The Florida Panthers are coming off back-to-back Stanley Cup wins in 2024 and 2025, but the team did not make the playoffs this season.
WASHINGTON — NHL teams will face off in this year’s Stanley Cup playoffs, with play starting on Saturday.
There was a slight shake-up this year, with more than five teams qualifying but not last year and back-to-back champion teams failing to place. The Florida Panthers won in 2024 and 2025, but the team was plagued by injuries this season and was unable to attempt a third championship win.
The basics
Sixteen teams qualified for the playoffs, with eight teams each in the Eastern Conference and Western Conference. Play starts in April and runs through June.
The top three teams in each of the four national divisions make up the first 12 teams, and the remaining four spots are filled by the highest-placed teams based on their regular season records, regardless of division, according to the NHL.
Teams compete within their conference in a bracket structure, and each of the four rounds is a best-of-seven, with the first team to win four games advancing to the next round. Once the winner of each conference is determined, they face off for the final championship round.
Below are the teams that qualify.
Eastern Conference
- Boston Bruins
- Buffalo Sword
- Carolina Hurricanes
- Montreal Canada
- Ottawa Senators
- Philadelphia Flyers
- Pittsburgh Penguins
- Tampa Bay Lightning
Western Conference
- Anaheim Ducks
- Colorado Avalanche
- Dallas Stars
- Edmonton Oil Company
- King of Los Angeles
- Minnesota Wild
- Utah Mammoths
- Vegas Golden Knights
First round battle
Several first-round games have yet to be decided for the Western Conference, as of April 16.
- East: Carolina vs. Ottawa – Game 1 is Saturday, April 18 at 3pm ET
- West: Dallas vs. Minnesota – Game 1 is Saturday, April 18 at 5:30 pm ET
- East: Pittsburgh vs. Philadelphia – Game 1 is Saturday, April 18 at 8 pm ET
- Eastern: Montreal vs Tampa Bay – Game 1 Sunday, April 19 with time TBD
- Eastern: Buffalo vs Boston – Game 1 Sunday, April 19 with time TBD
- West: Utah vs Vegas – Game 1 Sunday, April 19 with times still TBD
We’re still waiting to see who will ultimately play Anaheim, Colorado, Edmonton and Los Angeles in the first round.
After three rounds of a seven-match series, the finals begin in early June. If the finals drag on, Game 7 could take place as late as June 21.
PakarPBN
A Private Blog Network (PBN) is a collection of websites that are controlled by a single individual or organization and used primarily to build backlinks to a “money site” in order to influence its ranking in search engines such as Google. The core idea behind a PBN is based on the importance of backlinks in Google’s ranking algorithm. Since Google views backlinks as signals of authority and trust, some website owners attempt to artificially create these signals through a controlled network of sites.
In a typical PBN setup, the owner acquires expired or aged domains that already have existing authority, backlinks, and history. These domains are rebuilt with new content and hosted separately, often using different IP addresses, hosting providers, themes, and ownership details to make them appear unrelated. Within the content published on these sites, links are strategically placed that point to the main website the owner wants to rank higher. By doing this, the owner attempts to pass link equity (also known as “link juice”) from the PBN sites to the target website.
The purpose of a PBN is to give the impression that the target website is naturally earning links from multiple independent sources. If done effectively, this can temporarily improve keyword rankings, increase organic visibility, and drive more traffic from search results.