NHL’s Second-Season Opens Saturday, 16 Teams Pursue Postseason Stanley Cup Trophy

This weekend, beginning on Saturday in Raleigh, North Carolina, 16 NHL teams began their chase for the Stanley Cup—the ultimate prize in the sport.

Back in September, 32 NHL teams opened training camps and skated exhibition games, all the while hoping to qualify for a shot at taking home Lord Stanley’s Cup, come spring. When the regular season concluded on Thursday—a 1,312-game slate for 2025–2026—less than 48 hours later, the first postseason games will be underway.

Round 1 of the playoffs drops the puck first in Raleigh, North Carolina’s Lenovo Center at 3 p.m. ET. The hometown Carolina Hurricanes host the Ottawa Senators in the best-of-seven series. Carolina won the Eastern Conference’s Metropolitan Division and finished at the top among the 16-team Conference with 113 points. Ottawa qualified for the playoffs as the second wild-card finisher among the Eastern Conference teams.

Following the Hurricanes-Senators clash, at 5:30 p.m. ET, Western Conference action begins with the Minnesota Wild traveling to Texas for Round 1 play with the Dallas Stars at American Airlines Center. This is a battle between the Stars, who finished the regular season in second place of the Western Conference’s Central Division, and third-place division rival Wild.

The late game on Saturday begins at 8 p.m. ET in Pittsburgh, as the hometown Penguins take on the Philadelphia Flyers at PPG Paints Arena. Both teams play in the Metropolitan Division, with Pittsburgh in second place in the regular season and the Flyers in third.

The Flyers are returning to the playoffs for the first time in six years. In 2020, Philadelphia lost in the Eastern Conference’s Round 2 of the playoffs to the New York Islanders in a seven-game series.

On Sunday, four more Round 1 series are on tap.  The Los Angeles Kings, qualifying for the playoffs in the wild card position of the Western Conference, are in Colorado, skating against the heavily favored Avalanche.

Colorado led the NHL with 121 points in the regular season, thus winning the Presidents’ Trophy. Game 1 gets underway at 3 p.m. ET at Ball Arena in Denver.

Next up, at 5:45 p.m. ET, the Montreal Canadiens travel south to balmy Florida to chase pucks with the Tampa Bay Lightning at Benchmark International Arena.

Tampa Bay finished in second place in the Atlantic Division, and Montreal was right behind them in the standings, in third place.

At 7:30 p.m. ET, from Buffalo’s KeyBank Center, the Sabres host the Boston Bruins. Boston qualified for the playoffs as the first wild-card winner, and Buffalo won the Atlantic Division. Buffalo’s 109 points and a record of 50–23–9 bring about an end to a 14-season postseason drought for the Western New York-based Sabres.

The Vegas Golden Knights, winners of the Pacific Division, open their Round 1 chase for the Stanley Cup on Sunday at 10 p.m. EDT. Their coach, John Tortorella, speaking to The Associated Press on Thursday, explained how the level of play in the playoffs intensifies compared to the regular-season 82-game schedule.

“It’s the most exciting time because everybody’s playing at a different level, and it’s a good test to see how high you can get as a team,” Tortorella told reporters in Las Vegas after the regular season finale.

“Everything is going to be amped up. As each game goes by in the series, it’s going to be harder and harder, and so it’s a great challenge.”

Vegas plays against the Utah Mammoth at 10 p.m. ET, Sunday, at T-Mobile Arena in Paradise, Nevada. Utah qualified for the playoffs by being the first wild-card team in the Pacific Division.

On Monday, April 20, at 10 p.m. ET, from Edmonton, Alberta’s Rogers Place, it’s the host Oilers dueling the Anaheim Ducks.

Edmonton finished second in the Pacific Division while Anaheim came in third place.  The Oilers have won the Western Conference the past two seasons.  This past season, Oilers’ Connor McDavid captured his sixth Art Ross Trophy, as the League’s scoring champion (138 points). McDavid posted 48 goals and 90 assists in 82 games. He collected points in 68 of the 82 Oilers games.

Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon won his first Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy for the 2025–2026 season. The Richard Trophy goes to the NHL goal-scoring leader. MacKinnon, the NHL’s No. 1 overall draft selection in 2013, netted 53 goals in 80 games played. MacKinnon’s name comes up often when discussing the best all-around skater in Avalanche history. John-Michael Liles, a former Avalanche player and currently a broadcaster for the team, weighed in on the debate on Wednesday on ESPN.com.

“There’s a lot of records that Joe Sakic has with the Avs that we didn’t think would be broken,” said former Avalanche player John-Michael Liles.

“And now all of a sudden, you see Nathan  MacKinnon start to break some of these records or creep up on some of these records.”

The second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs begins on May 6.