Pre-Game Talk: SENS take a bite out of the big Apple, Sunday 7:00 pm on SN

[Tnuoc Alucard]

I'm not 100% sure on this, but it feels like most (if not all) playoffs spots are pretty much set by January. You might get one team in a conference fall out of it, or one division make a run and grab the second wildcard, but overall, people usually know who is in halfway through the season.

Actually there is a "stat" that Pierre McGuire keeps talking about, every year around this time, about the "teams in a playoff spot by the US Thanksgiving weekend" and how they are pretty much set in those spots until the end of the season.

Out of the playoffs December 1? Done like (Thanksgiving) dinner | The Hockey News

Stats favor NHL teams in playoff spot on Thanksgiving