The NHL playoffs don’t officially begin until April 18.
But the playoffs are unofficially well underway for the New York Islanders and the seven other teams vying for the final few postseason spots in the Eastern Conference.
The Islanders will try to maintain their playoff spot Tuesday night when they host the Chicago Blackhawks in the teams’ final clash of the season.
Both squads were off Monday after playing at home Sunday night, when the Islanders earned a pivotal 1-0 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Blackhawks fell to the Nashville Predators 3-2.
Ilya Sorokin stopped all 26 shots he faced as he made Bo Horvat’s goal 1:25 into the first period stand up for the Islanders (40-26-5, 85 points), who climbed past the idle Detroit Red Wings into the second and final Eastern Conference wild-card spot.
The Islanders also tied the Blue Jackets for third in the Metropolitan Division, though Columbus has a game in hand. Both teams are one point behind the second-place Pittsburgh Penguins, who lost to the Carolina Hurricanes 5-1 earlier Sunday.
The Islanders, Blue Jackets, Red Wings and Penguins are all vying for playoff spots with the Montreal Canadiens, Boston Bruins and Ottawa Senators. The Canadiens are third in the Atlantic while the Bruins lead the wild-card race and the Senators were four points out of a playoff spot entering their game Monday night against the New York Rangers.
All seven teams are scheduled to play Tuesday night.
The Islanders, who made the playoffs with late-season pushes in 2023 and 2024, are a respectable 6-5-0 since March 1.
“The entire rest of the year, it’s going to be high-pressure games — high-stakes scenarios,” Horvat said. “And we’ve been there and done that before and we’ve got to continue to keep doing it.”
The Blackhawks (26-31-13, 65 points) are on pace to miss the playoffs for the sixth straight season and the eighth time in nine years. But Tuesday presents another opportunity to potentially impact the playoff race as Chicago will play its ninth straight game against a contender.
The Blackhawks are 3-2-3 in their last eight games. They held a pair of one-goal leads Sunday against Nashville, and Connor Bedard scored his team-leading 29th goal.
But the Predators moved into the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference after Steven Stamkos tied the game at 9:43 of the third and Filip Forsberg scored an unassisted goal off a turnover 65 seconds into overtime.
With Sunday’s loss, the Blackhawks fell to 7-13 in games decided after regulation. The Penguins, Los Angeles Kings (17 overtime or shootout losses) and Vegas Golden Knights (14) are the only teams with more defeats in overtime or the shootout.
“Overtimes are so much — you get three guys on the ice, you get a little bit of systematic stuff, but to say you have all this (it) comes down to guys making plays,” Blackhawks head coach Jeff Blashill said. “If our overtimes have been better, our record would be much better.”
