Weekend NHL rankings: A top 16, oddly specific playoff predictions and Gold Plan standings
Longtime readers know what that means: You're getting a top 16 instead of a top five, with every playoff team ranked. We'll also check in on what the Gold Plan standings would look like in the bottom five, and we'll even make a few oddly specific predictions.
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When the schedule first came out, I was a bit nervous about the season ending on a Thursday, since that meant the last rankings would come out when each team still had a game or two left. What if there was a furious race down to the wire, and I couldn't do a top 16 because there were 20 or more teams still battling it out for the final spots?
Luckily, the NHL heard my concerns and responded accordingly, delivering an absolute dud of a late-season race in which we basically already know all the playoff teams and most of the matchups. Yay?
We'll get to the rankings in a bit. But first, let's make five oddly Round 1 specific predictions, a tradition inspired by the annual regular-season version we all love so much. And unlike the regular-season picks, I can actually claim to come into the postseason version on a bit of a hot streak. I went 2-for-5 on last year's predictions, finding paydirt on Mark Stone scoring the Golden Knights' first goal and the Oilers scoring seven times in their opener. I also predicted that a goalie who had a shutout in Game 1 would lose his starting job, and while there were no Game 1 shutouts in Round 1, the first goose egg of the postseason came from Stuart Skinner, who did indeed lose his job to Calvin Pickard for a few games.
In the oddly specific prediction game, like in baseball, hitting .400 basically makes you Ted Williams. Although to be honest, I'll happily settle for Mario Mendoza.
5. Brady Tkachuk will Brady Tkachuk — At some point in the near-certain Maple Leafs series, he's going to do something controversial and vaguely dirty that will A) have Toronto fans calling for a suspension, B) not result in that suspension, and C) make you kind of hate both fan bases over how unbearable they're being about the whole thing. In the prediction business, this is the equivalent of taking the free space on a bingo card.
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4. The Oilers will win the first game in Los Angeles — And we'll all make snide remarks about playing all year for home ice only to immediately cough it up. But it's OK, because this one comes with a bonus prediction: The Kings will win the first game in Edmonton.
3. The Stars/Avalanche series will be a sweep — This is one of those predictions where we think of the best possible outcome for fans and then assume the hockey gods will serve up the opposite. Let's just say I better be wrong here.
2. The Habs will shut out the Capitals in one of the first two games — It goes without saying that this will make everyone freak out and conjure the memories of Jaroslav Halak. Then the Caps win the series in five.
1. The eventual Stanley Cup champion will lose their opener in overtime — And yes, this means that if your team goes to OT in Game 1, you have to root against them.
By the way: If you don't like these predictions, or think yours would be better, there's good news: The playoff prediction contest returns later this week. One question, which you will get wrong. Or will you? Make sure you get your entry in, and let's find out.
The five teams with the best chances of winning the Stanley Cup.
All 16 playoff teams, in order from least to most likely to win the Cup, based on everything we know about matchups and seeding as of this morning (which isn't quite everything, but should be enough). Each team gets two sentences each, no more, no less.
16. Montreal Canadiens — Just being here at all feels like a minor miracle, so they should just be happy to be there and bow out quickly. Then again, we've said that a few times about this team over the years, and that's exactly when they shock us.
15. Minnesota Wild — There are no bad teams in the NHL playoffs anymore. There are occasionally mediocre ones, though, and that's what I think we have here.
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14. St. Louis Blues — If they'd kept winning right to the finish line, this would have been a much trickier call. As it stands, they'll be dangerous but probably overwhelmed.
13. New Jersey Devils — Damn, the Friday guys had them dead last. I don't think it's that bad, but without Jack Hughes, this doesn't feel like their year to go all the way.
12. Los Angeles Kings — After lots of back and forth, I've finally made my decision on whether I believe in them against the Oilers, even with home ice. I think this ranking tells you what that decision was.
11. Ottawa Senators —They'll have a goalie, a winnable matchup their fans will be rabid for and some legitimate 'nobody believes in us' energy. If you're looking for a wild-card team that could make a surprise run, this is the one, so don't act like you weren't warned.
10. Toronto Maple Leafs — Another postseason, another matchup they should probably win and another sinking feeling that we know how it's going to end. The Leafs could absolutely win a Cup with this roster, but it feels more and more like it would take a 2018 Capitals type of year, and we're well past 'believe it when I see it, not before' territory here.
9. Tampa Bay Lightning — I'm not sure how to get them any higher. But if it all comes together and they win it all, it's going to seem super obvious in hindsight.
