{"id":543301,"date":"2026-04-06T05:17:48","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T05:17:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/543301\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T05:17:48","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T05:17:48","slug":"canadiens-clinch-nhl-playoff-spot-as-montreal-eyes-home-advantage-in-atlantic-division-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/543301\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadiens clinch NHL playoff spot as Montreal eyes home advantage in Atlantic Division race"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                        <img src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1397898_080554_updates.jpg\"   width=\"1200\" height=\"686\" loading=\"eager\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\" alt=\"Canadiens clinch NHL playoff spot as Montreal eyes home advantage in Atlantic Division race\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The Montreal Canadiens have secured their place in the Stanley Cup playoffs for a second consecutive season, confirming their status as one of the league\u2019s rising teams.<\/p>\n<p>Montreal clinched their spot on Sunday after the Detroit Red Wings lost 5-4 to the Minnesota Wild. The result made the Canadiens the first Canadian team to book a postseason berth this year.<\/p>\n<p>The team, now 45-21-10, achieved qualification with six games still remaining in the regular season. <\/p>\n<p>They sit second in the Atlantic Division with 100 points and are in contention for home-ice advantage heading into the playoffs.<\/p>\n<p>Unlike last season, when Montreal narrowly secured the final Eastern Conference spot, this year\u2019s qualification reflects a stronger and more consistent campaign.<\/p>\n<p>A young core has driven the Canadiens\u2019 success. Nick Suzuki is closing in on 100 points, while Cole Caufield is one goal away from a 50-goal season milestone not seen in Montreal since 1989-90. Defenceman Lane Hutson is also approaching a historic 80-point season.<\/p>\n<p>The Canadiens enter the playoffs on an eight-game winning streak, signalling strong momentum at a crucial stage of the season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Montreal Canadiens have secured their place in the Stanley Cup playoffs for a second consecutive season, confirming&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":543302,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5103],"tags":[265,5,264,21,5147,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-543301","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-montreal-canadiens","8":"tag-canadiens","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-montreal","11":"tag-montreal-canadiens","12":"tag-montrealcanadiens","13":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116356072278372374","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543301","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=543301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/543302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}