The NHL’s regular season only has two weeks left, ending on Saturday April 7, and the Pacific Division is nowhere closer to being settled, with four teams stacked within two points of each other, and current playoff standings allowing only three of them to survive. The Pacific Division race is just the biggest highlight, as TheSportsNotebook seeks to make sure readers don’t lose sight of hockey amidst the Madness that is March.
All season long the story in the NHL has ranged from the home winning streak of the Detroit Red Wings, the excellence of the New York Rangers or Vancouver’s push for Stanley Cup redemption. But with anywhere from 10-13 games left in the regular season it’s the St. Louis Blues that have opened up the Western Conference, and the Pittsburgh Penguins who are suddenly the hot item in the East. Is a sea change at hand just before the postseason begins?
NHL teams only have 12-15 games left in the regular season and the playoffs will set to begin within a week of the ending of the NCAA Tournament, so TheSportsNotebook isn’t letting the action on the ice pass us by while March Madness is going on. If you turned your head for just a few days here’s what you missed…
Four of the NHL’s six division titles are still very much in play as we head into the homestretch of a regular season that ends on April 8. Only the New York Rangers in the Atlantic and the Vancouver Canucks in the Northwest are really home free for a first-place finish and guaranteed top-three seeding, and of these two, only the Rangers are in complete command for the race for the #1 seed in their conference. Everything else is neck-and-neck.
There’s some good hockey being played in the NHL’s Western Conference. Between Vancouver and Detroit jousting for the #1 spot, to Phoenix rolling through the month of February undefeated, the West is asserting its superiority as we come down the stretch of the regular season. But don’t overlook the St. Louis Blues, who are only two points back of Detroit in the race for the Central Division crown and what would be one of the top two seeds in the playoffs. St. Louis has a four-point lead on Nashville for the four-spot and home-ice advantage in the first round. TheSportsNotebook takes a look at the Blues as we turn the calendar into March.
The Washington Capitals have got themselves a reputation going for dynamic regular seasons followed by playoff failures under the leadership of head coach Bruce Boudreau and star forward Alex Ovechkin. Tired of the bad rap, Boudreau was fired in late November after the Caps started slowly, but it appears the way Washington will find some consistency is just to play mediocre hockey all year, rather than just in the playoffs. If the postseason started today the Caps would be home. TheSportsNotebook takes a look to see if there is any possibility for a turnaround in the season’s fourth quarter.
I should really stop looking at the NHL schedule because I find myself wanting to scream louder each time I see what looks like complete incompetence on the part of the league hierarchy. Now if you ran a league that was starving some attention, and were in a situation where the NBA was on its All-Star break, thereby freeing up Friday night in the eyes of sports fans who might otherwise watch a hoops doubleheader on ESPN, wouldn’t you seize the moment and put some good games on that day? Or even allowing that it’s tough to predict that far in advance what will be a good game, at least put a full schedule and maximize your chances? Or at least put one bleepin’ game on TV on your own network!?!! I swear, I’ve got to be in the wrong line of work, because if Gary Bettman is making the kind of dough he’s pulling down for running a league this incompetently, then I must have missed my moment somewhere.
Even if the NHL Network is nowhere to be found tonight, Vancouver-New Jersey is a good game, with the Canucks closing to within a point of the #1 spot in the West after ending Detroit’s record-home winning streak in a shootout last night. New Jersey’s the hottest team going right now, so this promises to be a good one, so long as Vancouver isn’t on a hangover.
Saturday’s card is pretty good, even if the Tampa-Pittsburgh game angled its way onto the NHL Network at 1 PM ET. But the hot Southeast Division race has changed hands again. With Florida and Washington vying to see who could backpedal faster, Winnipeg finally stepped up and nudged into the lead. The Jets (who just moved from Atlanta, lest anyone think the NCAA is in charge of geographic alignment here) host St. Louis, Florida goes to Carolina and Washington has a prime-time game with a good Toronto team at 7 PM ET on the NHL Network. And in a huge battle in the Northeast Division, Ottawa continues its quest to chase down slumping Boston when they host the Bruins. We might have two new division leaders in the East by the time Saturday is done.
The card on Sunday is again tame, although with the Daytona 500 by day and the NBA All-Star game by night, I won’t go off on the league again. Anaheim somehow again managed to wangle a NBCSN TV slot against Chicago at 7 PM ET (does the ownership of the last-place Ducks have blackmail material on someone at the networks that they keep getting on TV?). The game is part of a back-to-back tour of SoCal for the Blackhawks, who play a key game in Los Angeles on Saturday, with both teams lurking near the bottom of the Western Conference playoff ladder.
The New Jersey Devils have been the NHL’s most significant story in February. As much as the Detroit Red Wings’ home win streak has earned its place in the history books, there’s no story more likely to impact what we see in late April or May than the surge the Devils have put on. Coming from outside the playoff picture, they’ve zoomed up the ladder to be the #4 seed in the East if the postseason began today. New Jersey is tied with Boston for the second-best point total in the conference. And while the 4 thru 7 spots are fluid enough that they can change every few days, the Devils are a comfortable nine points up on the teams fighting to get into the playoffs. Is the surge for real, or is the flavor of the month? The SportsNotebook goes inside the New Jersey Devils.
The Detroit Red Wings are the toast of the NHL with their league record 23-game win streak*. They’ve opened up a cushion in the tough Central Division, holding a five-point lead on St. Louis, while Nashville and Chicago have slipped back into the pack. The Wings are plus-2 points on Vancouver for the top seed in the conference. Will this win streak be just a nice little footnote on the season, or is it the sign that this proud franchise is going to successfully navigate the snakepit that the NHL playoffs often are for favorites? TheSportsNotebook takes a look at the team overall and then at what we can learn from their most important games over the past two months.
The Washington Capitals have done whatever they can in recent weeks to play themselves out of a chance at postseason redemption. The Caps have fallen four points behind a less-talented Panthers team in the NHL’s Southeast Division, and this is a division so poor that right now it stands to get just one team in the playoffs. Friday’s NHL card is highlighted by a Panthers-Caps game down in the Sunshine State and if there were ever a time for Alex Ovechkin to show he’s more than just another pretty face, tonight would be good place to start
The race for the final playoff spots is on in the NHL, and today TheSportsNotebook will focus in on the Western Conference, where three teams are packed within three points for #8. Phoenix holds the spot down if the season ended today, but Calgary and Colorado are hot on the heels of the Coyotes. Here’s a look at the strengths and weakness of all three teams…
The New York Rangers have been atop of the Eastern Conference for most of the year, but over the past three weeks they’ve opened up some breathing room. A three-game win streak that was culminated with a 3-2 win over Washington yesterday means that the Ranges now lead Philadelphia & Pittsburgh by eight points in the Atlantic Division, and are plus-seven on Boston in the Eastern Conference overall. New York is going to be tough to catch for the top seed in the playoffs, so TheSportsNotebook is giving them a closer look today, particularly at their recent streak where they’ve won seven of nine.