With the NHL regular season coming to an end on Sunday, all roads lead to the Stanley Cup playoffs.
For the last three postseasons, the NHL has used a new format for seeding purposes, which while creating dynamic division matchups in the first round, has been confusing for some fans. Luckily, we've got you covered.
Here is a round-by-round explanation of the seeding for the 2016 Stanley Cup playoffs by using the Eastern Conference as an example.
The NHL has essentially abandoned the 1-8 seeding format by making brackets out of its four divisions. The top three teams in each division make up 3/4s of the bracket, while the final team is determined by the two Wild Card spots -- regardless of their division. The full Round 1 schedule can be found here.
The Eastern Conference standings ended up as follows:
Atlantic
1) Florida (103 points)
2) Lightning (97)
3) Detroit (93)
Metropolitan
1) Capitals (120)
2) Penguins (104)
3) Rangers (101)
Wild Card
1) Islanders (100)
2) Flyers (96)
Round 1
Though the Islanders and Flyers are in the same division, they had the highest amount of points out of any of the teams battling it out for a Wild Card berth and thus were both thrust into the playoffs. For the first round, the No. 2 and No. 3 teams in the standings will always play each other, so the Lightning holds home-ice over the Red Wings in Round 1, while the Penguins do the same against the Rangers.
The division-winners from each bracket will always play a Wild Card team in the first round. Since the Capitals have the most points in the East, they get to play the bottom Wild Card team, which in this case is the Flyers. That means the Islanders, despite being in the Metropolitan division, head over to the Atlantic bracket to face the top-seeded Panthers due to their Wild Card berth.
Had the second team been from the Atlantic division, they'd still play the Capitals because Washington earned the right to play the second Wild Card team by clinching the top spot in the Eastern Conference, and the Islanders would still play the Panthers.
Round 2
Rather than re-seeding, the teams continue to play out their bracket. The winner of the Capitals-Flyers series will take on the victor from Rangers-Penguins in Round 2, while whichever team emerges from the Panthers-Islanders slate faces whichever team remains between the Lightning-Red Wings. This also happens for the Pacific and Central brackets in the Western Conference.
Round 3
The winner of the Metropolitan division bracket (Capitals, Flyers, Penguins or Rangers) then takes on the victor from the Atlantic (Panthers, Islanders, Lightning or Red Wings) in the Eastern Conference Finals. Out West, the Pacific division winner battles the victor of the Central division bracket.
Round 4
The last team remaining for the Eastern Conference takes on the Western Conference representative in the Stanley Cup Final.
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