American Thanksgiving is always a key benchmark in the NHL season. About 75 percent of teams in a playoff spot on that date end up qualifying come the spring. Still, that doesn’t mean your team is out of it if they find themselves outside the top eight in their conference.
Twenty-five percent of teams bucking the trend and making the playoffs might not seem like great odds, but a one-and-four chance of making the postseason means it’s definitely possible. Let’s look at the bubble in each conference and see who has the best chance of getting back into the playoffs.
Eastern Bubble Picture a Bit Surprising
The Eastern Conference playoff picture looks different than many of us were expecting heading into this point of the season. The Philadelphia Flyers are in sixth place, the Washington Capitals are in seventh, and the Carolina Hurricanes occupy the final spot in eighth place.
That leaves the New Jersey Devils, Detroit Red Wings, Pittsburgh Penguins, Buffalo Sabres and Ottawa Senators on the outside looking in. Here’s how the standings look:
- Flyers: 10-7-1, 21 points (6th)
- Capitals: 9-4-2, 20 points (7th)
- Hurricanes: 10-7-0, 20 points (8th)
- Red Wings: 8-6-3, 19 points (9th)
- Penguins: 9-8-0, 18 points (10th)
- Devils: 8-7-1, 17 points (11th)
- New York Islanders: 6-6-5, 17 points (12th)
- Sabres: 8-9-1, 17 points (13th)
- Senators: 8-7-0, 16 points (14th)
As you can see, there isn’t much of a gap between the Flyers and the Senators. The loser point makes it more difficult to make up ground, but a five-point gap between the sixth and 14th-place teams isn’t much this early in the season.
Some teams are in better positions than others, though. The Islanders may be just three points behind the Hurricanes for eighth place, but they’re trending downward. They lack scoring and have an expected goals share (xG%) of 48.74 percent. Money Puck has their playoff odds at just 9.7 percent, so things aren’t looking great on Long Island.
The same is true for the Sabres and Senators. Both teams have struggled at five-on-five, especially the Senators, whose xG% ranks in the bottom five of the NHL. Money Puck has their playoff odds at just 15.1 percent, so it might be another year without postseason play in Ottawa.
Even the Flyers and Capitals, who sit in playoff spots as of this writing, are below 50 percent to make the postseason on Money Puck. The Flyers are riding a five-game winning streak after beginning the season 5-7-1, but can it last? To be honest, it could.
The Flyers have been surprisingly good at five-on-five, totaling a 52.64 xG%. They’re getting good goaltending from Carter Hart, and their defense has improved significantly from a season ago. Their plan was to play for a high draft pick in the 2024 draft, but does general manager Daniel Briere stick with that plan at the trade deadline? That would be the best option for the Flyers’ long-term future, but it’ll be a hard sell if they continue winning.
The Capitals have gotten off to a surprisingly good start, but I wouldn’t bet on them long-term. They’re getting outplayed at five-on-five, ranking 27th in xG%. There are outliers every season that outperform their expected rates, but given who sits behind the Capitals in the standings, I would expect them to fall out of the race at some point.
The two teams with the best odds of bucking the Thanksgiving trend in the Eastern Conference are the Devils and Penguins. New Jersey has had some key injuries to start the season, with Jack Hughes and Nico Hischier missing extended time. The good news for them is Hughes has returned, and Hischier is getting close to returning after missing around a month with an upper-body injury.
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The bad news is that the Devils’ goaltending has been awful. There’s no other way to put it. They have a team save percentage of .875, which won’t cut it. One has to think Vitek Vanecek or Akira Schmid will pick it up at some point, but the rest is there for the Devils. Their 54.19 xG% ranks fifth in the NHL, so they should be fine if they get goaltending and stay healthy.
The story is much of the same for the Penguins. Tristan Jarry has been inconsistent in net, and they have some injury concerns of their own right now, with Rickard Rakell on LTIR and Bryan Rust dealing with a lower-body injury. The team has a 53.71 xG% at five-on-five, so like the Devils, their metrics suggest they can buck the trend.
Money Puck likes each team’s playoff odds, too, with the Devils at 76.8 percent and the Penguins at 74.2 percent. If anyone catches the Capitals and Flyers, it will be those two.
Wild, Wild Western Conference
The Western Conference playoff race has the makings of the Wild West, but not necessarily in a good way. The bubble race has a few teams in the mix, but none have been all that impressive yet:
- St. Louis Blues: 9-7-1, 19 points (7th)
- Seattle Kraken: 7-8-5, 19 points (8th)
- Anaheim Ducks: 9-9-0, 18 points (9th)
- Arizona Coyotes: 8-8-2, 18 points (10th)
- Calgary Flames: 7-8-3, 17 points (11th)
- Nashville Predators: 7-10-0, 14 points (12th)
The biggest question from this group is, are any of these teams actually good? The Blues are off to a solid start, but their five-on-five numbers raise major red flags. Only the Chicago Blackhawks and San Jose Sharks have a worse xG% than the Blues this season. St. Louis is off to the start they are because of their goaltending, but I’m not sure I’d bet on Jordan Binnington keeping up his hot start.
The Kraken were a 100-point team last season but are off to a slow start now. They have a 50.7 xG% at five-on-five, but Philipp Grubauer is again below an .890 SV% for the season. The Kraken got by in 2022-23 with subpar goaltending, but they need more from Grubauer. That’s not a sustainable formula for consistent winning.
The Anaheim Ducks and Arizona Coyotes have been better than expected to start 2023-24, but I’m not sure they’ll be playoff contenders by the time we approach the trade deadline. Both teams are below water in xG%, suggesting they’ll tail off as the season progresses. They’re not easy outs anymore, though, so expect them to be competitive.
The Predators rank just below the Penguins and Devils in xG%, but Juuse Saros has had a rough start to the season. One has to think he will pick it up at some point, and that could make the Predators players for a postseason spot when it matters.
East Race Looks to Be More Competitive
The Western Conference bubble race at American Thanksgiving is a far cry from what the Eastern Conference looks like. The bubble teams in the East are better than the ones out West, which could open the door for the Flames and Predators to make a move.
It also means that the Edmonton Oilers are not out of the race by any stretch. They’re 5-11-1 as of this writing, so they have plenty of ground to make up. But if they can figure out their goaltending situation, they’re certainly more talented than most teams they’re chasing.
The same could be said about the Minnesota Wild, though to a lesser extent. They’ll remain at the bottom of the standings if they don’t figure out their penalty kill, which only kills off 65.5 percent of the power plays they’re facing.
Money Puck is still relatively high on the Alberta teams making a run, too. They have the Flames’ playoff odds at 44.9 percent and the Oilers at 44.5 percent. That’s ahead of the Blues, Wild, Predators and Kraken, who are all at 40 percent or below. That should make for an interesting race during the stretch run since the bubble in the West is much weaker than the East.
Being out of a playoff spot at American Thanksgiving doesn’t mean it’s over for your team, especially if it’s only by a point or two. But it does mean it’s time for teams to kick into high gear. Because the further away they get from a playoff spot, the harder it becomes to make up ground.
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