Rangers generate all kinds of offense, and their problem has been keeping pucks out of their own net. If Shesterkin is ready to make an elite run in the playoffs, we could be seeing their names on the Cup in a couple of months.
New Jersey goaltenders have a shaky .892 save percentage since March 1. They’re also making just 8.81% of their shots over that time frame. The Devils play very well at even strength, but if they’re going to make a deep postseason run, both of those numbers must improve.
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