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Sloan Piva
In sports, there’s nothing quite like playoff hockey. The 2025 NHL Playoffs are here, and the path to the Stanley Cup has been set for every contender in the league. For fans, that means it’s time to circle dates on calendars and plan out watch parties.
Two Florida teams will be worth monitoring. The reigning champion Panthers have the second-shortest odds to win the Stanley Cup for the second year in a row. The Lightning, meanwhile, sit at +1000 to win it all. However, it’s the Colorado Avalanche (+650) who serve as the odds-on favorites on most sportsbooks.
CATCH THE 2025 NHL PLAYOFFS
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A whopping 10 different teams entered opening weekend of the playoffs with odds of +1200 or shorter. Translation: it’s a wide-open race. And if any team has a chance to win it all, every game will be worth watching.
Looking forward to postseason hockey? Here’s everything you need to know about the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Here’s how the playoff bracket looks in the Eastern and Western Conferences:
(A1) Toronto Maple Leafs vs. (WC1) Ottawa Senators
(A2) Tampa Bay Lightning vs. (A3) Florida Panthers
(M1) Washington Capitals vs. (WC2) Montreal Canadiens
(M2) Carolina Hurricanes vs. (M3) New Jersey Devils
(C1) Winnipeg Jets vs. (WC2) St. Louis Blues
(C2) Dallas Stars vs. (C3) Colorado Avalanche
(P1) Vegas Golden Knights vs. (WC1) Minnesota Wild
(P2) Los Angeles Kings vs. (P3) Edmonton Oilers
SN’s NHL HQ: Live NHL scores | Updated NHL standings | Full NHL schedule
The NHL playoffs will be split in the United States between the ESPN family of networks and the Turner channels. The two media corporations are in the fourth year of their seven-year contracts with the league.
In the first round, Saturday night games will air on TNT and TruTV. Other first-round contests may air on ESPN and TNT’s other channels, such as ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNews, and TBS.
ESPN and TNT are splitting the second-round series, as well as the conference final. The Stanley Cup Final will air on ABC.
In Canada, all the playoff games will be aired on Sportsnet and CBC and TVA Sports in French.
Fans in the United States and Canada looking to watch the NHL playoffs have options even if they don’t have cable. Games on ESPN’s platforms can be streamed through ESPN+ or through Fubo, while those on TNT’s network of channels can be streamed through the TNT app and Sling.
Canadians have streaming options as well, with Sportsnet games available to stream on SN NOW and CBC games streamable through CBC Gem.
Fans can also listen to the 2025 NHL Playoffs on SiriusXM, with live play-by-play coverage for every game of the postseason. Games will be broadcast on SXM channels 91, 167, 219 and 220 throughout the road to the Stanley Cup Final.
The first round of the NHL playoffs starts on Saturday, April 19. The Stanley Cup Final will begin in June.
Sixteen teams qualify for the NHL playoffs, eight from each conference. The top three teams in each division will get the top six seeds in their respective conference’s playoff bracket. The remaining two spots in each conference will be filled with the next two highest-placed finishers, regardless of division. So, theoretically, one division could send five teams to the playoffs while the other sends only three.
In the first round, the division winner with the best record in each conference will face the worst wild-card team. Then, the teams that finished second and third in their division will face off. The winners from those games will play each other in the second round. Those winners will duke it out in the conference finals, sending one representative to the Stanley Cup Finals from each conference. Each round of the playoffs is best-of-seven, so the first team to win four games will advance.
Atlantic Division
Metropolitan Division
Wild Card
X = clinched playoff
E = eliminated
Central Division
Pacific Division
Wild Card
X = clinched playoff
E = eliminated
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Sloan Piva is a content producer for The Sporting News, primarily focused on betting, fantasy sports, and poker. A lifelong New Englander, Sloan earned his BA and MA in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts and now lives in coastal Rhode Island with his wife and two kids.
