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Dozen Left For Ducks; Much To Be Determined |
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The Anaheim Ducks have 12 games remaining in the 2007-2008 regular season and there is much to be determined in those dozen games. Will they repeat as Pacific Division Champions? Will they even make the playoffs? If so, what seed will they be?
As of this writing the Ducks have 83 points and are the fifth seed in the Western Conference. They are five points ahead of the ninth seeded Predators but Nashville has one game in hand on them. At the same time Anaheim is four points behind the Pacific Division leading Stars with one game in hand on Dallas. The chances appear to be equally as good that the Ducks will miss the playoffs as they are that the Ducks will win their Division.
Upon closer inspection, though, the Ducks might have a better chance to win the Division than to miss out on the playoffs. Anaheim will play seven of their final 12 games at home and on the season the Ducks are 22-8-4 on home ice. Of the five road games the Ducks will play only three of them require them to leave California and two of those three are only to Phoenix with the other coming against the Stars. In fact the Ducks will play the Stars two more times this year which will give them a firsthand opportunity to make up the four points that they currently trail Dallas.
The Ducks chances of missing the playoffs appear to be slim (sorry, Kings & Oilers fans) because of their 12 remaining games five of them are against teams that are not currently in the playoffs. Anaheim has two games against both the Coyotes and Kings as well as a game against the Blues. While no game in the NHL is a guaranteed win these days it’s obviously much better to be playing teams that are currently out of playoff seeding than teams that are fighting for division titles.
The wild card in all of this, of course, is injuries and how the team will play without All-Star winger Corey Perry. While Bobby Ryan is a talented player with a good scoring touch he’s also a rookie that is being asked to replace the Ducks leading goal scorer in the middle of a playoff race. If Perry is the only injury the Ducks have to deal with they may be able to survive but if any other top six forwards are to go down then the task gets much tougher indeed.
Here are the remaining 12 regular season games for the Anaheim Ducks:
1. Sunday, March 9th vs. Montreal
2. Tuesday, March 11th at Phoenix
3. Wednesday, March 12th vs. Vancouver
4. Saturday, March 15th vs. St. Louis
5. Wednesday, March 19th at Dallas
6. Friday, March 21st at San Jose
7. Saturday, March 22nd at Phoenix
8. Wednesday, March 26th vs. Los Angeles
9. Friday, March 28th vs. San Jose
10. Sunday, March 30th vs. Dallas
11. Saturday, April 5th at Los Angeles
12. Sunday, April 6th vs. Phoenix
Notice that six of the Ducks remaining 12 games will be part of a back-to-back setting and that all six of those will involve travel of some sort. Also, the Ducks will have five full days off between March 30th and April 5th to sit and watch the rest of the Western Conference play. There’s little doubt that the Ducks will enter play on April 5th knowing exactly what is at stake in their final two games whether it be a playoff berth or a Division title.
12 games left…24 points still available…how many do you think the Ducks will get? Where do you think they’ll end up in the Conference standings? Many questions still remain for the Ducks and their fans – the answers begin Sunday evening when the Montreal Canadiens come calling at the Pond.
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