NEW YORK – You won’t find any true bracket busters in this year’s Stanley Cup playoffs.

There are 16 teams in the hunt for the silver chalice, and from top to bottom every club can make a case that it can skate off with North America’s oldest sports trophy.

Ottawa clinched the top seed in the Eastern Conference on Tuesday, the final night of the regular season, which gave the Senators the right to play the weakest playoff team. Except this year that happens to be the Tampa Bay Lightning. Yes, the same guys who won the title the last time it was on the line two years ago before the lockout.

In the new NHL, anything is possible and parity is king thanks to the $39 million salary cap. Only eight teams were more than 11 points out of a playoff spot.

“It’s been one of those years,” said Lightning forward Brad Richards, the MVP of the 2004 playoffs. “We feel now that finally we got in, we can start over here hopefully and try to do something.”

They aren’t alone.

The New Jersey Devils finished the season with 11 straight victories. That put them one point ahead of the New York Rangers and into a tie with the Philadelphia Flyers atop the Atlantic Division. The Devils won the tiebreaker and earned the No. 3 seed.

“I think this is as open a year as ever in the NHL for a number of teams to win the Cup,” San Jose Sharks coach Ron Wilson said. “The most important reason is because the rules aren’t going to change in the postseason. It will be the same hockey, called by the same rules.”

The Sharks also fought much of the season just to qualify for the playoffs. The early addition of scoring champion Joe Thornton from Boston made all the difference. He turned linemate Jonathan Cheechoo into the top goal-scorer in the league by assisting on 38 of his 56 tallies.

San Jose is fifth in the Western Conference and will face the No. 4 Nashville Predators in the best-of-seven series opener on Friday.

Also starting that night in the West is the series between No. 1 Detroit and No. 8 Edmonton, along with No. 3 Calgary hosting No. 6 Anaheim. The remaining Western series is No. 7 Colorado at No. 2 Dallas, beginning Saturday.

In the East, the Lightning and Senators will start Friday. The other three series: the New York Rangers at New Jersey; No. 7 Montreal at No. 2 Carolina; and No. 5 Philadelphia visiting No. 4 Buffalo get under way on Saturday.