Postseason Bracket Predictions 11 Days From the 2024 NHL Playoffs

The NHL's late season is, in a word...fluid.

Four teams were within five points of the pole position in the league standings—and the Presidents' Trophy that ultimately comes with it—entering Monday's games, while the chase for the three non-clinched wild-card slots included seven more within the same margin.

And though teams in New York, Detroit, Los Angeles, Nashville and Vegas had ownership of the coveted "control their own destiny" phrase as the night's abbreviated two-game slate got started, there'll certainly be substantial paradigm shifts within 24 hours.

This makes the challenge of forecasting just who'll be involved across eight first-round series in the upcoming playoffs a daunting one. But it's precisely the kind of task the B/R hockey team revels in, which was all the prompt necessary for the staff to reconvene and map out who'll be matched with whom when the postseason puck drops on April 20.

It's the second go-round for our bracket-focused crystal ball and we're hoping the fine-tuning work since last week's effort will straighten out the kinks. Take a look at what we came up with this time and drop a thought or two of your own in the comments.

What a difference a week makes in the Atlantic Division.

Seven days ago, the Florida Panthers were two points off the pace of the Boston Bruins but still appeared to be the team that had resided at or near the top of the NHL standings all season, which prompted us to suggest they'd overcome the small margin and finish first.

These days, not so much.

The Panthers were a perfectly pedestrian 1-1-1 across three games while the Bruins were winning three straight by a 10-3 margin, stretching their division lead to five points and looking for all intents and purposes as if it'll be them and not Florida that snatches the Eastern Conference's No. 2 seed and with it a presumed duel with the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Barring a significant late surge, the Lightning are locked into fourth in the Atlantic, where they trail the third-place Toronto Maple Leafs by four points. They've already clinched a playoff spot, however, and their nine-point lead for the first wild-card spot leaves their opening-round opponent—presumably whoever wins the Atlantic—as the only lingering mystery.

For the record, they've played the Bruins four times this season, splitting a pair of regulation games and winning once each in overtime and a shootout.

There are a lot of reasons to believe in the Florida Panthers.

Their 48 wins are tied for fourth in the league, their +58 goal differential is tied for second, and they have multiple players among the leaders in several significant statistical categories.

They're just 8-8-2 across 18 games since the start of March and have gradually ceded position in the overall standings, though, and have fallen from a tie for first to open last month to a tie for fifth to begin this week.

Presuming they can't overcome the five-point gap to win the Atlantic and they don't squander the five-point edge they have on third-place Toronto, it'll be them and the Maple Leafs opening the first round of this year's tournament at Amerant Bank Arena.

Toronto is four points ahead of fourth-place Tampa Bay but has played well enough lately—6-4-0 in their last 10 and 10-6-1 since March 1—to think they won't fall into wild-card uncertainty.

It'd be a daunting first-round task because of momentum and the season series for Florida, which won a 3-1 decision at home in October before losing by 2-1 and 6-4 counts in subsequent games at Scotiabank Arena in November and April.

They'll meet one final time in the season's penultimate game on April 16, which could set the stage for a second straight postseason get-together on the heels of last year's second-rounder won by the Panthers in five.

Go ahead, you tell the New York Rangers they're not the NHL's best team.

The residents of the World's Most Famous Arena have a three-point lead on the field in the race for the Presidents' Trophy, they've won three straight games and eight of their last 10, and their 13-4-1 record since March 1 is tied for the best in the league.

They've extended a lead over second-place Carolina from three to five points in the last seven days and seem a safe bet to maintain that lead with just four games remaining.

Doing so would almost surely yield the East's top seed and a first-round date with its second wild-card team, which at the moment is Detroit but could just as easily wind up Pittsburgh.

The Penguins have been red hot for a few weeks now, winning four straight games and going 6-2-2 in their last 10 to resurrect relevance from a season that seemed to be in "playing out the string" mode when Jake Guentzel was sent off to the Hurricanes.

Pittsburgh entered Monday's games a point behind the Red Wings for the coveted final spot and just two points behind the New York Islanders for third in the Metropolitan. Both are on the schedule in the team's final four games, with a visit from Detroit set for Thursday and a trip to Long Island on the docket for the 2023-24 finale on April 17.

The other side of the topsy-turvy Metropolitan includes the Carolina Hurricanes, whose record since the start of March is as good as the Rangers' mark, but hasn't allowed them to gain any ground beyond the aforementioned five-point margin.

The teams are first and second in the Eastern Conference in wins, regulation wins, and regulation/overtime wins, which means a second-round series between them would be among the must-see matchups of the bracket's initial half.

