Playoff Primer: All You Need to Know About the NHL's "Second Season"

The Structure

How is home-ice advantage determined?
In the first two rounds, home-ice advantage is determined by seeding.
For the final two rounds (Conference Finals and Stanley Cup Finals), home-ice advantage belongs to the team with the best regular-season record, no matter where they ended up in the final standings.

The Strategy

You hear Dave Hakstol say it all the time. In the regular season, as your schedule takes you all over North America and every game (usually) is against a different team, a key to success is focusing on your own identity and executing your game at as high a level as possible.
That still holds true in the playoffs, but because you are seeing the same opponent up to seven times in a row, your focus can broaden a bit more. You can target aspects of the other team's game that provide opportunity for your team to succeed.
And something that every team focuses on is special teams. When every game is against one of the top teams in the league, it gets a lot harder to score. Power play opportunities give you a rare advantage and capitalizing on them becomes even more important. And at the other end of the ice, the penalty kill has to be that much better at their job.

The Intensity

You hear it all the time: "there's nothing like playoff hockey." Everything escalates to another level because you never know what will ultimately make the difference between advancing and ending your season. Hits seem harder, plays seem faster, checks close quicker and you have to work harder to find space on the ice. Emotions can also escalate as you have an opportunity to respond to the skater who tried to hit you along the boards, or scored a goal against or you just had to battle against the previous one, two, or more games.
Two-time Stanley Cup champion Yanni Gourde put it best.
"The intensity, the level of compete, everything is hyped up," Gourde said. "It's not like the (regular) season, it's so much better. It's so much more fun. It's when you want to be on the ice and play in those big games and those big moments. Every puck, every little detail matters and that's what makes it super special."

Reputations and Rivalries are Made

An NHL player can have a career that lasts for years and years, but rarely is there a bigger spotlight - or microscope! - than during the post-season. And that only intensifies as the number of teams remaining dwindles. More eyes are watching, more stories are being written, and every single move you make on the ice could be the difference making play.
What's one of the first things hockey fans might mention about Andre Burakovsky? His Game 1 overtime goal that cemented the first win of the 2022 Stanley Cup Final for the Colorado Avalanche.
The fact that Jaden Schwartz scored two hat tricks during the playoffs is a core part of the lore behind St. Louis' 2019 Cup win.

And the examples go on and on.
Not only can teams and players make a name for themselves, they also start to zero in on the names of others. Battles and grudge matches formed in the post-season can sustain well after any one game or series is over.
The Canucks and the Bruins faced off in the 2011 Final. It took seven games, but the Bruins finally won the Cup on Vancouver's ice. 12 years later, the two teams are still chirping each other. Just this past December, Sportsnet analyst and former Canuck Kevin Bieksa fired back at former Bruin Zdeno Chara for saying the Canucks had prematurely celebrated on Boston's ice after winning the first two games in Vancouver.

Playoff Beards

The day after the regular season ends, expect to see a lot of freshly shaved faces around the rink. That is in service of the tradition of playoff beards. You shave once as your post-season begins, and don't do it again until your team is out of the race (or has hoisted the Stanley Cup).
The tradition is widely believed to have begun with the 1984-85 Detroit Red Wings and some will say the purpose is to remove any act that takes away from your focus on winning the Cup; others say playoff beards serve as a reminder of what you're playing for when you look in the mirror. But at the very least, they are a visual reminder of the grind that is the playoffs and they are always good for a few chirps around the locker room.

Black Aces

Prior to the trade deadline, NHL teams have to adhere to a strict 23-player roster limit. After the trade deadline, you can have any number of players on your team, but you must still comply with the salary cap. Once the playoffs start that restriction goes away as well, so you often see playoff team rosters balloon by an extraordinary amount. Often, these players added to the team for post-season play are called "black aces."
"Black aces" are not necessarily likely to play, but they are there to be at the ready in case of injury in a post-season that is one of the most physically and mentally demanding in sport. You'll also often see a large number of young players joining a team. This is to give those who are expected to be a part of the future of the organization an inside look into the experience and demands of what it means to play for the Stanley Cup.

The Cup Itself

One of the greatest moments in hockey, if not all sports, is the awarding of the Stanley Cup. First handed out in 1892, the trophy was originally just a bowl, but as the tradition of etching the names of every championship team member demanded more and more real estate, rings have been added to accommodate the tradition and it now clocks in at a mighty 34.5 pounds.

But the Cup certainly doesn't look heavy on the night it goes to its newest owner. Traditionally, the NHL commissioner hands the award first to the captain of the winning team. After they skate with it in full view of those in the arena, it's handed off teammate to teammate - the significance of that order is one to dissect and enjoy as it often is a symbolic narrative of the contributions from each player on and off the ice.
As each player takes their lap, families and loved ones take over the ice as well for celebration, photos, and more than a few tears.
Later on in the off-season, players and members of the winning organization get to spend a designated "day with the Cup." The agenda is highly celebratory and often highly personal. Particularly because many NHL players follow the superstition that you can't touch the Cup unless you've won it.