With the final two makeup games out of the way, the 2022-23 NHL regular season has concluded, and all eight first-round match-ups in the Stanley Cup Playoffs have been settled. The New York Islanders already knew they were playing the Carolina Hurricanes, but the two unsettled battles delayed the schedule release. Instead, we had to wait for information to leak bit by bit before the league actually got there.
But now we know that the Islanders and Canes will actually open the Stanley Cup Playoffs—like it’s the first game of the entire playoffs—on Monday night at 7:00 p.