But there's still some work to be done.

For the Hurricanes, that means a first-round series against a yet-to-be-determined opponent given the ever-changing nature of the division's second tier, but we'll go ahead and suggest it'll be the New York Islanders given their standing as that tier's hottest team.

Coach Patrick Roy's group had won four straight heading into Monday's games and was 6-4-0 in its last 10, vaulting past Detroit (4-4-2), Washington (3-5-2) and Philadelphia (2-5-3) in the last couple weeks. The Capitals, Flyers and Pittsburgh Penguins were just two points behind, though, meaning each of New York's final five games—including two with the Rangers and one each with Montreal, New Jersey and Pittsburgh will decide things for good.

Incidentally, the Islanders are 2-1-1 against Carolina this season, despite allowing 16 goals and scoring just 14.

While the New York Rangers have a pretty good claim to top honors in the Eastern Conference, the Dallas Stars are making a pretty strong case out west.

They've won nine of their last 10 games and have finally put some distance between themselves and the rest of a competitive Central Division, opening a five-point lead on Colorado and a seven-point edge on Winnipeg entering Monday's games.

They're five points up, too, on Pacific leader Vancouver, meaning they'd get the lower-seeded wild-card team to open the playoffs. That'd be the defending champion Vegas Golden Knights after Sunday's games, but the guess here is that the Cup winners will skip up at least a spot, leaving the Nashville Predators to share the marquee with the Stars.

Vegas trailed the Predators by two points entering Monday but had two games in hand and will play their final four at home after a Wednesday visit to Edmonton.

Dallas and Nashville split four meetings this season with the Stars allowing fewer than 30 shots three times, winning twice. The teams have met in the playoffs once, in 2019, with the Stars winning in six games.

There may be no safer bet in the NHL than the Central's other first-round series.

The Colorado Avalanche and Winnipeg Jets reached Monday's games with the Avalanche sitting five points behind first-place Dallas and the Jets having established a six-point edge on fourth-place Nashville. The only mystery will be which of the pair takes home ice.

Winnipeg had won three straight and had a game in hand through Sunday over Colorado, which had lost two straight. They'll wrap up their season series on Saturday in Denver, where the Avalanche will play three times across their final four games.

Now exactly who'd win the series...that's the toughest call of all.

Colorado was a Cup champ the season before last and has looked at times like another deep run is imminent this spring, but they've dropped two straight and gone just 5-4-1 in their last 10. Not to mention two previous games with the Jets, who won 4-2 on the road on December 7 and 6-2 at home nine days later.

The Vancouver Canucks are the Western version of the Florida Panthers.

They've resided among the league's elites since thrashing Edmonton twice to begin the season and they've carried the flag for the Pacific Division ever since, arriving to Monday's schedule with a three-point edge over the Oilers with one head-to-head game remaining.

They'll play Edmonton once more on Saturday, so ceding the division's top position is still possible. But assuming they can navigate the final 11 days without careening off a competitive cliff, it'd be all but locked in that they'd face the West's top-seeded wild card.

That, however, could mean a few different things down the stretch.

Nashville entered Monday's games with a two-point edge over Vegas for the first wild-card slot, though the Golden Knights controlled their own destiny in the standings.

And keep in mind the Los Angeles Kings are only one point up on Vegas for third in the Pacific, which means the Golden Knights and their four-game stand at T-Mobile Arena to finish the season could wind up decisive and send L.A. into wild-card oblivion.

Put it all together and it seems the Kings are destined to be passed out of a third consecutive first-rounder with Edmonton and into a duel with the Canucks, which may not be the best news for Vancouver fans given a 1-3-0 head-to-head record and a -7 goal differential.

Sound familiar? Well, it should.

The Edmonton Oilers and Vegas Golden Knights took the top two spots in the Pacific Division last season and engaged in a competitive second-round playoff series that many Vegas players contended was their toughest on the way to a Stanley Cup hoist.

They've been among the gaggle of teams chasing the Canucks all season in the Pacific and were separated by just seven points heading into Monday's games, with the Oilers sitting in second and Vegas within a point of overtaking Los Angeles for third.

Both the Golden Knights (7-2-1) and Kings (7-3-0) have played well in their last 10 games, but Vegas will play just one playoff team in its last four games after a season-series finale in Edmonton on Wednesday night. That should give them enough runway to catch Los Angeles and secure the rematch with the Oilers, provided Edmonton doesn't pass by Vancouver.

They played twice earlier this season, with the initial game ending in a 5-4 decision for the Oilers while the second was 3-1 for the Golden Knights, ending Edmonton's franchise record 16-game winning streak on February 7.