With 12 days left before the Stanley Cup playoffs, Buffalo, Tampa Bay and Montreal locked up berths over the weekend, and the race now turns to who ends up facing whom. If the playoffs started Monday, the Lightning would draw the Bruins in the first round.
That matchup would come with real weight. Jeremy Swayman owns the league’s best goals-saved-above-expected rate in all situations at 28.5, while the Lightning still have six games left to sort out their place: at Buffalo on Monday, at Ottawa on Tuesday, at Montreal on Thursday, at Boston on Saturday, then home against Detroit on April 13 and the New York Rangers on April 15.
The Bruins have four games left, starting at Carolina on Tuesday before they host Tampa Bay on Saturday, play at Columbus on Sunday and welcome New Jersey on April 14. Boston’s home record and Tampa Bay’s goaltending were both flagged as reasons the projected series has the look of a tight first-round test, even though the Lightning are still being treated as favorites to represent the East in the Stanley Cup Final.
Tampa Bay has plenty of momentum. Nikita Kucherov has 29 points in his last 14 games, and Andrei Vasilevskiy remains a front-runner for the Vezina Trophy. The Lightning’s last playoff-series win came in the 2022 Cup Final over the Colorado Avalanche, a reminder that the stakes around this group stay high once the bracket is set.
Montreal’s path is less settled, but it is still alive in the Atlantic Division race after ending a five-game winning streak with a loss on Sunday. Cole Caufield is two goals shy of 50 for the first time in his career, and no Canadiens player has ever won the Rocket Richard Trophy. The Canadiens play at Philadelphia on April 14, another date that could move the standings again before the field is fixed.
That is the squeeze of these final days: teams are clinching, but the first-round picture is still shifting from night to night. By the time the Lightning and Bruins get to their meeting on Saturday, the bracket may already look different again.
