They say a change is as good as a rest, which helps explain why there’s such a refreshing feel around this NHL season.
With exactly one month to go in the 2025-26 campaign — the final regular season contests will be held April 16 — the spring soil is getting turned all over the league.
And while there’s still a lot to work out, bank on some meaningful alterations come playoff time.
As of this moment, eight teams that did not make the second season in 2025 are holding down a spot for the 2026 derby. Very simple math tells you half the 16-team field challenging for the Cup this year could be squads that were eliminated after 82 games last season.
Three teams that won their division last year — Washington, Winnipeg and Toronto — are strong bets to miss the playoffs. That’s the first- (Jets), second- (Capitals) and fourth-best (Leafs) clubs overall from one year ago going out early, though the Jets did get two critical home wins this weekend over Colorado and St. Louis to keep Manitoba hope alive.
As it stands, the Buffalo Sabres squad that downed Toronto 3-2 in a shootout on Saturday is virtually a lock to end a 14-year post-season drought and, increasingly, looks like a good bet to win its division for the first time since 2010. Detroit — which eked out a single point in Dallas on Saturday — is in a much more perilous position, but still stands a decent chance to end a nine-season absence from the playoffs.
Anaheim, which grabbed a crucial two points on Sunday night in Montreal thanks to a late strike from Cutter Gauthier, leads the Pacific Division and could end a seven-season stretch outside the big spring dance.
Meanwhile, we could have second-season hockey in Utah for the first time in NHL history. Of course, that franchise was in Arizona a short time ago and if the Mammoth — who lost 4-3 to Pittsburgh on Saturday, but are still looking good as WC1 in the West — do pin down a playoff berth this year, it will mark the first one for that franchise in a full NHL campaign since 2012.
As for WC2 in the West, that’s currently held down by a Seattle team that scored two massive victories on the weekend — powered by three goals from deadline pickup Bobby McMann — by beating the Canucks 5-2 in Vancouver and Florida 24 hours later in Seattle by a 6-2 count. The Kraken, of course, have but one playoff appearance since joining the NHL five years ago.
Speaking of Florida, it goes without saying we’re on track for somebody other than the Cats to win the Cup for the first time since 2023. And with the Leafs thinking lottery despite taking three of four points in Buffalo and Minnesota on the weekend, Colorado and Tampa Bay will take over as the clubs with the longest streak of consecutive playoff appearances. Toronto was on a nine-season run since 2017, while the Avs and Bolts have both made it every spring beginning in 2018.
Even the bottom of the league features some exciting turnover, with Vancouver holding the best odds to draft first overall and Calgary holding the second-best. Neither of those franchises — even during the Flames’ crummy years in Atlanta in the ’70s — have ever strolled up to the podium with the first-overall pick, so there’s a great chance we break new ground at the 2026 NHL Draft in Buffalo.
Who knows, maybe that event in the city will happen right on the heels of the Sabres appearing in the Stanley Cup Final. If that idea doesn’t hammer home how different things feel in the league right now, nothing will.
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32 Thoughts: The Podcast
Hockey fans already know the name, but this is not the blog. From Sportsnet, 32 Thoughts: The Podcast with NHL Insider Elliotte Friedman and Kyle Bukauskas is a weekly deep dive into the biggest news and interviews from the hockey world.
Weekend Takeaways
• Speaking of fresh faces, the field of impressive rookies in 2025-26 just continues to expand. Nobody is knocking off Matthew Schaefer for the Calder, but Jimmy Snuggerud has joined Schaefer, Ivan Demidov and Beckett Sennecke as freshmen scoring at a 60-point rate. The St. Louis Blues winger picked up an apple in his team’s 3-2 loss in Winnipeg on Sunday and now has 20 points in his past 16 outings and 35 overall in 55 games. It’s obviously been a tough year in St. Louis, but the play of Snuggerud — to say nothing of some strong work by fellow rookie Logan Mailloux on the blueline recently — offers some hope for the Blues.
Meanwhile, another bottom-of-the-table club is getting a shot of optimism thanks to the work of Gabe Perreault in New York. The Rangers rookie snagged an assist in his team’s win in Minny on Saturday and Perreault has an impressive 4-6-10 line in his past seven contests.
• While the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs figure to have a lot of inexperienced teams, two battle-tested squads with big dreams are headed in opposite directions right now. The Dallas Stars won for the 14th time in 15 games on Saturday by edging Detroit 3-2 in a shootout. Dallas is now three points back of Colorado for top spot in the league, with the Avs holding a single game in hand on the Stars.
