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Good morning, hockey folks. There are only 113 games to go in the 2025-26 season — seven per team — so let’s jump into our latest scan around the league as we count down a frantic, fun, fateful final two weeks.

Senators netminder Linus Ullmark. (Chris Tanouye / Freestyle Photography / Getty Images)

Playoff Watch

Critical wins

With the regular season winding down, very little remains settled across the NHL.

In the East, only the Hurricanes — who thumped Columbus in a very tough loss for the Blue Jackets, their fifth in a row (!) — have officially clinched a playoff spot, and only the Rangers and Leafs are mathematically eliminated.

In the West, the Avalanche, Stars and Wild have officially clinched, and the Canucks and Blackhawks are eliminated. Everyone else is somehow technically still in play in the turtle derby for the final spots.

Realistically, though, you can include these teams in the “basically clinched” and “basically eliminated” groups based on our probabilities:

• East clinched: Sabres, Lightning, Canadiens
• East eliminated: Panthers, Devils
• West clinched: Ducks, Oilers
• West eliminated: Flames

The two biggest results with playoff implications last night:

• The Senators picked up an absolutely huge 4-1 win at home against the Sabres, with netminder Linus Ullmark getting back on track after a brutal showing against Florida two nights earlier.
• The Red Wings held on to beat the Flyers 4-2, ending a one-win-in-five-games stretch that has significantly hurt Detroit’s chances of ending a decade-long playoff drought. Still lots of work ahead for the Wings, though. Schedule here.

To wit: Ottawa and Detroit are now in a three-way tie with 88 points for the East’s second wild-card spot, with Columbus, which has played one more game than the other two. The Senators and Red Wings are both on pace for 96 points, which, incredibly, might not be enough to make the postseason this year:

More results with playoff implications from around the league last night:

• The Bruins lost 2-1 to the Panthers, who have really been playing spoiler lately by beating Ottawa, Seattle and Edmonton. Boston has some cushion, with 94 points, so it should get in, but with this breakneck pace, who knows?
• The Penguins blew an early lead to lose 6-3 to the Lightning. A win for Pittsburgh would have put Crosby and company very close to a clinch, as it’s going to be easier to qualify in the Metro than the Atlantic. The Pens should be OK.
• An awful 7-3 loss for the Capitals against the Devils, which might help end Washington’s playoff hopes — with Alex Ovechkin’s future up in the air.
• The Mammoth took care of business against the Kraken to hang onto the West’s top wild-card spot, and the Predators picked up a huge win against the Kings to remain tied with Los Angeles and San Jose for the second wild card. The Sharks, led by the incredible 19-year-old Macklin Celebrini, who deserves a look for the Hart Trophy, have a game in hand on Nashville and L.A.

Four big games coming up to keep an eye on over the holiday weekend (all times ET):

1. Flyers at Islanders, 7 p.m. tonight (🇺🇸 NHL Network, 🇨🇦 Sportsnet)
2. Golden Knights at Oilers, 10 p.m. Saturday (🇺🇸 ESPN+, 🇨🇦 CBC, Sportsnet)
3. Wild at Senators, 1 p.m. Saturday (🇺🇸 ESPN+, 🇨🇦 TSN)
4. Wild at Red Wings, 1 p.m. Sunday (🇺🇸 TNT, 🇨🇦 SN360)

Minnesota Wild defenseman Quinn Hughes picked up a point Thursday against his old team, the Vancouver Canucks. (Nick Wosika / Imagn Images)

Big Talkers

Hughes, Nylander sound off

Let’s start with a few big (and interesting) interviews from our writers across the league.

First up, Canucks scribe Thomas Drance sat down with Wild defenseman Quinn Hughes in Minnesota before the departed captain’s first-ever game against his old club. Hughes didn’t hold back in talking about his time in Vancouver and why things didn’t work out before the blockbuster December trade.

💬 “I know I gave everything I had in Vancouver,” Hughes said, responding to criticism he had slacked off early in the year when the Canucks cratered into the NHL basement.

“Go look at the years prior, too, when there was all sorts of nonsense going on, and I know I was always doing everything I could to make sure my game was in a good place and elevating it for the team. I tried to do that again this year. I had a great summer, and it just didn’t happen.”

The full piece is definitely worth reading. And if you’re interested in the game, well, the Wild unsurprisingly dusted the hapless Canucks 5-2, and Hughes had one point — an assist — in the cause.

• Michael Russo also connected with the young players who headed the other way in the Hughes trade, getting the perspective of Zeev Buium, Marco Rossi and Liam Öhgren on their involvement in the trade of the year. “You can’t be disappointed when you get traded for Quinn Hughes,” said one.
• Also of note from Thursday’s game: The Canucks clinched the best odds for the draft lottery. Are they headed for some leadership changes?

Meanwhile, over in the Eastern Conference, the turmoil-riddled (and now GM-less) Maple Leafs got a vote of confidence from William Nylander, who said he doesn’t want to pull a Hughes and leave Toronto.

With one condition:

💬 “Unless it was a full rebuild and we were going to get rid of everybody, then it’s a different story. Then you take that conversation then,” Nylander told Jonas Siegel out in San Jose, where the Leafs lost 4-1 to keep the tank alive at the Shark Tank. Toronto is now mathematically eliminated from the playoffs.

Could former Canucks GM Mike Gillis make sense as the Leafs’ next president? Here’s some insight into what that might look like.

💡 MirTrivia Question

OK, I’m going to try and stump everyone today with a deceptively simple one.

When the calendar turned to 2026 on Jan. 1, the NHL’s bottom five teams in points percentage were Winnipeg, Vancouver, Chicago, St. Louis and this mystery team that is currently in a playoff spot.

And, no, it’s not Buffalo or Columbus, the two turnaround kings drawing the most attention this season.

What is the mystery team?

Answers at the bottom.

Coast to Coast

🏆 Are the Canadiens now Cup-worthy? Montreal has certainly been one of the best rebuild stories in recent years in the NHL. Don’t miss that and more stat-y stories from Dom Luszczyszyn.

👶 The Kraken, led by 20-year-old center Berkly Catton, are seventh in Scott Wheeler’s prospect pool rankings, as the series runs through the final six teams in the coming days. Full running list here.

💸 The Maple Leafs haven’t picked up many wins this season on the ice, but they’re sure finding new and, uh, interesting ways to fill their coffers off it. This one had a lot of people in Toronto talking.

👊 Goalie fight. That’s all you need to know.

😱 Wait, the last-place Canucks did what to the first-place Avalanche? Is everything OK in Denver? What a wild season.

📰 What’s the future best and worst case for Egor Chinakhov and Josh Doan? They’re two of this season’s young players who have broken out with new teams.

💫 Speaking of young players, the Power Rankings Guys give us some perspective on the NHL’s youth movement by making historical comparisons for the league’s newest stars.

The Utah Mammoth’s Nick Schmaltz and Dylan Guenther. (Steph Chambers / Getty Images)

🗣️ MirTrivia Answer

The Sabres have been the best team in the NHL since the calendar turned to 2026, and the Blue Jackets are the sixth-best in that timeframe. But on the morning of Jan. 1, they sat 11th and 25th leaguewide, respectively — decidedly not in the bottom five.

The only team currently in a playoff spot that was bottom five — somehow behind the Flames, Rangers and Maple Leafs — was the Utah Mammoth, who were 18-19-3 and headed for the lottery rather than the postseason.

Three months later, the Mammoth have been red hot and sit firmly in the Western Conference’s top wild-card spot. They could be a real handful for whoever wins the Pacific Division.

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