Sixteen teams make the NHL playoffs each year under the league's standard format.
The Stanley Cup Playoffs include eight teams from the Eastern Conference and eight from the Western Conference. In the current divisional system, the top three teams in each division qualify automatically, producing six berths per conference. The remaining two places in each conference go to wild-card teams with the next-best regular-season records.
The 16 qualifiers form a four-round elimination tournament. Every series is normally best-of-seven, so a team must win four games to advance. The two conference champions meet in the Stanley Cup Final, which determines the NHL champion.
The number has not always been constant. The NHL used smaller playoff fields in earlier eras, including four teams during the Original Six period. The league expanded the tournament to 16 teams for 1979–80 after absorbing four franchises from the World Hockey Association. A notable exception came in the pandemic-affected 2020 postseason, when 24 teams were invited to a special expanded format. That temporary arrangement does not change the standard answer: 16.