Talking turkey about who is on the playoff bubble at the U.S. Thanksgiving mark

It takes about 20 games to figure out which NHL teams are great and which are awful. The sorting that happens over that time is rarely a complete aberration, and when it shakes out that a team finishes the season in a very different spot from where they were after 20, there’s usually some dramatic reason (often related to coaching and/or injury).

It's also pretty fitting that to decide the Stanley Cup, you play another roughly 20-25 games. Makes sense right? If you figured out the who’s who among the 32 teams after 20 games, let’s take the best 16 and do it again, this time crowning a winner.

It just so happens that 20-ish games played for every NHL team happens around U.S. Thanksgiving, which just so happens to be … about now.

The numbers bear this out. Last season, just three teams that were out of the playoffs on U.S. Thanksgiving got in: the N.Y. Islanders, the Nashville Predators and the Edmonton Oilers.

Keep in mind how wild that is, given this includes teams that can be out by a piddly point with 60-plus games left in the season. The year before, just Florida, Minnesota, and again Edmonton, did it. Four teams got in the season before that, but I think you get the point — if you’re not at least close around now, things are looking pretty bleak.

A brief piece of positivity for fans of bubble teams: you may have noticed the Oilers were an “out” team who got “in,” then went to the Cup Final and came within a goal of winning the Stanley Cup. The year prior, Florida was in 10th in the East at U.S. Thanksgiving, before going to the Cup Final. The year before that, it was the Colorado Avalanche who were inside the playoff cut line by a single point — last among all 16 playoff teams — and they went on to win the Stanley Cup.

So, if you’re a ways out at this point, but get red hot down the stretch, that can translate into great results. There’s still a meaningful race left to run for those close.

So, which teams are we talking about this season?

THE EAST

As of today, the Buffalo Sabres are in! I don’t use many exclamation marks, but the Buffalo Sabres are in! They’ve got great fans, some great D-men, and good goaltending. They’ve got a real chance to finish the season in that spot, as much as everyone watching the team has been conditioned to doubt them. I’ll list the potential out teams that are trying to get in, along with the likelihood of them making the playoffs, as given by Dom Luczszyszyn of The Athletic’s mathematical model.

Boston Bruins (31 per cent)
In the opening of this piece, I mentioned that when teams finish drastically different from how they started the first quarter of the season, it’s often related to injuries or coaching, and we know the Bruins just fired their head coach and gave the job to Joe Sacco (for now). The team has looked mostly terrible this year. The goaltending has gone from a major asset to a liability, and their goal differential is minus-21, a number in the ballpark of the 15th-place Montreal Canadiens, but above the putrid Pittsburgh Penguins. But we know they’ve got talent, and their stars haven’t performed like stars yet. They still can. If David Pastrnak and Brad Marchand (who is showing signs) and Charlie MacAvoy get back to their games, and Jeremy Swayman settles back in, they’re Buffalo’s biggest threat to climb back into playoffs. (Dom’s model gives the Sabres a 30 per cent chance of making the playoffs, if you’re asking.)

Dark Horses

N.Y. Islanders (60 per cent)
The Islanders are the league’s most average team (just, shocking average) with a roster of steady veterans, good goaltending, and they give a good effort most every night. Play well, you can beat them; don’t show up, you’ll lose. When healthy they could be just above average, which should get their point total up into the 90s. A few extra OT/shootout wins along the way could get them into the conversation.

Ottawa Senators (25 per cent)
Ottawa looks like the longest odds to get in here, but they’ve got the most talent of any team that’s struggled badly so far this year, and I think they’re desperate enough to do something about it. A trade or two could be all it takes to get this group’s mojo going, and a real winning streak at some point is not out of the question. Particularly if Linus Ullmark gets comfortable and gives them league-average goaltending or, ideally, better.

THE WEST

Oh hello, Edmonton, there you are again. I don’t think Flames fans saw that spot in the standings coming at this point, and it’s just so hard to see them holding on there unless Dustin Wolf remains a name that stays in the Vezina conversation for a full season. Which if you’ve watched him, doesn’t feel impossible? The model has them at 25 per cent chance to make playoffs, even with them currently holding down a spot.

The Kings are a flawed team too, but they’ll get Doughty back before long, and that should help them earn a points total in the mid to high 90s.

Edmonton Oilers (97 per cent)
Say it with me without wavering: the Oilers will make the playoffs (barring injury). Their top guys are too good, the team is too experienced, and they won’t sit by and leak away the prime of two Hart Trophy winners while getting bottom-of-the-league goaltending. They just never get a key save when they need it, and while I think everyone likes Stu Skinner as a guy (I do, too), it’s only a matter of time before the team considers a change there. They’re also definitely going to add a D-man or two, and it’s probably the right time of year to make that move.

Dark Horses

I’ve watched a lot of Utah lately, and I just can’t see it. Maybe they’ve had an unusually tough run of games, but it’s an absolutely highway through their neutral zone, which makes life way too hard on their defence and goalies. I can’t see that team, without additions, getting in.

Seattle Kraken (17 per cent)
I don’t know how they’ll be as long-term contracts, but Chandler Stephenson and Brandon Montour were nice adds for the Kraken. They remind me of the Islanders of the West: Extremely average, with enough talent to win if you don’t bring a decent effort, but just lacking the high-end talent to beat the legitimately good teams consistently. Still, they could get their point total into the 90s, so you never know.

St. Louis Blues (7 per cent)
They’re no Cup contender, but the Blues roster isn’t outright bad, and I do think Jim Montgomery is a legitimately good coach. We’ve seen the Blues make the swing from bad to great after a firing once, I don’t think it’s impossible that they’ve got enough talent to get hot and become a post-season threat yet again. As mathematical models go, this pick has the longest odds of any team that I’ve mentioned (including Ottawa), as Dom Luszczyszyn of The Athletic has their odds of getting in at seven per cent.

There are other teams who would read the above and take offence, perhaps no more so than the Detroit Red Wings (three per cent playoff odds), who likely see themselves in the class of the Ottawas and St. Louises of the world. They also tied for the final playoff spot in the East last year, before losing in a tiebreak,so I’ll say: of the unmentioned teams, they’re the only other one I can see sneaking in. After that, teams have entered the time of year where they need to make decisions. Are they going all-in on development? Are they starting to shop for those defibrillator-style jolts to their not-yet-dead seasons? Or are they starting to sell off and stockpile assets to those earliest movers around the league?

More than anything, it’s coach-firing season. That’s the one button teams can push at the quarter mark that can make a difference, that reflects their frustration with their start. Either way, things will start to happen around the league as we’ve seen the cream rise to the top, and everyone else scramble to keep up.