NHL Playoff Picture: Early 2026-27 Contenders and Warning Signs

Things have changed on the NHL calendar this season. There are two more games, for one. And with that, the season started a little earlier than usual. Normally we would use the Nov. 1 benchmark to compare seasons to one another, but this year we’ll do it a little differently. We are now 35 days into the NHL season — about two weeks shy of the official quarter mark — and that’s the number we’ll use when looking back at where we were a season ago. It’s obviously far too early to draw any grand conclusions about the playoffs. It…