With a few nights left, here are your new and changing projected Final Standings..
Ladies and Gents, the Battle to Avoid Chicago is ON. The Calgary Flames and Nashville Predators are the two Wildcard teams in the West.. That is certain. In the actual standings the teams are currently tied with 92 points, but Calgary holds to ROW advantage. Each team plays two more games. And each team will have to do this on the road...
Calgary travels to San Jose and LA: The Sharks are in a home ice battle of their own with Edmonton. The Kings are in spoiler mode and basically messed up the Oilers shot at the division last night...The computer has the Kings knocking off the Flames, but the Flames beating the Sharks....Calgary has had great success versus San Jose...
Nashville travels to Dallas and Winnipeg...They would appear to have an easier schedule than Calgary, however they have struggled against Dallas, and are only slightly better against Winnipeg...The computer has them losing to Dallas and beating the Jets..
So the computer has each team going 1-1 which would mean Calgary would "win the wildcard" and avoid Chicago...
Some are saying, "What about the Blues? They are right there with Nashville and Calgary." The Blues haven't been world beaters, but they have three remaining games against Florida, Carolina, and Colorado... The computer has them going a modest 1-1-1 in those three games, but that would land them 2 points ahead of Calgary and Nashville...
We will discuss all this and more today at 1pm ET.