At the other end of the spectrum, Tampa Bay has managed just two wins in its past nine showings following a 4-2 setback at home on Saturday versus the Hurricanes. The Bolts now embark on a four-game roadie through Seattle and Western Canada, and while we’re not going to get too dramatic here, let’s just say you don’t want to mess around too much when it comes to playoff spots in an Eastern Conference where two teams outside the cutoff right now — Columbus and Ottawa — just keep coming. As it stands, Tampa is five points clear of the hard-charging Jackets with one game in hand.
Red and White Power Rankings
1. Montreal Canadiens (36-20-10) Two 60-minute, home losses on the weekend mean Montreal is officially scrapping it out to maintain a playoff spot. The Habs have two monster contests with teams right behind them this week, as the Bruins visit on Tuesday before Montreal travels to Detroit on Thursday.
2. Ottawa Senators (34-23-9) With two goals in Ottawa’s 7-4 win over San Jose on Sunday, Drake Batherson is scoring at a 35-goal pace this season. At 27 goals, he’s just two away from setting a new career high.
3. Edmonton Oilers (33-26-9) The Oilers got an important 3-1 win over Nashville Sunday night, but the big concern is obviously the health status of Leon Draisaitl after a body check from Nashville’s Ozzy Wiesblatt caused the Edmonton star to depart the game.
4. Winnipeg Jets (28-28-10) Eric Comrie — in his first start since Feb. 25 — turned in a strong performance for the Jets on Sunday, making 29 saves in Winnipeg’s 3-2 win over the Blues. Comrie has a .946 save percentage in his past five outings.
5. Toronto Maple Leafs (29-27-12) The tank was supposed to be on when Auston Matthews went out for the season, but Benoit-Olivier Groulx has singlehandedly given the Leafs offence new life. His two goals Sunday night keyed a 4-2 win in Minnesota and the 26-year-old has three tallies in four games since being summoned from the AHL.
6. Calgary Flames (26-33-7) After finishing a five-game roadie in Detroit on Monday, Calgary will play six straight at home. Will one of those games mark the NHL debut of local boy Tyson Gross? The big centre is departing the NCAA after signing with his hometown team as a free agent last week.
7. Vancouver Canucks (20-38-8) Following Saturday’s 4-2 loss to the Kraken on Saturday, Vancouver’s points percentage sits at .364 for the season. The last time the team had a mark lower than that was .354 in 1998-99. Other than that, you’ve got to go all the way back to the 1970s to find Canucks teams that collected points at a worse rate than this one.
The Week Ahead
• The general managers are in Manalapan, Fla., right now, and the meetings are sure to contain talk about the increasingly-under-fire NHL department of player safety.
• Artemi Panarin returns to Madison Square Garden on Monday as a member of the Los Angeles Kings. Panarin registered an incredible 607 points in 482 games with the Blueshirts after signing as a free agent in 2019.
• Evgeni Malkin is slated to return to the Penguins lineup on Monday following a five-game suspension. There’s also a chance Sidney Crosby could return from his knee injury, and the stakes are certainly high with Pittsburgh in Denver to face Crosby’s pal Nathan MacKinnon and the Avalanche.
• There’s a fun slate of games Tuesday with former Blackhawks captain Nick Foligno back in Chicago on St. Patrick’s Day as a member of the Wild; super-rookie Matthew Schaefer, who grew up about an hour outside Toronto, visiting Scotiabank Arena for the first time in his career and old rivals Boston and Montreal clashing in Quebec for a huge tilt in the Eastern Conference playoff chase. Finally, Macklin Celebrini will be in Edmonton with the Sharks to face his Olympic linemate, Connor McDavid.
• It’s the season for NCAA signings and we saw a big one on Sunday when Cole Hutson — Lane’s little bro and projected star in his own right — left Boston University after two years to join the Washington Capitals. The Caps have three home games this week, beginning with Wednesday versus the Sens. We’ll see if Hutson draws in for his NHL debut.
• The top two clubs in the NHL will battle Wednesday night in Colorado when the Stars visit Denver. A 60-minute victory by the Avs might be enough to pin down the Presidents’ Trophy. Later that night, Trevor Zegras will make his return to Anaheim as a member of the Philadelphia Flyers.
• After meeting in the past two Cup finals, we can safely say Thursday’s tilt in Edmonton between Florida and the Oilers will be the final one of the season between these two squads.
• The two teams currently holding down Eastern Conference wild card spots — Boston and Detroit — will meet in the Motor City on Saturday. That same night gives us a “Battle of Ontario” in Ottawa, where the Leafs are in the unfamiliar role of playing spoiler.