8. Edmonton Oilers — I'm just not feeling it this year, even as all the pieces are clearly in place. Well, almost all of the pieces, depending on whether Mattias Ekholm can return (and how you feel about them deciding to entrust another McDavid/Draisaitl-era playoff run to Stuart Skinner).
7. Colorado Avalanche — I have no idea how to factor in what kind of boost, if any, they get from a Gabriel Landeskog return. Beyond that, we can all see that the Central is brutal, but these guys could absolutely be the ones to take it.
👏 Congrats to Gabriel Landeskog on recording on his first AHL goal as he continues his journey back to the @NHL . @ColoradoEagles @Avalanche pic.twitter.com/pbyE6DgIl9
— American Hockey League (@TheAHL) April 13, 2025
6. Florida Panthers — My Atlantic pick is no surprise if you've read the rankings all year, but I believe in them more than the standings say I should. But in a minor surprise, it turns out I don't believe in them nearly as much as the Friday guys apparently do.
5. Washington Capitals — This ranking represents a late-season drop, and I guess I lost a bit of my nerve, even as I still have them higher than the actual oddsmakers do. Don't worry, Caps fans — just think of how great it will be when they're in the Final and you all get to make fun of people like me for overthinking it.
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4. Dallas Stars — They looked dominant all season, then completely broken for the last week, and recency bias is a hell of a drug. I'm scared about their path out of the Central, but if they do emerge with a healthy Miro Heiskanen, they'll be clear favorites.
3. Carolina Hurricanes — They're my Metro pick, edging out the Caps. There are more than a few flaws here, especially in terms of scoring, but I still think it adds up to a team that can at least get back to the conference finals, and maybe more.
2. Vegas Golden Knights — The first-round matchup should be an easy win, the second round no longer looks as scary as it once did, and the Central winner should be exhausted by the conference finals. They may not be the best team, but I'm not sure anyone has a more obvious path to the Cup.
1. Winnipeg Jets — I've had my doubts all year, but they've got the best goalie, lots of scoring, a fan base that's absolutely starving for a Stanley Cup and a whole country ready to get behind them if they go deep. Screw it, we ride.
Not ranked: Calgary Flames and Columbus Blue Jackets — Barring a miracle, they're both done. But thank you for being the only teams that were even vaguely trying to give us a late-season playoff race.
The five teams headed toward dead last and the best lottery odds for a top pick that could be James Hagens, Matthew Schaefer or someone else.
This is the time of year when we unveil what the race for the top pick would look like under the Gold Plan, an alternate method of determining draft order that I've been advocating for years. While there's little indication that the NHL has any appetite for adopting the plan, the momentum among fans has been building, helped by the PWHL embracing the plan last year.
In short, the idea here is that the top pick goes to the team that earns the most points after being eliminated from the playoff race. So the bad teams still get an advantage, in the form of a head start when they're eliminated early, but now they have to win their way to the pick. That would mean no more cheering for your own team to lose down the stretch, plus the occasional late-season matchup between bad teams that would feel like a playoff game. (For example, yesterday's Bruins/Penguins would feel important, instead of like a waste of everyone's time.)
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It goes without saying that not everyone loves the idea, because we're hockey fans and we can never agree on anything. I've tried to tackle the various objections over the years, but I also want to be an advocate instead of a zealot, which means I have to acknowledge when the other side might have a point.
So I have to admit … yeah, this year wasn't a great one for the Gold Plan. One of the arguments against the idea has been 'What happens if the conferences are so unbalanced that one side gets eliminated way earlier than the others?' And the answer was always 'The odds of that happening in a meaningful way are small enough to essentially ignore.' Oops. It did happen this year, thanks to an Eastern wild-card race so tepid that it means all the conference's worst teams couldn't pass the elimination mark until the season was nearly over. Meanwhile, the West's worst teams were happily banking Gold Plan points for weeks, even though their overall records weren't much worse than the East.
So is this a reason to dump the Gold Plan, or a one-off we can live with? That's up to you, but we can at least admit this year's standings get weird.
Bonus fun fact: We can't end the section without one last piece of bottom-five misery. The Blackhawks are in Montreal tonight to play the Canadiens, a team they previously beat in their only other matchup this year. With a loss, they'll become the first team in NHL history to lose to 31 teams in a season, and the first team since 1992-93 to lose to every other team in the league at least once.
That will do it for another season. Thanks everyone for reading, and especially to all of you who argued your favorite team's case in a way that made the comment section slightly less of a trainwreck than other comment sections. Enjoy the playoffs and the offseason, and before you know it we'll be back in October with Week 1 rankings that will look absolutely terrible in hindsight.
(Photo of Brady Tkachuk: Ed Mulholland / Imagn Images)
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