The daily main story at Hockey Hot Stove is powered by Watrhouse Brands, dedicated to quality, consumer education, and awareness: Benevolent Bakery, SoSHEL beverages, and Smokiez vegan fruit chews. Today: NHL docket for April 6, 2026.
The New Jersey Devils have followed the recent trend of late-season firings, as Devils managing partner David Blitzer announced that GM Tom Fitzgerald has been let go. Fitzgerald has one year left on his contract.
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After a wild weekend that included a 15-game schedule on Saturday alone, there has been some significant shifts in the NHL playoff picture in both the East and the West. According to Moneypuck.com, here are the latest playoff odds.
On Monday, there’s a relatively light schedule: Four games. However, there are some important match-ups on the docket. Come Tuesday, 22 teams will be in action across the 11-game schedule.
NHL Game of the Night: Tampa @ Buffalo
The Tampa Bay Lightning (102 points, 39 regulation wins) visit the Buffalo Sabres (100 points, 38 regulation wins) on Monday evening. Tampa has won back-to-back games, while the Sabres have dropped back-to-back games in regulation. The Lightning are 7-1-2 in their last 10 games while Buffalo is 5-3-2.
Projected goalie matchup: Vasilevskiy vs. Luukkonen
Playoff implications: Regardless of the outcome, the Lightning will remain in first place at the end of the night. However, the Sabres would forge a points tie with a regulation win. They’d also create a primary tiebreaker deadlock with 39 regulation wins apiece. The Bolts would still hold the second tiebreaker edge with 44 regulation plus overtime victories. Additionally, Tampa will still hold one game in hand.The Montreal Canadiens (100 points, 32 regulation wins) are idle on Monday night.
Moneypuck odds: Money Puck has the home team as a very slight (50.9% to 49.1% chance to win) favorite.
Three of four games are Western Conference matches
The Lightning-Sabres game is Monday’s only match involving Eastern Conference clubs.The other three games involve six Western Conference teams: three Central and three Pacific.
Kraken @ Jets
Winnipeg (78 points, 26 RW) are coming off a Super Saturday road win over the Columbus Blue Jackets. They still face long playoff odds with four teams ahead of them in the race for the lower wildcard spot. That’s a bigger factor than the three points that separate the Jets and Nashville. Meanwhile, Seattle (75 points) has lost three in a row in regulation. Money Puck has Winnipeg as heavy favorites to beat Seatle: 62.5 percent chance to win.
Blackhawks @ Sharks
Chicago (70 points, five games remaining) has already been mathematically eliminated from the playoffs. They are strictly potential spoilers at this point. However, despite a win on Saturday, the Blackhawks have only won three of their last 10 games. San Jose enters Monday in critical shape in the wildcard race. Good: a game in hand on Nashville and Los Angeles. The bad: On top of being two points behind the Predators and Kings entering Monday, the Sharks also have to make up a two RW deficit to catch the Kings in that department. Unsurprisingly, Money Puck has San Jose (58.2 percent winning odds) as the favorite over Chicago.
Predators @ Kings
This is the other marquee game of the night. Los Angeles and Nashville are in a dead heat for the lower wildcard position with 81 points apiece. Los Angeles has already clinched the tiebreaker (26 RW to 19 RW) over the Predators. However, the Kings will at least temporarily move into a wildcard position with a win by any means against the KIngs. A regulation win, of course, would be bigger from the standings points perspective. For LA, a regulation win over the Kings paired with a San Jose loss by any means would move the Predators four or five points ahead of the Sharks plus a three RW tiebreaker edge. Money Puck, however, installed the Kings as the favorite (56.4% winning odds) in this game.
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