8 games left...but what will happen?

as the regular season closes, playoff matchups usually start becoming clear. not necessarily in the wild West....

last few games played:
Mar 15: 4-2 win over Colorado
Mar 17: 4-2 win over Dallas
Mar 19: 3-0 shutout win over St. Louis
Mar 21: 5-1 loss to Phoenix
Mar 24: 5-2 win over Dallas
Mar 26: 4-2 loss to St. Louis
Mar 27: 4-1 win over Colorado

nucks are still playing all right, although those extremely disappointing losses made everyone else in the league think we're losing our spark, and heading to a repeat of last year. seriously, if we want the NW title and home-ice advantage, we should be able to whip teams like St. Louis, and especially Phoenix.

here's something to worry about: the Western Conference standings:

1.	y-San Jose	74	107
2.	x-Detroit	75	107
3.	* Calgary	74	90
4.	Chicago	73	91
5.	Vancouver	74	89
6.	Columbus	74	85
7.	Edmonton	75	81
8.	Nashville	74	80
9.	Anaheim	75	80
10.	St. Louis	74	79
11.	Minnesota	74	78
12.	Dallas	74	75
13.	Los Angeles	74	72
14.	Phoenix	74	69
15.	Colorado	75	64

now, everyone's raving about the race at the bottom of the playoff seeds. i'm just going to call Edmonton and St. Louis for those last two spots. for Edmonton, it would be sweet to have all 3 western Canadian teams in the playoffs, since there's only Montreal in the east, and they're falling quickly. for St. Louis, they've proven as of late, especially with those wins over both Vancouver and Calgary, that they deserve that last playoff berth.
here's what i really want to talk about: the 3rd to 6th seeds. with nucks closing in on Calgary, things will get interesting, especially with Chicago in the mix. all it will take for the nucks to take the division title this weekend is for Calgary to lose to Minnesota tonight, and for Vancouver to beat Chicago tomorrow. if this happens, Vancouver will get third, but with Chicago a point higher than Calgary, Calgary will fall to 5th. This would be great.
one worry about this is playoff matchups. Columbus is only 5 points behind Calgary right now. if they keep winning, and Calgary loses a couple games, then Columbus could steal that 5th seed from Calgary, putting them in 6th, and with Vancouver in 3rd, that would mean a nucks-flames matchup in the 1st round of the playoffs. oh god!

here are the next few games:
Sunday March 29th @ Chicago, 4:00 pm
Tuesday March 31 @ Minnesota, 5:00 pm
Thursday April 2nd vs. Anaheim, 7:00 pm
Saturday April 4th @ Edmonton, 7:00 pm
Sunday April 5th vs. Colorado, 7:00 pm
Tuesday April 7th vs. Calgary, 7:00 pm
Thursday April 9th vs. Los Angeles, 7:00 pm
Saturday April 11th @ Colorado, 10:00 am
this is actually a relatively easy end of season schedule. the only 2 hard games in there should be against Chicago and Calgary. the rest should be a piece of cake. there is no excuse for pulling a repeat of last year, especially with a schedule like this.

canucks are hot again!!!

sorry about not posting in the last month, but i've been busy and forgetful, and the canucks have been winning too much for me to keep track. here are all the game scores since that loss in dallas:
feb 15: 4-2 win over montreal
feb 17: 5-3 win over calgary
feb 19: 5-2 win over ottawa
feb 21: 3-2 shootout win over toronto (sundin got the tie-breaker vs ex-team)
feb 24: 3-0 loss to montreal
feb 27: 2-1 win over tampa bay
mar 1: 3-1 win over columbus
mar 3: 4-2 win over minnesota
mar 7: 3-1 win over san jose
mar 9: 3-2 loss over la
mar 11: 4-3 overtime loss to anaheim
mar 13: 4-2 win over la

now here come the fun, exciting stats. since february 1st, the nucks have been 13-3-1 in 17 games, which has significantly boosted them in the west and taken the league by surprise. with one month left before playoffs, the predictions for playoffs are coming in, and vancouver is getting the "dark horse pick" for the west by many analysts, mainly because of their sudden sky-rocketing in the west.
now for the standings. in my last post, the nucks had just jumped back into playoff position, but were still in the tight race for that position. here are the standings a month later:

1.	* Detroit	68	97
2.	* San Jose	66	96
3.	* Calgary	68	86
4.	Chicago	66	83
5.	Vancouver	67	79
6.	Columbus	69	78
7.	Edmonton	67	72
8.	Dallas	68	72
9.	Minnesota	67	71
10.	Nashville	68	71
11.	St. Louis	67	70
12.	Anaheim	68	70
13.	Los Angeles	67	67
14.	Phoenix	68	62
15.	Colorado	68	61

there is still a tight race amongst 6 teams for the last 2 playoff spots, but this shows that, with a 7-point lead on that race, vancouver is almost guaranteed a playoff seed. nucks still have 15 games left though, which allows for almost anything to happen. the worst would be a repeat of last year, losing 7 of the last 8 and falling from division-winning contention to out of the playoffs. the best is to win all the games, have everyone else lose, and lead the conference (which is 99% unlikely to happen). the most likely scenario is staying in 5th, maybe moving to 4th. however, if canucks keep winning, and calgary loses a couple more games (they only have 14 left to play), we could be in contention again for the division, which would be a huge victory. we are only behind calgary by 7 points now, so it could still happen...

now that we're getting close to the end of the season, i have a couple predictions:
1. vancouver and calgary play once more against each other on april 7, which is the 3rd-last game of the season for both teams. i see it likely that, if the standings end up happening that way, this game will determine the winner of the division. for example, consider the scenario when team X is 3 points up on team Y when entering the game. if team X wins, they'll be 5 points up on Y, so even if X loses its last 2 games and Y wins theirs, X will still win the division by 1 point. if Y wins, they narrow the gap to 3 points, so if X loses the last 2 games and Y wins theirs, Y will win the division by 1 point. If there is an overtime, the gap will become only 4 points, so no matter which team wins the game, if the winner loses their last 2 games and the loser wins theirs, there will be a tie for the division win.
2. vancouver and calgary will face in the 2nd round of the playoffs. one of the teams will definitely be in 3rd, while the other one will likely be in 4th or 5th. if both teams win in the 1st round, and the other series in the west work out accordingly, vancouver and calgary will face in the 2nd round. if the lower team falls to 6th, they will play in the 1st round. if the other teams have different results for the 1 st round, then they might not face in the 2nd round, but if they both win in 2nd round, they will battle in 3rd round for the conference final.


here are the remaning 15 games for the season:
sun mar 15 vs. colorado, 7:00 pm
tues mar 17 vs. dallas, 7:00 pm
thurs mar 19 vs st.louis, 7:00 pm
sat mar 21 @ phoenix, 7:00 pm
tues mar 24 @ dallas, 5:30 pm
thurs mar 26 @ st.louis, 5:30 pm
fri mar 27 @ colorado, 6:00 pm
sun mar 29 @ chicago, 4:00 pm
tues mar 31 @ minnesota, 5:00 pm
thurs apr 2 vs anaheim, 7:00 pm
sat apr 4 @ edmonton, 7:00 pm
sun apr 5 vs colorado, 7:00 pm
tues apr 7 vs calgary, 7:00 pm
thurs apr 9 vs la, 7:00 pm
sat apr 11 @ colorado, 12:00 pm