Bruins will face either Carolina or Toronto in playoffs

BOSTON — Tuesday’s outcomes introduced important readability to the Jap Convention playoff image and narrowed the Bruins’ potential first-round opponents to both Carolina or Toronto, two groups they’ve loads of current postseason historical past with.

The Bruins’ win over Florida Tuesday mixed with Washington’s loss to the New York Islanders implies that Boston (50-25-5, 105 factors) can end no worse than the highest Wild Card spot. Washington is locked into the second wild card.

The Bruins can nonetheless end third within the Atlantic Division. They’re three factors behind the Tampa Bay Lightning (50-22-8, 108 factors) with two video games to go.

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Right here’s the place the Bruins can end, who they’d play and tips on how to get there:

Third place within the Atlantic Division:

The Atlantic seems to be like this:

3. Tampa Bay-…80—50-22-8-108

4. Boston-……….80—50-25-5-105

Toronto (53-21-7, 113 factors) clinched second within the Atlantic and would face the No. 3 seed.

Boston has two remaining regular-season video games vs. Buffalo on Thursday and at Toronto on Friday.

Tampa performs at Columbus Thursday and on the New York Islanders on Friday.

To get the No. 3 seed and a matchup with the Maple Leafs, the Bruins want a win, not less than an extra time loss and assist. Boston has extra regulation wins (the primary tie-breaker) than Tampa so in the event that they end tied, the Bruins would end third.

If Tampa wins both of its final two video games or the Bruins lose both of their two in regulation, the Lightning can be the No. 3 seed.

No. 1 Wild Card

If the Bruins fail to get third within the Atlantic, they’d be the No. 1 Wild Card and would face Carolina. The Hurricanes’ win over the New York Rangers Tuesday clinched them the Metropolitan Division and a matchup towards both the Bruins or the Lightning.

Carolina is with out No. 1 goalie Frederik Andersen, who’s out indefinitely with an harm. He’s anticipated to overlook not less than a part of the primary spherical.

Locked up: Florida and Washington are assured a first-round collection as are the Rangers and Penguins.

NHL Playoff format:

Issues are again to regular this 12 months. The highest three groups in every division make the playoffs and the 2 groups with the subsequent greatest information in every convention will likely be wild playing cards finishing the 16-team area.

From NHL.Com

Within the First Spherical, the division winner with the very best file in every convention will likely be matched towards the wild card with the lesser file; the wild card with the higher file will play the opposite division winner.

The groups ending second and third in every division will meet within the First Spherical inside the bracket headed by their respective division winner. First-round winners inside every bracket play each other within the Second Spherical to find out the 4 members within the Convention Finals.

Residence-ice benefit by means of the primary two rounds goes to the workforce that positioned larger within the regular-season standings. Within the Convention Ultimate and Stanley Cup Ultimate, home-ice benefit goes to the workforce that had the higher regular-season file, whatever the groups’ last standing of their respective divisions.