It is mid-January 2026. The novelty of the new season has long since worn off, and the reality of the standings is starting to bite. Hard. If you’re a fan of a team like the Colorado Avalanche, you’re basically sleeping easy. They’ve been an absolute juggernaut, sitting at a ridiculous 33-5-8 record with a 99% lock on a postseason spot. But for everyone else? It’s a mess.
Honestly, the chances to make playoffs nhl are never about who has the most talent on paper in October. It’s about who survives the January "slog." This is the time of year when injuries pile up, the travel schedule gets brutal, and those "loser points" from overtime losses start to look like life rafts. If you're currently five points out of a wildcard spot, the math is already screaming at you.
Statistically, if you aren't in a playoff spot by Thanksgiving, your odds are usually cooked. But 2026 is feeling a bit different. We have massive surges from teams no one saw coming, and perennial heavyweights are suddenly looking very human.
The Math Behind the Madness: How Models See Your Team
Most fans look at the standings and see points. Analytics models, like the ones used by MoneyPuck or HockeyStats, look at "Expected Goals" and "Strength of Schedule." It's not just about the win; it's about whether that win was a fluke.
Take the Detroit Red Wings, for example. Early in the season, some models gave them a meager 12% chance to get in, despite them sitting near the top of the Atlantic. Why? Because their "PDO" (a stat that combines shooting percentage and save percentage) was unsustainably high. They were getting lucky. Conversely, a team might have a 40% chance despite a losing record because they are outshooting everyone 2-to-1 and just hitting posts.
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Current 2026 projections are heavily favoring the West's elite:
- Vegas Golden Knights: Practically a 100% lock at this stage.
- Dallas Stars: Sitting comfortably with a 99% probability.
- Minnesota Wild: After landing Quinn Hughes, their blue line transformed, pushing their odds into the mid-90s.
But then you look at the New York Rangers. It’s been a nightmare on Broadway. They’re sitting with a roughly 1% to 5% chance depending on which model you trust. When you're that far down in the Metropolitan Division, you aren't just fighting your own slump; you’re praying for three other teams to collapse simultaneously. That rarely happens in the "3-point game" era.
The Wild Card Chaos: Why Nobody Is Safe
The Wild Card system is basically a cage match. In the Eastern Conference, the Atlantic Division is so top-heavy with Tampa Bay and Florida that the fourth and fifth-place teams are often better than the second-place team in the Metro. This creates a bottleneck.
The Bubble Watch
Right now, the most "at-risk" teams—the ones truly on the bubble—are the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Washington Capitals. Toronto’s chances have fluctuated wildly, currently hovering around 44%. One week they look like contenders; the next, they can't buy a save.
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In the West, the San Jose Sharks are the season's biggest shocker. Nobody—and I mean nobody—had them in the hunt. But Macklin Celebrini is playing like a seasoned vet, and suddenly they have a 53% chance to make the dance. It’s the kind of story that makes people gamble on long shots.
Tie-Breakers: The Silent Season Killers
If your team ends up tied in points on April 11th, the "Points" column becomes irrelevant. The NHL uses a very specific hierarchy to break ties, and it’s usually where dreams go to die.
- Regulation Wins (RW): This is the big one. If you win in a shootout, it doesn't help you here. The league wants to reward teams that finish the job in 60 minutes.
- Regulation and Overtime Wins (ROW): Everything except shootouts.
- Total Wins: Finally, the shootouts count.
- Head-to-Head Record: How you played against the team you're tied with.
- Goal Differential: The "blowout" factor.
If you’re a team like the Seattle Kraken (currently around a 21% chance), you’ve got to start winning in regulation. Relying on the skills competition in October is fine. Relying on it in March is suicide.
What Needs to Happen for the "Long Shots"
For teams like the New Jersey Devils or Philadelphia Flyers, the road is steep. They are sitting in that 20-30% range. To flip those chances to make playoffs nhl into a reality, they need a "heater"—a stretch where they go something like 8-1-1 over ten games.
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It’s about the "Points Percentage." If a team needs 95 points to get in and they currently have 50 with 30 games left, they need to play at a 120-point pace the rest of the way. That is a tall order for a middle-of-the-pack roster.
Actionable Steps for Tracking the Race
If you want to stay ahead of the curve and not just react to the morning standings, keep an eye on these three specific indicators:
- The 5-Game Rolling Average: Don't look at the season-long record. Look at how a team has played over their last five games. If their "Expected Goals For" is rising but they are losing, a win streak is coming.
- Remaining Strength of Schedule (SOS): Some teams have already played the hard part of their calendar. The Buffalo Sabres, for instance, have a notoriously easier back half in 2026. This is why their 67% playoff probability is higher than their current ranking suggests.
- The Trade Deadline Impact: By early March, the "sellers" will ship their best players to the "buyers." If a bubble team like the Pittsburgh Penguins decides to hold firm or add a piece, their odds might jump 10% overnight just based on roster depth.
Track the Regulation Wins (RW) column specifically. It is the most honest reflection of a team's strength and the first tie-breaker that will actually matter come April. Pay attention to the gap between a team's actual points and their "Projected Points" on sites like Hockey-Reference to see if they are overachieving or due for a crash.
The race is far from over, but for teams at the bottom of the pile, the math is becoming an inescapable ceiling. You can't outrun the numbers forever.