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| The race for the Western Conference wild-cards |
As the season begins to wind
down, the playoff races are heating up. In the Western Conference, the 8th
place Coyotes are sitting at 82 points, only ahead of Dallas by three and
Vancouver by four, following the Canuck's win over the Wild last night. Vancouver's
win stopped the 7th place Wild, with 85 points, from jumping farther
ahead of Phoenix.
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| The EPIC playoff race in the Eastern Conference |
But the Western Conference doesn't come close to
the current drama in the East. Four teams are tied at 80 points, battling for
the two wild-card spots to make this year's first round. Unless the Flyers
(three points ahead of the four-way tie) fall apart, two of those 80-point
teams are going home early.
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| Gustav Nyquist is keeping Detroit alive in the playoff race with 9 goals in his last 6 games. But is that enough? (Photo by Greg Fiume) |
Each one of these squads has quite a story.
First we have Detroit, who is desperately trying to keep their playoff
appearance streak alive. At 22 seasons, it's currently the fifth-longest
all-time in the league. The Wings have struggled with injuries all season, and
currently are without Zetterberg, Datsyuk, or Abdelkader. They lost
a pivotal match in regulation against Columbus on Tuesday,
bringing the Blue Jackets to 80 points. Gustav Nyquist, Tomas Tatar,
and Alfredsson can only do so much alone. Wings fans are getting impatient
to say the least, considering they haven't experienced missing the playoffs
since 1990.
A few hours south, the Blue Jackets are
attempting to make their second postseason appearance, ever. Their first, five
years ago, was a four-game exit to Detroit...The Blue Jackets have surprisingly
re-tooled quite well since losing Rick Nash, now with a near 30-goal
scorer in young Ryan Johansen, who's having a breakout year. Anisimov and Dubinsky,
both former Rangers, have been performing well. The Blue Jackets have
a rough road to finish the season; four of their ten games
are against Pittsburgh, Colorado, the surging Philadelphia Flyers, and
Chicago.
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| Ovechkin, seen here scoring against LA on Tuesday night, leads the NHL with 48 goals this season (Photo by Rob Carr) |
The Washington Capitals are an interesting
situation. Alex Ovechkin leads the league in goals by a mile, and has
near-singlehandedly made the team's offense this year. However, the team
struggles with nearly everything else. With nine games remaining, the Capitals
need to make a large offensive push. Although the Caps have made
six-straight playoffs, it's been an early exit every single time. Even during
their 2010 President's Trophy run, the Canadiens found their way around the
Caps' strategy. This might be the team's last chance before big changes come
sweeping through.
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| Gardiner, Gleason, Bernier, and Reimer watch from the bench as Toronto fails to tie Tuesday's game against St. Louis. (Photo by Nathan Denette) |
And finally, Toronto, who earlier had a
large jump on the playoff race, now have lost their last six. They
have sat stagnant at 80 points since March 13, letting everyone
catch-up. Partly due to Bernier's injury, and partly equated
to sloppy play, the Maple Leafs are facing an uphill climb to what
looked like an easy playoff spot. With only 8 games left in their season,
Toronto has to do nearly perfect to catch up to the other 80-point teams,
as they all have games in-hand. Toronto can max out at 96 points, while Detroit
and Columbus can both still reach 100.
Therefore, a key game is tomorrow at
7 p.m., when Toronto plays in Philadelphia. If the
Leafs can snap their losing streak,
this will give the pack of playoff hungry teams a chance to
catch the Flyers.
