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.