NHL playoff crunch time starts sooner with with American Thanksgiving looming

It’s one week until American Thanksgiving. 

Which, by conventional NHL thinking, means it’s a week until we know, for the most part, which teams will be partaking in the 2024 postseason. 

In the salary cap era, and not including pandemic or lockout-impacted seasons, 76 percent of NHL teams in a playoff position when they carved Turkey were also selling playoff tickets late that year.

Last season, even with the NHL season now starting a week later than usual, a byproduct of the NHL’s national TV partners in the United States ESPN and Turner desiring that, the formula held true. 

Of the 16 teams in playoff position on November 24, 2022, 13 made the playoffs in April – 81.2 percent. 

In the Eastern Conference, only the Florida Panthers climbed from non-playoff position on Thanksgiving to actual qu