{"id":553498,"date":"2026-04-16T00:06:32","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T00:06:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/553498\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T00:06:32","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T00:06:32","slug":"what-to-know-about-the-first-round-matchups-in-the-nhls-stanley-cup-playoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/553498\/","title":{"rendered":"What to know about the first-round matchups in the NHL&#8217;s Stanley Cup playoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-apitype=\"text\" data-contentid=\"EKYHM3IDBFHVFINDIGEUAF4GQE\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"wpds-c-heFNVF wpds-c-heFNVF-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy\" dir=\"null\">As playoff races were raging down the stretch, Commissioner Gary Bettman pointed out that the NHL in years past has had first-round matchups decided on the final day of the season.<\/p>\n<p data-apitype=\"text\" data-contentid=\"6MRTSN2XFVFQPJV6PQDMC6SO4E\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"wpds-c-heFNVF wpds-c-heFNVF-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy\" dir=\"null\">Needing until the final day is true once again, with three matchups yet to be determined before <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/nhl-playoffs-things-to-know-387e48304b5fc382abaca31a495fb2a1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the playoffs begin<\/a> this weekend. A look at the matchups (division and seeding noted):<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As playoff races were raging down the stretch, Commissioner Gary Bettman pointed out that the NHL in years&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":553499,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[463,464],"tags":[57487,62634,5,4,57484,39240,292,57485,106,60,57486,2960,43,14,104,718],"class_list":{"0":"post-553498","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-2026-nhl-schedule","10":"tag-hkn-playoff-matchups","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-nhl-2026-news","14":"tag-nhl-highlights","15":"tag-nhl-hockey","16":"tag-nhl-latest-news","17":"tag-nhl-news","18":"tag-nhl-playoffs","19":"tag-nhl-schedule-2026","20":"tag-nhl-scores","21":"tag-sports","22":"tag-stanley-cup","23":"tag-stanley-cup-playoffs","24":"tag-stanley-cup-playoffs-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116411474287624909","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553498","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=553498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}