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Does Anybody Want These Last Three Playoff Spots in the East? |
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There are four teams currently crammed together within two points of each other vying for the Eastern Conference’s final three playoff spots. Boston, Montreal and Philadelphia each have 82 points while the Thrashers have 80. This is how the standings looked going into play Wednesday…this is how they look Friday morning.
Montreal lost at home two night’s ago to Carolina 2-1… and last night the Bruins lost at home to Florida 1-0, the Flyers were defeated on Long Island 6-4 while Atlanta dropped a hard-fought 2-1 decision to the beast team in the league.
If this keeps up…the NHL may seriously consider posting up the 6th, 7th and 8th spots in the east on EBAY and auction them off to the highest bidder.
However, tonight the Canadiens will travel to Philly for a game with the Flyers…and I’m pretty sure league rules mandate that one of those teams is required to collect two points from that matchup. So someone is going to gain some ground.
As for the Thrashers…the team I follow with a passion…knew they needed a bit of help as they entered into these last handful of games. Well, that’s just what they got…not just in one or two games, but all the way around. This is following last Monday night when a win against the Canes coupled with a Boston loss to Buffalo would have pulled them back into the playoff scene. Got the Sabres win, but fell flat against Carolina.
Now, the Thrashers play in Pittsburgh Saturday and return home Tuesday against the Devils. Those two teams are currently slugging it out for first and second place in the Atlantic…which in the playoff picture is the difference between possibly being the second seed and facing off against one of these bottom seeded ones that don’t seem to want to get in…or being a fourth seed and having to deal with the likes of Ottawa in the first round. So, I’m quite the Devils and Pens are going to be quite motivated to perform well against the Thrashers.
As for last night’s game in D.C., the Thrashers actually played a pretty good road game against the probable President’s Cup winners. The potent Caps offensive was held to but 24 shots on goal and the Thrashers did a very good job of keeping their top-ranked power play from improving on their 25.7 % efficiency. Atlanta only had to kill off on Washington man advantage and did so in fine fashion.
Ondrej Pavelec turned in fifth straight quality start, stopping 22 of the 24 shots faced. He is now 2-1-2 in the last five, giving up just nine goals on 164 shots against, (.944 SV%).
Tim Stapleton, who was acquired last summer as a part of the Kubina/Exelby trade with Toronto, scored his first goal in a Thrashers jersey. It was his second goal in eight NHL career games…four with the Leafs and four with the Thrashers.
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