The Pittsburgh Penguins are in the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the ninth straight season.

They stumbled to the finish line, but the Penguins gave themselves a chance to see the real impact of the organizational overhaul undergone since elimination from the playoffs last season in the Eastern Conference Second Round.

General manager Jim Rutherford and coach Mike Johnston have their fingerprints all over a team that under former GM Ray Shero and ex-coach Dan Bylsma followed a Stanley Cup championship in 2009 by being a perennial playoff disappointment.

Now Rutherford and Johnston get their first chance to win in the spring with Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. At least they hope to have each player. If there is one thing that's for certain this season, it's to never take a healthy player for granted.

The Ottawa Senators and Pittsburgh Penguins won their way into the Stanley Cup Playoffs on Saturday.

The New York Islanders and Calgary Flames lost to hand over home-ice advantage to their first-round opponents.

Ottawa capped an amazing run with a clinching 3-1 win against the Philadelphia Flyers. The Senators, 23-4-4 in their last 31 games, are the second wild card from the Eastern Conference and play the Montreal Canadiens in the first round.

Montreal clinched the Atlantic Division with a 4-3 shootout win against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Pittsburgh is the second wild card after defeating the Buffalo Sabres 2-0. The Penguins victory set the Eastern field by eliminating the Boston Bruins.

The Penguins will play the New York Rangers, who won the Presidents' Trophy and Metropolitan Division.

The 2012 Los Angeles Kings proved that all a team needs to do is get to the Stanley Cup Playoffs; from there, anything can happen. Los Angeles caught fire after the 2012 Trade Deadline, sneaking into the postseason as the No. 8 seed, and then eventually winning the 2012 Stanley Cup.

The Ottawa Senators have followed that blueprint to the letter so far.

On Feb. 10, the Senators were 14 points out of a playoff spot. Five teams stood in the way of a postseason berth.

Playoff hockey is all about "what have you done for me lately?" and of late, the Senators have been the hottest team in hockey. Ottawa is 23-4-4 since Feb. 10, and 32-16-7 since coach Dave Cameron took over on Dec. 11. Th Senators, the one led recently by a first-year goaltender and timely goal-scoring, now have a chance to win the Stanley Cup.

Here are five reasons the Senators clinched a playoff berth:

On the final day of the 2014-15 regular season, two berths and much of the remaining seeding in the 2015 Stanley Cup Playoffs remain up for grabs.

Here are all of the clinching scenarios for Saturday:

EASTERN CONFERENCE

* The Senators would clinch a playoff berth if they get at least one point against the Flyers OR if the Penguins lose to the Sabres in regulation OR if the Bruins lose to the Lightning in any fashion.

* The Senators would clinch the No. 3 seed in the Atlantic Division if they defeat the Flyers in any fashion AND the Red Wings lose to the Hurricanes in regulation.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. -- The water bottles were lined up on the bench and the ice was fresh at the Los Angeles Kings practice facility, but the players never put on their skates Friday. Later, a manager came out to pack up the bottles, and the lights were turned off.

“Obviously it’s disappointing,” Kings center Jarret Stoll said. “There’s a lot of words to describe this season but, yeah, I think it’s maybe too fresh right now. It’s a weird, weird feeling. It’s a feeling we don’t like. We don’t want to relive this. You have a feeling of winning, and then you have a feeling of this. It’s pretty disappointing.”

Here are five reasons the Kings missed the playoffs:

Boston Bruins general manager Peter Chiarelli is more than a little bit disappointed with their performance this season.

“I consider it a failure and it’s a failure on everybody’s part,” Chiarelli said Friday in Tampa on an off day for players and coaches. “But being a failure doesn’t mean there has to be a complete overhaul of everything. Guys fail, teams fail, and they get back on their horse. And so again, I consider it a failure, but you don't always succeed in this business. You don’t always hit the ball out of the park all the time, and you’ve got to get back and do your job, and we’ve shown we can do that. But right now it’s very disappointing.”

Chiarelli’s comments were surprising considering the Bruins have a chance to make the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the eighth straight season. Boston will play its regular-season finale against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday (7:30 p.m. ET; NBCSN, NESN, SN1), and there’s a chance it won’t be the Bruins' last game of the season.

NEW YORK -- Sometimes it really is about the process and sticking with routines. The Ottawa Senators have proved in the past two months that believing in both eventually can yield positive results.

Ottawa will clinch a berth in the Stanley Cup Playoffs by gaining one point Saturday against the Philadelphia Flyers. The Senators were 14 points out of a playoff spot Feb. 10 before they faced the Buffalo Sabres.

The Senators have gone 22-4-4 since, and the key is they haven't done much differently in the past 30 games than they did in their first 24 under coach Dave Cameron, who coached his first game Dec. 11 after taking over for Paul MacLean.

"We went through a stretch where we thought we were playing reasonably well but we weren't able to get on that roll," Cameron said following Ottawa's 3-0 win against the New York Rangers on Thursday at Madison Square Garden. "We'd win one and we'd lose one and we'd sit down and analyze the game, look around at other teams in the League that were getting on rolls, and we'd say, 'Why isn't that happening to us?' We didn't have the answer for it other than the fact that we just have to trust that if you put in the work and you do it everyday eventually good things will happen. I don't care how good your team is you never sit back and say you know you're going on a roll like this, but we knew we put in the work and right now things are going good for us."

With two days remaining in the regular season, two berths in the 2015 Stanley Cup Playoffs remain up for grabs (both in the Eastern Conference).

Saturday, April 11, marks the conclusion to the 2014-15 regular season. Yet, much remains to be decided in the frantic run to the finish line, including playoff positioning and numerous individual accomplishments and milestones. To celebrate the countdown to the end of the season and the start of the Stanley Cup Playoffs on April 15, NHL.com will provide a piece of playoff-related content each day.

There are only two games on the NHL schedule Friday night, but one will have a big impact on potential matchups for the 2015 Stanley Cup Playoffs in the Eastern Conference.

The Pittsburgh Penguins welcome the New York Islanders to Consol Energy Center, and awin would secure a playoff berth for the Penguins. Pittsburgh has made the postseason every year since 2006-07, which is the second-longest streak in the NHL behind the Detroit Red Wings (24 years).

After a lengthy absence from the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Calgary Flames kick-started what was expected to be a long and painful rebuild by shipping out longtime franchise face Jarome Iginla and top defenseman Jay Bouwmeester prior to the 2013 NHL Trade Deadline.

But the second year saw the Flames' prospects blossom into solid NHL players and blend with the remaining veterans into one of the League's surprise teams.

The Flames assured themselves of their first postseason berth in six years Thursday with a 3-1 victory against the Los Angeles Kings, a victory that also knocked the defending Stanley Cup champs out of the postseason.