Every NHL postseason develops its own personality, and the 2026 Stanley Cup playoffs have been a strange mix of what we expected going in but also with plenty of surprises.
Every time the favorites win and we think we have a handle on who'll be skating for the Cup, hockey finds a way to throw us another weird bounce off the boards. But that doesn't mean it's all random noise.
With that in mind, here are five big themes that have jumped out as we've proceeded through the first two rounds (and change) of the playoffs:
You can't keep the chaos away
In a Stanley Cup playoff with only a few clear favorites going in -- led by the Colorado Avalanche and Carolina Hurricanes, both of whom seemed even clearer going into the conference finals -- it appeared that we might be due for more postseason predictability than usual this year. (Which is saying something: the chalky 2020s have had the highest correlation between pre-playoff team Elo ratings and eventual playoff wins of any decade since at least the 1980s.)
But early in the conference finals, we were reminded that there's not really a sure thing in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Last Wednesday, the Vegas Golden Knights took a 2-0 lead into the third period against Colorado, stretched it to 3-0 and held off the inevitable Avalanche push for a 4-2 win. Then, a night later, the Montreal Canadiens did something just as jarring: ambushing Carolina with four unanswered first-period goals before tacking on two more in the third to finish off the Canes. Just like that, the two teams that had looked guaranteed for a Cup collision were both staring at 1-0 series deficits instead.
(The odds of both series-opening upsets happening? Just 9.6%, per Elo.)
There were reasons for the losses, some that have proved more sustainable than others. The Avs also dropped Game 2 at home without Cale Makar, then blew a 3-0 first-period lead in Game 3 by giving up five unanswered goals. The Presidents' Trophy-winning Avs, who were Cup favorites all but a few days since early November, find themselves on the verge of being swept out of the Western Conference finals.
Right away, we should have remembered how our best-laid hockey predictions often go awry. On back-to-back nights, the symbolism of two teams who'd previously been a combined 16-1 in the playoffs falling to heavy on-paper underdogs was a reminder that the hockey playoffs are not built for glide paths to the Stanley Cup Final.
Scoring is down (unlike last year)
Last season's playoffs were a bit of an anomaly. Though the topline result was exactly the same as it had been in 2024 -- Florida Panthers over Edmonton Oilers in the Final -- the way we got there was much more offensive than usual. Not only did teams average 3.10 goals in the postseason itself -- the third most in any playoffs this century -- but scoring actually rose by 2.1% (from 3.04 goals during the regular season) in the playoffs.
To give a sense for how rare that is, it has happened only five times since the 2000 postseason, and once -- when scoring rose by 5.2% between the regular season and playoffs in 2010 -- did the postseason get more of an offensive boost than it did last spring. The overall norm is, unsurprisingly, for scoring to drop as the action becomes tighter, more defensive and more bone-crunching: in the average season since 2000, goals per game dip by 6.2% from the regular season to the playoffs. Against that standard, a 2.1% jump is startlingly abnormal.
But things are back to normal so far in 2026. After averaging a healthy 3.13 goals in the regular season, per-game scoring is down to 2.96 in the playoffs -- a drop of 5.4%, fairly close to the change we've seen in the typical season over the years.
Who has this trend favored? It's hard to say, since Carolina and Colorado ranked among the top five on both offense and defense during the regular season; they're capable of playing multiple different styles. Montreal has won in the tighter defensive environment despite being a more offense-oriented team (No. 7 in goals for per game and only 16th in goals against) this regular season. And even though postseason scoring is down, don't tell Vegas -- the Golden Knights are putting more pucks in the playoff nets (3.69 goals per game) than they did in the regular season (3.22).
One area in which it might have shown up is just in a weird scramble of names atop the league scoring leaderboard. Mitch Marner leads all players in scoring with 21 points through 15 games, and Nathan MacKinnon is tied for fourth with 15 through 12. Connor McDavid and the Oilers didn't stick around for him to crack the top 60 in scoring. Pavel Dorofeyev and Brett Howden lead the playoffs in goals scored; Alex Newhook isn't far behind.
With the regular season's biggest offensive stars either headed home early or surpassed by players who weren't on anyone's radar as playoff stars, it's another reminder how much tighter postseason hockey tends to reshuffle the deck.
Alex Newhook scores winning goal for Canadiens in Game 7 OT thriller
As usual, you can't predict goaltending
Part of the fluctuations around offense in the playoffs come down to changes in the most basic element of keeping the puck out of the net: goalies making saves.
During the regular season, NHL netminders collectively produced an .896 save percentage, which was the first time they dipped below .900 in a season since 1995-96, and their lowest mark in a season since carrying an .895 rate in 1993-94 -- 32 years ago. And there was a chance things could have gotten even worse between the pipes if things had followed the trend from last year -- when save percentages were actually worse in the playoffs (.897 versus .900) than the regular season.
