Clear As Mud: A Look at the NHL’s Western Conference Playoff Picture

March 24th, 2010 by Blake Benzel Leave a reply »
Well, the playoffs are just around the corner. Those who are looking like locks to make it are prepping to look like the long lost brother to Sasquatch for the next two months, while the others are dusting off their golf clubs for a trip around their local links. For this look at the playoff race, I’ve pulled information from both Hockey-Reference.com and a new site that I’ve found called NHL Standings and Magic Numbers. While these numbers may not be entirely accurate, they are the best available at the moment, so just go with it, will ya? The Magic (or tragic, depending on the situation) number is the number of combined points that the team needs in order to make the playoffs. This means both points gained by them and points lost by other teams. So let’s start with the West. I tossed around the idea of including Los Angeles, Colorado and Nashville on this list, but drew the conclusion that it would take a monumental collapse for either of these teams not to make it. That’s not to say that it couldn’t happen, but their playoff probabilities are all higher than 95% which, in my book, makes it a pretty good bet. Begin Slideshow

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