Coach must assign meaning to every game, no matter playoff outlook

The Coaches Room is a regular feature throughout the 2025-26 season by former NHL coaches and assistants who turn their critical gaze to the game and explain it through the lens of a teacher.

In this edition, Dan Bylsma, former coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins, Buffalo Sabres and Seattle Kraken, and assistant with the New York Islanders and Detroit Red Wings, discusses how coaches try to give meaning to every game as they approach the final week of the regular season.

Watching the teams at this point in the season, they fall into three categories. 

At the top are teams like the Colorado Avalanche, Dallas Stars, Minnesota Wild, Carolina Hurricanes, Tampa Bay Lightning and Buffalo Sabres, who’ve known for a while they are Stanley Cup Playoff bound.

The second tier includes teams that are pushing to get in. In the Eastern Conference, that’s the Washington Capitals, Philadelphia Flyers, Columbus Blue Jackets, Ottawa Senators, Detroit Red Wings and New York Islanders.

In the Western Conference, that’s the Utah Mammoth in the first wild card and the teams battling for the second wild card: the Los Angeles Kings, Nashville Predators and San Jose Sharks, with the St. Louis Blues and Winnipeg Jets and Seattle Kraken in the mix, too.

They’ll all say, “These are playoff games for us now.”

Then, there’s the third category: teams that are out of it, whether mathematically eliminated or not.

No matter the category, the coach’s job is to give meaning to every game. At this time of year, that meaning is often simple: “Every game is a playoff game.”

For top teams, it’s about playing their best hockey and preparing for potential first-round matchups. For example, Dallas and Minnesota have known for a while that they’ll likely meet, so those games become about playoff preparation and creating an advantage.

That preparation builds confidence. As Islanders coach Pete DeBoer once said about his 9-0 record in Game 7s, having a plan gives players the belief they have a right to win. That’s what this time of year is about -- preparation, purpose and confidence.

Coaches often divide the season into segments. The first segment builds identity, the middle builds confidence, and the last stretch is about playoff preparation, playing your best hockey heading into a series.

Some coaches, like Darryl Sutter with the Kings in 2011-12, even break it into a seven-game “series” late in the season. I did something similar during the 2012-13 season, which was shortened to 48 games following the lockout.

For the teams fighting to get in, the message is clear. You don’t have to say it. They know they need to win. Sometimes it’s as simple as, “We’ve got eight games left, we need five.”

For the teams that are out of it, the focus shifts to building. As Chicago Blackhawks coach Jeff Blashill said, it’s about building winning habits.

If you play your last stretch at a .600 points percentage, that’s playoff hockey. You can break it into segments, focus on doing winning things, and build the belief for next season. That includes all areas of the game -- special teams matter, and good teams execute there every night.

So even for the teams at the bottom, there’s still purpose. You’re building toward something.