{"id":540834,"date":"2026-04-04T20:02:33","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T20:02:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/540834\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T20:02:33","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T20:02:33","slug":"nhl-playoff-picture-2026-latest-bracket-standings-after-sabres-clinch-spot-for-1st-time-since-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/540834\/","title":{"rendered":"NHL Playoff Picture 2026, Latest Bracket, Standings After Sabres Clinch Spot For 1st Time Since 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">The Buffalo Sabres&#8217; postseason drought is over after 14 years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">The team sealed a place in the Stanley Cup playoffs with the Detroit Red Wings losing 4-1 to the New York Rangers on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">Buffalo sits second in the Atlantic Division, which would mean a first-round series against the Montreal Canadiens if the current standings hold.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">This article will be updated soon to provide more information and analysis.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">Make Bleacher Report one of your preferred sources on Google by selecting Bleacher Report on the &#8220;source preferences&#8221; page\u00a0<a class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-inherit MuiLink-root MuiLink-underlineAlways MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__ui__link__medium_strong css-lu48cp\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=bleacherreport.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">For more from Bleacher Report, check out our\u00a0<a class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-inherit MuiLink-root MuiLink-underlineAlways MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__ui__link__medium_strong css-lu48cp\" href=\"https:\/\/br.app.link\/RmoyZixP3xb\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">B\/R app<\/a>,\u00a0<a class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-inherit MuiLink-root MuiLink-underlineAlways MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__ui__link__medium_strong css-lu48cp\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bleacherreport.com\/?utm_source=webdva\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">homepage<\/a>\u00a0and social feeds\u2014including\u00a0<a class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-inherit MuiLink-root MuiLink-underlineAlways MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__ui__link__medium_strong css-lu48cp\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BleacherReport\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Twitter<\/a>,\u00a0<a class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-inherit MuiLink-root MuiLink-underlineAlways MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__ui__link__medium_strong css-lu48cp\" href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/bleacherreport\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Instagram<\/a>,\u00a0<a class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-inherit MuiLink-root MuiLink-underlineAlways MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__ui__link__medium_strong css-lu48cp\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/bleacherreport\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Facebook<\/a>,\u00a0<a class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-inherit MuiLink-root MuiLink-underlineAlways MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__ui__link__medium_strong css-lu48cp\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/@bleacherreport\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">TikTok<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-inherit MuiLink-root MuiLink-underlineAlways MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__ui__link__medium_strong css-lu48cp\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@BleacherReport\/featured\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.tiktok.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Buffalo Sabres&#8217; postseason drought is over after 14 years. The team sealed a place in the Stanley&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":540835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[463,464],"tags":[5,4,60,14,104,718],"class_list":{"0":"post-540834","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl-playoffs","8":"category-stanley-cup-playoffs","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-nhl-playoffs","12":"tag-stanley-cup","13":"tag-stanley-cup-playoffs","14":"tag-stanley-cup-playoffs-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116348226691136737","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=540834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/540835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}