How the Stanley Cup Playoffs Work

The quest for the Stanley Cup is a four round playoff, with Best of 7 Series going 2-2-1-1-1.

The team with the home-ice advantage always host games 1, 2, 5, and 7, should it get past game 4. The other team hosts games 3, 4, and 6. The home-ice advantage is given to the higher seeded team in the First and Second Rounds. In the Third Round and Finals, it goes to the team with the better record.

In case of a tie during the First and Second Rounds, the first tiebreaker is games won (not including shootouts), the second is points earned in games against each other during the regular season, and the third is the greater differential of goals for and against during the regular season.

Since the NHL's inception there have been numerous playoff formats. The one used today was adopted in 2014, after conference realignment.

This realignment created two conferences (Eastern and Western) with two divisions per. It made sure that when playing divisional games, teams generally stay within their time zone.

Credit for this graphic: https://www.nhl.com/news/guide-to-2013-14-nhl-realignment/c-685005

With this new conference alignment, the playoff structure was altered. As before, 16 teams make the playoffs, 8 from each conference.

The top 3 teams from each division make it into their conference's bracket. The remaining two teams are wild cards. The wild cards are the two remaining teams that scored the most points during the regular season. They can be from either division. So, its possible for one division to have 5 teams, while the other only 3.

The first round of the playoffs works as follows. The team within each conference that scores the most points plays the wild card with the fewest. The other division winner plays the other wild card. The second and third seeds within each division play each other, no mater how many points they scored. This works in both conferences.

Credit: Hayden Goldberg

Next, the winners of each series move to the second round. If you won in the Metropolitan, you play the other Metropolitan winner, and so forth for all divisions. This is essentially the conference semi-final.

Then, the division winners play each other in the conference championship. The winner plays in the Stanley Cup Finals.

Credit: Hayden Goldberg

In the Stanley Cup Finals, the winners of the Eastern and Western Conferences play to win the the NHL Playoffs (better known as the Stanley Cup Playoffs).

Credit: Hayden Goldberg