NHL wild card standings and playoff picture 2026-27, updated daily

The NHL playoff standings are the fastest way to read a season, and this page tracks all of them: every division, the wild-card race in each conference with each team’s gap to the line, the clinch letters and the tiebreak columns that settle the close calls. These NHL playoff standings are rebuilt each morning from the NHL’s official feed once games are being played. Below the tables we set out the bracket, how the format works, how the playoff-odds markets read the same numbers, and the dates that frame the 2026-27 season. 19+ (18+ in AB, MB and QC).

Last updated 28 September 2026. The 2026-27 season opens on Tuesday 29 September. Until games are recorded, the NHL playoff standings below show the final 2025-26 table, exactly as the playoff field was decided, because that is where this season’s race starts. The tables switch to the live 2026-27 standings once every club has ten games behind it, which is roughly the end of October. Before that a table of zeros tells you nothing, so we hold the final 2025-26 one. Clinch letters: x playoff spot, y division, z conference, p Presidents’ Trophy, e eliminated.

What to watch (editor’s note, 28 Sep): Three of the seven Canadian clubs made the 2026 playoffs, and the tables show how differently they got there. Montréal finished third in the Atlantic on 106 points, level with Tampa Bay and behind only on the regulation-wins tiebreaker. Ottawa took the second Eastern wild card on 99, four clear of Washington. Edmonton was second in the Pacific on 93, in a division Vegas won with 95. That Western line sat unusually low, with Los Angeles getting in on 90 after 20 overtime losses, which is why the West is the conference to watch for value in the playoff-yes markets this season. At the other end, Toronto finished 28th on 78 points and Vancouver last in the league on 58 with a goal difference of minus 100. Our NHL season predictions set out where we expect all 32 to finish this time.

Eastern Conference playoff standings

Atlantic Division

Metropolitan Division

Eastern Conference wild card race

Western Conference playoff picture

Central Division

Pacific Division

Western Conference wild card race

Canadian teams in the NHL playoff standings

The NHL playoff bracket

The NHL playoff standings feed straight into the bracket, and the seeding rules are worth knowing. Sixteen teams, eight per conference. The wild cards cross over: the wild card with the weaker record plays the division winner with the better record, and the other two division winners take the remaining wild card. The second and third-placed teams in each division play each other.

Here is how the 2026 bracket was seeded off the table above. It is the reference point until this season’s NHL playoff standings have enough games behind them to seed a new one.

Carolina came through it to win the Stanley Cup, from second in the standings, and Vegas reached the final from 13th. That is worth holding on to when you read any NHL playoff standings in March: the table seeds the bracket, it does not decide it. Two of the four Eastern ties above were separated by nothing at all, with Tampa Bay and Montréal level on 106 and Pittsburgh and Philadelphia level on 98.

Outright prices for this season are on our NHL Stanley Cup odds page and qualifying prices on NHL playoff odds.

How the NHL playoff format works

The NHL playoff standings send sixteen teams through, eight per conference: the top three in each of the four divisions, plus two wild cards per conference, which go to the two best remaining records regardless of division. That is why a fourth-place team in a strong division can make it while a third-place team in a weak one cannot; the wild card is a conference race, not a division one. In the first round each division winner plays a wild card, with the conference’s better division winner drawing the lower wild card, and second plays third within each division. The bracket then stays fixed, so the path to the Final is known the night the field is set. Which clubs sit in which division, with their arenas and Stanley Cup records, is on our NHL teams page.

Ties in points are broken first by games played, with the team that has played fewer ranked higher, which in-season means the better points percentage. Then come regulation wins, regulation plus overtime wins, total wins, points in the head-to-head games, goal differential and finally goals scored. The second and third steps are the RW and ROW columns above, and they decide more races than people expect: a shootout win earns the same two points as any other win but counts for nothing in the tiebreaker until the fourth step, total wins. The overtime loss point is the other quirk. Every game past regulation puts three points into the standings instead of two, which is why teams playing a lot of overtime can look better in points than in wins.

Playoff odds: what the market and the arithmetic say

Alongside the NHL playoff standings, Ontario and Alberta sportsbooks post a yes/no market on each team making the playoffs before opening night and reprice it through the season, and the Stanley Cup odds board is the other side of the same question. The table above is the arithmetic behind both. East: the last spot went to the Ottawa Senators with 99 points, and the first team out was the Washington Capitals on 95. West: the last spot went to the Los Angeles Kings with 90 points, and the first team out was the St. Louis Blues on 86. In most seasons the last spot lands somewhere in the low to mid nineties, so a team on a 100-point pace is comfortable, a team on a 92-point pace is in the race, and a team on an 85-point pace needs a run.

Two things to hold on to before you bet a playoff market on these NHL playoff standings. Early pace is noise: a team’s points percentage after 15 games has a loose relationship with where it finishes, and the market knows it, so October prices already assume regression. And the schedule is not even: a team that has banked home games or is about to face a run of back-to-backs will not keep its pace, which is why our power rankings look past the points column. The Saturday predictions column and the injury report carry the week-to-week context, and the futures betting guide covers how these markets settle.

Key dates for the 2026-27 season

If a race in these tables changes your view of a season-long market, these are the NHL sportsbooks we rate for Canadians, listed by province, with the full comparison on our NHL betting sites page:

Where these NHL playoff standings come from

Every table in these NHL playoff standings is generated from the NHL’s official feed, including the wild-card order, clinch letters and tiebreak columns, which is the same data behind NHL.com’s standings page. Once the season is under way we rebuild this page each morning Eastern time so it reflects the previous night’s games. The stamp at the top says exactly when it last ran. Regular-season games only. The Stanley Cup winners page holds the historical record once the bracket is done, and the NHL betting hub covers the markets and the rules.

NHL playoff standings FAQ

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