Jockeying for Playoff Spots in the West

Well, the middle of March is upon us and it is time to start taking a glance ahead to see which teams skate by into the playoffs and which teams sit atop of the rest closest to the Cup. With the Capitals already securing their spot in the playoffs in the East with an amazing 14 point lead over last year's Stanley cup winner, the Penguins, and a 30 point lead over the 9th place Rangers, we turn to look in the West to see a much closer race. The San Jose Sharks are barely holding the 1st place spot with a meager 3 points over the team that confuses most, the Blackhawks. Both teams lost 2 games this weekend, with one being in overtime. Vancouver is coming up strong in this past week with 4 wins and an overtime loss to pull them within 5 points of the Blackhawks.

The Blackhawks and their fans can thank the Hockey gods that Vancouver and San Jose have 3 games against each other left. So either way the games go, it helps the Hawks. If Vancouver wins, hopefully, the Blackhawks should be able to rally a few games with 4 gimmies, and the rest decent competition. If the Sharks win more points, the Canucks fall further behind leaving us in 2nd place. I'm hoping that Vancouver wins all three for a very good reason. The Redwings. Currently they are in 8th place, 1 point behind the Predators. They both have 13 games left with 2 against each other. I'm thinking that the finally getting healthy Redwings will end up in 7th place. I would much rather face the Predators or the Avalanche in the 1st round than the Redwings. So I'm going to root for Vancouver to win to place us either in 1st or 3rd.

Calgary is sitting in 9th pace right now and with only two easy games left, I don't see them passing up Detroit to gain a berth. Their only chance is for Nashville, Colorado, or LA to pretty much go on a terrible losing streak and just crash and burn right before the playoffs. Unfortunately for the Flames, I don't see that happening so they won't get a chance to redeem themselves this year.

An interesting team to be on the lookout this last stretch is the Phoenix Coyotes. They are tied with Vancouver for 3rd place right now. The Coyotes have a few easy games against the bottom of the league teams, but more importantly, they have two games against the Hawks and another 6 playoff teams. They are defiantly the team to shift the standings around a bit, especially with Ilya Bryzgalov between the posts and a league high 8 shutouts.

My predictions, with Campbell out for the Blackhawks, they slide a few more games down to 3rd place, with Vancouver overcoming them as well as the Sharks for 1st. The Sharks move to 2nd, and the Coyotes hold strong at 4th. LA and Colorado swap spots so that LA is bumped down to 5th. The Redwings show why they are not to be taken lightly and jump up to 7th and the Predators hold of the Flames for the last spot in the playoffs.

I think that even though the Blackhawks will have lost a few games and have moved down a spot, but that will mean that we will be facing the LA Kings or the Avalanche, which is much more preferable over the Redwings. With a little luck and the Hawks making a push through the playoffs with some goal scoring from the young stars, they will be able to redeem themselves against the best in the East, the Capitals.