Players, coaches, fans and enthusiasts of ice hockey experience the best of the sport during the time of the playoffs. Exhibition games have minimal hype, elimination games don’t get much until the last several games of the season. Playoff hockey is where everything is brought forward. In playoff hockey, all players are expected to bring out their true games, to put everything on the line, put everything at stake. With playoff hockey, there is no tomorrow or yesterday. All that matters is today, in the rink.
The best and most famous of all professional hockey associations is the National Hockey League or simply NHL for short. Playoff hockey in the NHL is during the Stanley Cup playoffs. It is an elimination tournament consisting of four rounds of best-of-seven series. The first three rounds will determine which team from each conference will advance to the final round, dubbed the Stanley Cup Finals. The winner of that series will be crowned NHL and Stanley Cup champion.
Playoff hockey during the first round, or Conference Quarterfinals, consists of four matchups in each conference. In the second round, or Conference Semifinals, the top remaining conference seed plays against the lowest remaining seed, and the other two remaining conference teams pair off. In the third round, the Conference Finals, the two remaining teams in each conference square off against each other, with the conference champions proceeding to the ultimate showdown of playoff hockey in the NHL, the Stanley Cup Finals.