2024 Stanley Cup playoffs

2024 Stanley Cup playoffs

Tournament details
Dates	April 20 – TBD
Teams	16
Defending champions	Vegas Golden Knights
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The 2024 Stanley Cup playoffs is the playoff tournament of the National Hockey League (NHL) for the 2023–24 season. The playoffs began on April 20, 2024, and will conclude no later than June 24, 2024, with the 2024 Stanley Cup Finals, to determine the winner of the Stanley Cup.^[1][2]

The New York Rangers made the playoffs as the Presidents' Trophy winners with the most points (i.e. best record) during the regular season. Both the Boston Bruins and Toronto Maple Leafs extended their playoff streaks to eight consecutive seasons, the longest active streaks in the NHL.^[3] For the second year in a row and third time since entering the NHL as expansion teams in the 1967–68 NHL season, both Pennsylvania-based teams (the Flyers and Penguins) missed the playoffs in the same season.

For the fifth consecutive season, and eighth in the last ten seasons, a Florida-based team made it to the penultimate round.^[4] For the first time since 2015, the penultimate round featured the Presidents' Trophy winner, the New York Rangers, who also became the only team to hold it twice and make it to their respective conference final in the last ten years.^[5] For the first time since 2018, three of the four conference finalists, the Rangers, Florida Panthers and Dallas Stars, were their respective division champions.^[6] For the fifth consecutive season a team from Florida qualified for the Stanley Cup Finals.^[7]