Regular Season
Each team in the NHL plays 82 regular season games, 41 games at home and 41 on the road.
Two points are awarded for a win (including in overtime or shootout), one point for a loss in overtime or shootout, and no points for a loss in regulation time.
At the end of the regular season, 16 teams, eight from each conference, qualify for the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Who Makes It In?
The teams are seeded one through eight in each conference. The teams that finish with the most points in each division are crowned the division champions, and are seeded one through three based on their point records.
The next five teams with the best records in the conference are seeded four through eight. In the event of a tie in points in the standings, ties are broken using the following tiebreaking procedures: The higher ranked team is the one with:
1. The fewer number of games played. (Only used during the season, as all teams will have played 82 games once the season is over.)
2. The greater number of games won.
3. The greater number of points earned in games between the tied clubs.
4. The greater differential between goals for and against for the entire regular season.
Stanley Cup Playoffs
The Stanley Cup Playoffs is considered to be most rigorous quest for a championship out of all the major sports. Every series is 7 games long with no shootouts. Players often play through incredible pain—including broken bones—just for the chance to drink champagne from the Cup.
The playoffs are 3 rounds and for the first round of the playoffs, or Conference Quarterfinals, consists of four matchups in each conference, based on the seedings (1–8, 2–7, 3–6, and 4–5). In the second round, or Conference Semifinals, the top remaining conference seed plays against the lowest remaining seed, and the other two remaining conference teams pair off (unlike the NBA, for example, where the 1–8 winner always plays the 4–5 winner, regardless of who wins). In the third round, the Conference Finals, the two remaining teams in each conference play each other, with the conference champions proceeding to the Stanley Cup Finals.
