{"id":714,"date":"2009-09-01T11:01:52","date_gmt":"2009-09-01T11:01:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theahl.com\/?page_id=714"},"modified":"2025-10-03T12:07:05","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T16:07:05","slug":"qualification-rules","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/theahl.com\/qualification-rules","title":{"rendered":"2025-26 Qualification Rules"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theahl.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2023\/10\/brackets24.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-84359 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/theahl.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2023\/10\/brackets24-1024x1004.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"628\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A total of 23 teams will qualify for the <strong>2026 Calder Cup Playoffs<\/strong>, with five rounds of playoffs leading to the crowning of a Calder Cup champion.<\/p>\n<p>The playoff field will include the <strong>top six<\/strong> finishers in the eight-team <strong>Atlantic<\/strong> Division, the <strong>top five<\/strong> finishers each in the seven-team <strong>North<\/strong> and <strong>Central<\/strong> Divisions, and the <strong>top seven<\/strong> teams in the 10-team <strong>Pacific<\/strong> Division.<\/p>\n<p>First Round match-ups will be best-of-three series; the two highest seeds in the Atlantic, the three highest seeds in each of the North and Central, and the first-place team in the Pacific will receive byes into the best-of-five Division Semifinals, with the First Round winners re-seeded in each division.<\/p>\n<p>The Division Finals will also be best-of-five series, followed by best-of-seven Conference Finals and a best-of-seven Calder Cup Finals series.<i><\/i><\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A total of 23 teams will qualify for the 2026 Calder Cup Playoffs, with five rounds of playoffs leading to the crowning of a Calder Cup champion. The playoff field will include the top six finishers in the eight-team Atlantic Division, the top five finishers each in the seven-team North and Central Divisions, and the [&hellip;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-714","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theahl.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theahl.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theahl.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theahl.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theahl.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theahl.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/714\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theahl.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}