Instead, goalies have been sharper in the playoffs this year, raising their save percentage by 8.5 points from .896 to .904, their second-biggest improvement versus the regular season in any postseason since 2015. (They were up by 10.9 points in the 2021 playoffs relative to the regular season.)
This has helped drive the aforementioned reduction in goal scoring in these playoffs, and it has brought leaguewide postseason save percentage back in line with where it was in both 2023 and 2024, despite the historically sieve-like regular season in net.
The same unpredictability also has reigned at the level of individual goalies. Going into the conference finals, the most dominant goaltending in the playoffs belonged to Frederik Andersen of the Hurricanes ... who was one of the worst goalies in the league during the regular season. The second-best remaining team in net was Vegas ... who ranked sixth-to-last in save percentage during the regular season.
Meanwhile, the Avalanche netminders -- Scott Wedgewood and Mackenzie Blackwood, collectively known as "The Lumber Yard" -- led the league in save percentage during the regular season, but have been average at best in the playoffs heading into the conference finals.
And as if all that confusion wasn't enough, Andersen was promptly dreadful (stopping only 15 of 21 shots faced) in Carolina's Game 1 loss to Montreal, and he wasn't much better in Game 2, either, despite the win. Meanwhile, Carter Hart of Vegas has been sterling in outplaying Wedgewood to take the first three games of the West finals over the Avs.
It has been a weird season for goalies in general -- there was a historic disconnect between team netminding and overall success in the standings -- so this is kind of par for the course in 2026. But anyone who says they know what goaltending twists and turns are coming next is lying to themselves.
Youth is not a disqualifying factor
One of the other bits of conventional playoff wisdom being stress-tested by Montreal's run is the idea that young teams are not built for this time of year. The Habs had a great season as part of their ongoing multiyear development under coach Martin St. Louis. Here's their goal differentials each season since 2021-22: -1.20, -0.91, -0.65, -0.24, +0.33. But you might be forgiven for wondering if they were ready to win, given they have the league's youngest roster, with only one player over age 30 -- defenseman Mike Matheson -- among their top 14 players by goals above replacement.
Aren't teams like this doomed without at least a few veterans adding to the ledger as well -- especially since the average age of postseason teams has been trending up in recent years?
Not necessarily. Even before 2026, the numbers suggested that the youth penalty might be overstated: Going back to 1999, older teams have tended to be better teams, which makes age look predictive on the surface. But once you control for team quality -- again, using Elo -- average roster age doesn't correlate with playoff success in either direction. (In other words, a good young team and a good old team should be expected to win about the same amount.)
The Canadiens are proving this by beating the Tampa Bay Lightning -- the league's fourth-oldest team -- before outlasting another young team in the Buffalo Sabres, and then causing some early-series problems for Carolina, the 13th-oldest team.
To be clear, the main reason why Cole Caufield, Lane Hutson, Nick Suzuki, Juraj Slafkovsky and Jakub Dobes are successful is their talent, not simply being young. But by the same token, being young hasn't been a detriment to their chances so far these playoffs.
Late-season coaching changes might not be such a bad idea
The Golden Knights raised a lot of eyebrows when they dropped Cup-winning coach Bruce Cassidy in favor of John Tortorella on March 29, with only eight games left in the regular season.
At the time, it was the latest such a move had happened in a standard 82-game season since at least 2014 -- and though it was later surpassed by an even later coaching move (the New York Islanders dropping Patrick Roy for Peter DeBoer on April 5), Vegas' change remains the latest move by an eventual playoff team in that span.
It has been difficult to argue with the results, though. Tortorella has helped improve Vegas' aforementioned goaltending situation by riding Hart -- the goalie from his ill-fated tenure behind the bench in Philadelphia -- instead of Adin Hill or any of Vegas' other options in net. He also has unlocked league-best playoff production from Marner, the Toronto Maple Leafs' former postseason scapegoat of choice, and as mentioned earlier, oversaw a general improvement for the Knights' offense with Jack Eichel, Dorofeyev and Howden pouring in more than their share of points as well.
Though it seemed like a risky move for a team with still-solid playoff odds (73% on March 29) and a recent Cup to shake things up so dramatically so late in the schedule, it mirrored unthinkably late moves we've also seen in recent NBA seasons -- which, granted, worked out more like the Islanders than the Golden Knights -- and might be another tool in the arsenal for front offices and/or ownership seeking a jolt in the future.
Kevin Weekes explains how the Golden Knights came back from a three-goal deficit and what John Tortorella has brought to the team.