{"id":566312,"date":"2026-05-04T03:21:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T03:21:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/566312\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T03:21:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T03:21:16","slug":"2026-nhl-playoff-bracket-lightning-win-ot-thriller-force-game-7-vs-canadiens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/566312\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 NHL Playoff Bracket: Lightning Win OT Thriller, Force Game 7 vs Canadiens"},"content":{"rendered":"

Want to get more Covers content? Add us as a preferred source on your Google account here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The quest for the Lord Stanley’s Cup has not failed to deliver, with the first round almost finished \u2014 just one Game 7 awaits between the Canadiens<\/a> and Lightning<\/a> tonight.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

The 2026 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs have already had heart-stopping drama, overtime heroics, and unexpected upsets.\u00a0Whether you’re tracking every grueling battle, checking the series prices, or scouting the road to the Cup Finals, our NHL playoff bracket hub has you covered.<\/p>\n

Follow along for live bracket updates, updated series prices, and postseason format details to help guide your\u00a0NHL picks<\/a> and playoff pools.<\/p>\n

NHL playoff bracket if the playoffs started todayLive digital bracket<\/p>\n

Follow along with our up-to-date bracket below as we track each series through to the end of the Stanley Cup Final, and make sure you keep up on which teams have the best Stanley Cup odds<\/a>.\u00a0You can also track the progress of individual players with our\u00a0Conn Smythe Trophy odds<\/a>\u00a0page.<\/p>\n

2026 NHL Playoff matchups<\/p>\n

Here are the current series odds for the lone remaining first-round matchup:<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

(A2) Tampa Bay Lightning<\/a> vs (A3) Montreal Canadiens – Tied 3-3<\/p>\n

Team<\/p>\n

To win<\/p>\n

Tampa Bay<\/a><\/p>\n

-155<\/p>\n

Montreal<\/p>\n

+135<\/p>\n

Second round matchupsSeries tied 0-0<\/p>\n

Team<\/p>\n

To win<\/p>\n

Carolina<\/p>\n

-700<\/p>\n

Philadelphia<\/p>\n

+450<\/p>\n

Hurricanes vs Flyers series schedule<\/p>\n

Game 1: Saturday, May 2 (Carolina 3, Philadelphia 0)<\/p>\n

Game 6: Wednesday, May 13<\/p>\n

(2) Buffalo Sabres<\/a> vs (A2\/3) Tampa Bay Lightning\/Montreal Canadiens series odds and scheduleSeries tied 0-0<\/p>\n

Team<\/p>\n

To win<\/p>\n

Buffalo<\/p>\n

TBD<\/p>\n

Tampa Bay\/Montreal<\/p>\n

TBD<\/p>\n

Sabres vs Lightning\/Canadiens series scheduleSeries tied 0-0<\/p>\n

Team<\/p>\n

To win<\/p>\n

Colorado<\/p>\n

-230<\/p>\n

Minnesota<\/p>\n

+185<\/p>\n

Avalanche vs Wild series schedule<\/p>\n

Game 5: Wednesday, May 13<\/p>\n

Series tied 0-0<\/p>\n

Team<\/p>\n

To win<\/p>\n

Vegas<\/p>\n

-190<\/p>\n

Anaheim<\/p>\n

+155<\/p>\n

Golden Knights vs Ducks series schedule<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

2026 NHL Playoffs schedule<\/p>\n

Event<\/p>\n

Date<\/p>\n

First Round<\/p>\n

April 18-May 3<\/p>\n

Second Round begins<\/p>\n

May 2<\/p>\n

Conference Finals begin<\/p>\n

May 22<\/p>\n

Stanley Cup Finals<\/p>\n

June 3-21<\/p>\n

NHL playoff format<\/p>\n

The NHL playoffs are a 16-team, four-round, best-of-seven tournament used to determine the Stanley Cup champion. Eight teams qualify from each conference: the top three teams in each division plus two wild-card teams in each conference.<\/p>\n

In the First Round, the division winner with the better record in each conference plays the lower-ranked wild card, the other division winner plays the other wild card, and the second- and third-place teams in each division face each other.<\/p>\n

The NHL uses a fixed bracket, so teams are not re-seeded after each round. First-round winners advance to the Second Round, then to the Conference Finals, and finally to the Stanley Cup Final, where the Eastern Conference champion plays the Western Conference champion.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Every playoff round is a best-of-seven series, and the first team to win four games advances or, in the Stanley Cup Final, wins the championship.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Covers.com<\/a>, read the full article here<\/a> and view our best betting sites<\/a> or check out our top sportsbook promos<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Want to get more Covers content? Add us as a preferred source on your Google account here. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":566313,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[463,464],"tags":[233,229,265,29,144,5,189,38,4,2963,60,56,63608,14,4302,104,718,540,92,39],"class_list":["post-566312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl-playoffs","category-stanley-cup-playoffs","tag-anaheim-ducks","tag-buffalo-sabres","tag-canadiens","tag-carolina-hurricanes","tag-colorado-avalanche","tag-hockey","tag-lightning","tag-minnesota-wild","tag-nhl","tag-nhl-playoff","tag-nhl-playoffs","tag-philadelphia-flyers","tag-series-schedule","tag-stanley-cup","tag-stanley-cup-final","tag-stanley-cup-playoffs","tag-stanley-cup-playoffs-nhl","tag-tampa-bay","tag-tampa-bay-lightning","tag-vegas-golden-knights"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116514159571885001","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566312","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=566312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566312\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/566313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}