The Icing On The Week: Records Will Be Broken

Whether good or bad on Saturday at the very latest one team in the West will break some sort of record. The East seems pretty much decided with regards to Playoff qualifiers after the New York Rangers extended their lead to three points over the Winnipeg Jets whilst eliminating the fading hopes of New Jersey on Sunday evening.

That means that in all likelihood the East will be represented by Pittsburgh, Boston, Washington, Montreal, Toronto, the Islanders, Ottawa and the Rangers. They are now shuffling for seeding positions between this evening and Saturday’s final games.

The West has Chicago, Anaheim, Vancouver, LA, San Jose and St Lois with the final two spots seeing Minnesota & Columbus, currently in seventh and eighth, trying to hold off Detroit and one of the form teams of the league at the moment in Dallas.

The Stars are on their worse run of non-postseason qualification since the franchise moved to Dallas, failing to qualify for each of the last four Stanley Cup Playoffs and, although Columbus have gone longer than their own current failure to partake in the last three postseasons in the past their record over their relatively short history stands at one qualification and an almost admirable ten failures.

The third team in the mix, Detroit, have qualified for the last twenty one playoffs and will be looking to qualify for this year’s postseason if only to maintain that record and carry on their pursuit of the current record for consecutive playoff appearances. That stands at twenty nine by the Boston Bruins which ran from 1969-1996.

As discussed last week the schedule will see all three teams in the mix facing each other – all four if we still include Phoenix for mathematical reasons – with the Red Wings visiting the Stars on Saturday after Columbus have pop by Thursday. The schedule, I would argue put the Stars in the driving seat.

They have their destiny in their own hands more than the other contenders and a win in both those games along with a win against San Jose Tuesday will see them sneak in to face Chicago. That does seem a hell of an ask but their last ten games have seen them go 6-3-1 with the losses coming against Anaheim, Chicago and St Louis. This Stars team is a team bang in form at just the right time.

Columbus is even hotter with a 7-3-0 run; St Louis, Minnesota and LA being the teams to have got the better of Todd Richards’ charges. The problem for ‘lumbus though is they haven’t enough points on the board.

Dallas has three games to play & Detroit have four compared to the Blue Jackets two and although you’d rather have the wins than not, they don’t have enough if truth be told.

That leaves Detroit to try and stop the Dallas charge. They can effectively rule out Phoenix’ hopes of any post April action with a win at “The Joe” tonight but their recent record of 1-3-2 at home and 1-2-3 in their last six games overall shows a team dipping at the wrong moment. A win tonight would be the Coyotes first win in Hockeytown for two and a half years however. After that match-up the Red Wings will then look to their hosting of LA, who felled the Stars in overtime last night, and Nashville who, quite frankly, have been a huge disappointment this year. Five points from those three is a minimum for the Red Wings to have any hope of extending their twenty one year stay in the playoffs come Saturday.

Possible Matchups

If the season ended today (unfortunately for Blue Jackets fans it does not) there would be some interesting match ups in both the East and West.

Pittsburgh Penguins would be up against the Rangers, the Isles would be attempting to stop Ovi and the Caps’ (my personal favourite possible game at the moment) and the one everybody (else) is hoping for; Toronto Maple Leafs versus Montreal Canadiens.

The last time the Leafs were in the postseason was 2003-04 where they lost to the Flyers in the Conference semi-final. HD television was not available to domestic audiences and Harry Haney had only just unveiled his boat that could ice skate.

Only Minnesota, Florida and the Islanders have to look back further than the Leafs to see when they last won a playoff series [1] with 2003, 1996 & 1993 being their last moments of Stanley Cup “glory”.

In the West Chicago will most likely roll over whoever they come up against in eighth (currently Columbus) while the defending Champion LA Kings will be relishing their possible series against the San Jose Sharks. If the Canucks have to play St Louis (increasingly likely) they will be up against a team that in my opinion is the worst possible draw for them. The Blues have a young core and with the recent addition of Bouwmeester have a player that can score clutch goals, as he did against the Canucks last week, for a team that is stingy in both the goals they concede and score.

Boston Tributes

In what has been an emotional week for the city of Boston there have been numerous tributes paid to the people and victims of the bombings throughout the league.

From the handing over of Bruins shirts last night to lay-helpers who were at the bomb site to fans across the league singing ‘Sweet Caroline’ in honour of Beantown. Bostonian Keith Yandle wrote a message on his skate the day the bombing occurred and then paid this emotional tribute to the young boy, Martin Richard, who lost his life when the bomb went off at the finish line moments  after congratulating his father for finishing the marathon.

There are numerous videos on the NHL site showing the tributes to a great city if you want to check them out.

[1] Not inclusive of Winnipeg and Columbus who have not won a series in their franchises’ current guise.