Did you know you can look up the NHL standings at a specific date? Thanks to that handy tool from NHL.com we were able to look at the standings on November 23, 2023. Why that date? Well that was last year’s American Thanksgiving. For our international readers, don’t believe the rumors we serve bald eagle as part of the meal, that’s for Fourth of July. Remember Canadians celebrate it on a different day so we have to specify. By the way, your “Canadian bacon” isn’t really bacon, its ham, but that’s a story for a different time.
American Thanksgiving is the traditional benchmark to see who is in an NHL playoff spot as the season is a quarter of the way done. While some people’s minds are already on turkey and stuffing ours is always on hockey! Of course your mind can be on both if you’re thinking about the Detroit Red Wings gravy boat Zamboni giveaway. We decided to look back and see how those playoff teams last November ended up faring once it was time for the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Of the 16 teams that made last season’s playoffs 13 were in a playoff spot at Thanksgiving. That’s an 81% success rate, compared to the 76.60% rate teams have had since the “wild card” era began up until then. The eventual Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers were second in the Atlantic division at that time. They would leap frog the Boston Bruins and win the division by seasons end on April 18th.
Speaking of last year’s Stanley Cup final, the Edmonton Oilers were not yet in a playoff spot. The eventual Western Conference champions sat 14th in their own conference with a 5-12-1 record and double digits (ten points) out of the final wild card. Oilers had already made the coaching change to Chris Knoblauch on November 12th but McDavid and company entered Thanksgiving on a three game losing streak.
All six teams in the top-three spots in the Central and Pacific divisions would make last year’s playoffs. The two teams in their Wild Card spots would not. The St. Louis Blues occupied the west’s top Wild Card and this was also weeks before they made the coaching change to Drew Bannister. The Blues would finish the season six points out of a playoffs spot.
The second west Wild Card belonged to the Seattle Kraken who had an up and down 2023-2024 follow-up to their playoff appearance a season before. The Kraken would finish 17 points out of a playoff spot. An off season coaching change would follow as Dan Blysma replaced Dave Hakstol.
The only Eastern Conference team that fell out of favor was the Detroit Red Wings who held the second Wild Card spot on Thanksgiving Day. The “Yzerplan” has shown flashes of success of getting the Red Wings back to the playoffs for the first time since 2016. They flirted with being in a playoff position but have never finished the season by qualifying for the Stanley cup playoffs. Hey, at least their fans got those aforementioned gravy boats!
We’re writing this on Tuesday, so technically there’s still two nights of NHL action before Thursday. Looking at the current standings we did see one interesting team in a playoff spot as the Buffalo Sabres currently hold the Eastern Conference’s second Wild Card (by games played tie breaker with the Boston Bruins). That’s a great sign for a team hoping to end an NHL record playoff drought that’s over a decade old.