is the chicago blackhawks in the stanley cup playoffs
Chicago Blackhawks The Blackhawks opened the 2017–18 season with a resounding 10–1 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins.[114] The Blackhawks were four games above .500 with an 18–14–6 record at the end of December 2017, and only four points out of a playoff spot.[115] However, goaltender Corey Crawford missed much of 2018 due to an upper-body injury.[116] Inconsistent defense and goaltending, coupled with limited offense resulted in the team falling to the bottom of the Central Division.[117][118] The Blackhawks were eliminated from playoff contention on March 20, 2018, marking the first time in nine years that the team failed to qualify for the Stanley Cup Playoffs.[118] The team finished the season with a 33–39–10 record and 76 points in the standings.[119]
Stanley Cup playoffs In 1998–99, the league was re-organized into two conferences of three divisions apiece, resulting in the playoff format used through 2013. The qualifiers remained sixteen, but the seeding changed. The three first-place teams in each division qualified and were seeded first through third for the playoffs. Of the other teams in each conference, the top five finishers qualified for the fourth through eighth seedings. All teams played in the first round: first-place versus eighth, second versus seventh, third versus sixth and fourth versus fifth, by those criteria. After each round, surviving teams were reseeded to play a conference semi-final, then a conference final. Like the 1994–1998 system, the conference winners then played each other in the Stanley Cup Finals, and home ice advantage was determined by higher seed in the first three rounds and by regular-season points of the two teams in the Stanley Cup Finals.[4]