NHL Playoff Race Update (Vol. 5): What your team needs to do

It is time for another look at the NHL Stanley Cup Playoff races as the month of March begins.

It is now the stretch run of the 2025-26 NHL regular season, and we are about to find out over the next few days which teams still believe they have a chance to make the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and which teams do not. Not only is the 2025-26 NHL Trade Deadline just days away, but the playoffs are a little over a month away, and we are really starting to see more distancing between the top and bottom teams in each conference.

That is especially true in the Eastern Conference where the standings remain mostly unchanged, while there is still a pretty significant gap between the eight teams currently in a playoff position, and the teams on the outside.

It might be too much of a gap for any of those teams on the outside to actually overcome.

Especially as the potential cut-line in the conference keeps increasing.

Entering play on Monday, every team in a playoff position is on pace for at least 99 points, with seven of them on track for at least 101 points. Maybe that line regresses a little bit in the coming weeks. But right now that is pretty much your goal, and that is potentially bad news for the teams on the outside.

Let’s look at the standings, what every team has already done, what they have remaining, and what they need to do to reach certain numbers. In this month’s update we are looking at what each needs to do to reach 95 points (generally considered a strong likelihood of making the playoffs) and 100 points (the current playoff cut-line based on every team’s current pace this season).

The Carolina Hurricanes and Tampa Bay Lightning are clearly in the best position. It is possible for both of them to play losing hockey the rest of the way and still reach the 100-point mark. Tampa Bay needs 10 wins in 24 games. Carolina needs nine wins in 23 games. Consider them in.

But what about everybody else in the Conference? As well as the Western Conference playoff race?

Let’s talk about it.