Reacting to the NHL Stanley Cup Playoff teams at Thanksgiving
By Jim Lynch
Every year it is the same story in the NHL. The teams in the Stanley Cup Playoffs at the end of the year usually are in a playoff spot come November when Thanksgiving in the U.S. rolls around.
Since 2005-06, the teams in the playoffs at the end of the season were in a playoff spot on U.S. Thanksgiving 76.3 percent of the time. That has to be great news for the teams in a playoff spot right now, and that has to be horrible news for teams on the outside looking in.
Reacting to the NHL Stanley Cup Playoff teams at Thanksgiving
If the playoffs started today, here are the matchups we would see:
A1 Boston Bruins vs. W2 Tampa Bay Lightning
A2 Toronto Maple Leafs vs. A3 Detroit Red Wings
M1 New Jersey Devils vs. W2 New York Rangers
M2 New York Islanders vs. M3 Carolina Hurricanes
P1 Vegas Golden Knights vs. W2 St. Louis Blues
P2 Seattle Kraken vs. P3 Los Angeles Kings
C1 Dallas Stars vs. W1 Calgary Flames
C2 Colorado Avalanche vs. C3 Winnipeg Jets
Notable absent teams: Minnesota Wild, Edmonton Oilers, Pittsburgh Penguins and Florida Panthers.
There are a few things to note here. Wow, would these playoff matchups be fun to watch? The Bruins and the Lightning would be fantastic, Toronto and Detroit would make for an amazing round-one game, and getting a rematch of Dallas and Calgary with Dallas as the top team this time around would be awesome.
Overall, the teams at American Thanksgiving that are in the playoffs are always fun to look back on. I do hope that we see some changes to these teams. The Florida Panthers, the defending Presidents’ Trophy winners, are absent, as are the Pittsburgh Penguins and Edmonton Oilers. Hopefully, we can see Connor McDavid back in the postseason this time, maybe even making the Stanley Cup Final.