The Golden Knights shocked the hockey world by firing head coach Bruce Cassidy with just eight games left in the regular season. The Knights were spiraling after the Winter Olympic break, posting the league's second-worst record ahead of only the moribund Vancouver Canucks.

On April 2, with the Los Angeles Kings on the wrong side of the Stanley Cup Playoffs demarcation line and the end of his NHL career looming sooner than he would have liked, Anze Kopitar made a declaration.

The Stanley Cup Playoffs bracket is set. The NHL regular season concluded last night with a few key results that finalized the playoff schedule. Everything was already set in stone in the Eastern Conference,