Will five Central Division teams make the playoffs?

The Central Division was arguably the best division in the NHL last year, but at the very least it was the best at the top, with the Colorado Avalanche, Dallas Stars and Minnesota Wild spending virtually the entire season in the top five of the league standings.

In 2026-27, the Wild are running away at the top through the first month-plus of the year, but the depth of the group has improved. The Nashville Predators are 8-4-5, and despite a recent skid, the Utah Mammoth still currently hold a Western Conference wild card spot at 10-7-1.

The Central Division was always expected to be superior to the Pacific in the West in general, but the emergence of the Predators combined with a respectable start from the Winnipeg Jets means it’s not much of a competition.

On Monday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton were joined by Jason Gregor and Jesse Montano to discuss whether or not these five teams can continue to hold off the wild card contenders in the Pacific and claim both wild card spots come April.

Tyler Yaremchuk: It also looks like the top three teams in the Central: Minnesota, Dallas, Colorado, everyone was kind of predicting those would be, in some order, the top three. A few people had Utah just on the outside, and they’ve had a little bit of an up-and-down start to the year, but let’s go ahead and say that [Gregor] and I nailed it, and it’s a 95% chance that the three teams in the Pacific, are those three teams [Edmonton, Vegas, Anaheim]. Let me throw you a percentage question. What are the odds that we get five playoff teams from the Central this year? Do you think it will be Utah in one of the wild cards, and then pick one of whoever else, or do you view Seattle as being in the same class as Nashville, Winnipeg and those teams?

Jesse Montano: I do think it’s these three teams at the top. I really liked Utah coming into the season, like they were sniffing around Connor Hellebuyck, and I thought that would have been a really great fit for them that would have made them really dangerous. I do like Utah to get in there in a wild card spot, and then I don’t know. The Western Conference in general, I do just think there is kind of a drop-off here in both the Pacific and the Central. I look at Nashville as maybe a team that could eke in there just because Chris MacFarland, new GM there, he makes smart moves that really improves your team like in the margins.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode below…