The Good: (Friday) Avs lose; (Saturday) Wings half-lose; (Sunday) Flames lose, Wings lose.
The Bad: (Friday) Flames win; (Saturday) Preds win, Kings half-lose; (Sunday) Avs win.
And now…
- Kings clinched Saturday in my world and Sunday in the official world.
- It’s Colorado and Calgary fighting it out for the last spot.
- Tuesday has SJS/CGY and COL/VAN. An Avs win plus a Flames loss eliminates the Flames.
But so what? The Kings are in./
Here are the standings in points-blown* (if you haven’t seen my version of standings before, scroll to the bottom for the explanation):
- Chicago Blackhawks 49 (2) +12
- San Jose Sharks 50 (1) +11
- Vancouver Canucks 58 (3) +3 [1st in div.]
- Phoenix Coyotes 56 (4) +5
- Los Angeles Kings 61 (7) —
- Detroit Red Wings 62 (6) -1
- Nashville Predators 62 (5) -1
- Colorado Avalanche 65 (8) -4
- Calgary Flames 69 (9) -8
-
St. Louis Blues -
Dallas Stars -
Anaheim Ducks Minnesota Wild-
Columbus Blue Jackets Edmonton Oilers
And here’s the record each team needs from here on, to get to the assumed magical point total of 95***:
- Chicago Blackhawks**
- San Jose Sharks**
- Phoenix Coyotes**
- Vancouver Canucks**
- Nashville Predators**
- Detroit Red Wings**
- Los Angeles Kings**
- Colorado Avalanche 3-1-0
- Calgary Flames 3-0-0
- St. Louis Blues
- Dallas Stars
- Anaheim Ducks
- Minnesota Wild
- Columbus Blue Jackets
- Edmonton Oilers
*standings in points-blown explained: “points blown” means, literally, how many points your team could have had, but squandered; a loss is 2 blown points, a “half-loss” (OTL/SOL) is one blown point, a win is zero blown points. The resulting standings are golf-like, the fewer blown points the better. Two points “awarded” for every loss, one point for every OTL/SOL. Again, lowest point total is best. Number in parentheses is the official standings (via ESPN). Last number (+/-) is number of points (in my system) ahead or behind Los Angeles. Because it’s a Kings-centric universe.
**already hit 95 points.
***95 points is the likely playoff threshold. It might end up being 94 or 96. 93 is unlikely to be enough for the teams currently on the outside looking in. At this point, if Calgary gets 95 points, there’s only a 1:4 chance of that being good enough.