NHL Skates Towards Regular Season End

The NHL season is now into its last two and one-half weeks as 90 % of the regular season has elapsed. There are still some good playoff races and positioning to wrapup and finalize.

In the West, Nashville and Detroit are jockeying for the top spot in the conference, but Anaheim and Vancouver are lurking very closely behind. Anaheim has a four point lead on San Jose and five points on Dallas. Vancouver leads Minnesota by three points. All seven of these teams are in the playoffs. For the eighth slot, Calgary is trying to hold off hard charging Colorado and the Flames lead by four points with both teams having nine games left. The West looks to have some great battles in the last 18 days. And I believe Colorado will win the eighth playoff slot.

The Eastern Conference has but five teams that have wrapped playoff spots--Buffalo, New Jersey, Atlanta, Ottawa, and Pittsburgh. Buffalo is up by seven points on Ottawa, New Jersey leads Pittsburgh by just two points, and Atlanta leads Tampa Bay by four points. No division title or playoff position has been secured yet. For the final three playoff spots, six teams are vying in these remaining two plus weeks. Tampa Bay and the NY Rangers have the upper hand for now with four teams -- the defending Stanley Cup Champions Carolina, Toronto, Montreal, and New York Islanders -- all within one point of each other. Florida and Boston are fading longshots but still alive. Who will survive and stand the tallest when all is said and done is almost impossible to forecast but I will pick Carolina and Montreal to join Tampa Bay for the last three spots.

I will stay tuned very closely to what happens across the league nightly during these remaining days. Most teams have but eight or nine games left each so every game is at the point where it is critical for the competing teams.