Eastern Conference Playoff Picture: Is Your Team In Or Out?

Written By: Mark “The Hard Hitter” Ritter

It’s official.  For the majority of NHL teams there is less than 20 games left in the season.  For some teams, most notably the Toronto Maple Leafs, New York Islanders, and Edmonton Oilers, it’s time to put their playoff hopes on the shelf and take a look at the kids on the farm. For others, it’s crunch time—time to get hot in hopes of making the playoffs.

In the NHL’s Eastern Conference, there are six teams that are legitimately in the running for the bottom-three playoff spots.  The Philadelphia Flyers, Boston Bruins, and Atlanta Thrashers currently occupy the sixth, seventh, and eighth playoff spots. Hot on their heals, the New York Rangers, Montreal Canadiens, and the Tampa Bay Lightning, who are separated by a margin of seven points from the sixth spot.

The interesting part about the Eastern Conference playoff picture is that every one of the teams at or near the bottom has struggled for most of the season—offensively, defensively, or both.  With that in mind, the playoff picture in the East is very muddled.  In fact, we may not know the which teams will make up the sixth, seventh, and eighth spots until the last game of the season has been played.

Of the teams that are in the running for a playoff spot, the Flyers, Canadiens, and Lightning did nothing at the trade deadline to improve their chances of making it to the big dance.

The New York Rangers made two minor moves: bringing in defenseman Anders Eriksson from the Phoenix Coyotes and career AHL forward Kris Newbury from the Detroit Red Wings.

The Boston Bruins picked up defensemen Dennis Seidenberg and Matthew Bartowski from the Florida Panthers (also gave up defenseman Derek Morris to the Coyotes).

The Atlanta Thrashers trade of Ilya Kovalchuk is well documented and, while it did happen prior to the Olympic break, the transformation (good or bad) of the Thrashers cannot be underestimated.

In the end, the acquisitions by these teams will likely have a negligible effect on the standings.  Outside of the Thrashers—who added a lot of new faces in the Kovalchuk deal, these teams are going to have to dig deep and find a way to rack up wins with the tools they have had in place for most of the season.

Of the six teams, only the Philadelphia Flyers have a positive differential rating (the difference between goals scored and goals against) at +20.  The Bruins come in at -7, the Thrashers -7, the Rangers -6, the Canadiens -10 and the Lightning -28.

With the stakes as high as they are at this time of the year one can expect goal scoring to get that much tougher, something that will not sit well with the Rangers and Bruins, two teams that have struggled to score goals all season long.

The reality is, each one of these teams are going to have to step up their games. Essentially, they need to play playoff hockey from this point on just to make the playoffs.

Given the overall talent on the Flyers, I like their chances of making the playoffs.  The Flyers are ranked seventh overall in scoring and a respectable 14th in goals against.  If the Flyers continue to trend this way, they should be money for the playoffs.  And, given the depth in their roster and top-tier talent Chris Pronger, Jeff Carter, Mike Richards, Scott Hartnell, Matt Carle), I think they will.

Heading into Saturday night’s games, the Bruins are ranked 30th overall in scoring (and they say they don’t miss Phil Kessel in Beantown) and fourth in goals against.  The Rangers are ranked 19th in scoring and 13th in goals against.  The Thrashers are sixth in scoring (***with Kovalchuk in the lineup for much of the season) and 28th in goals against.  The Canadiens are 25th in scoring and 15th in goals against, while the Lightning are 20th in scoring and 22nd in goals against.

Given the Bruins struggles to light the lamp, their defense and goaltending will have to be spectacular in order for them to make it into the playoffs.  The same can be said about the Rangers, who, despite their modest improvements, still struggle to score on most nights.

The good news is that both the Bruins and Rangers have excellent goaltending. The Rangers feature Henrik Lundqvist, who plays like the best goaltender in hockey on more nights than not.  For the Bruins, it will be a combination of 2009 Vezina Trophy winner Tim Thomas and rookie sensation Tuukka Rask.  Both are capable of going on hot streaks and playing inspired hockey.

With Kovalchuk out of the lineup, the Thrashers can expect a significant fall in scoring. Given their struggles between the pipes it is very likely they will be left on the outside looking in once the playoff time rolls around.

The Lightning’s struggles are well documented.  The Bolts goaltending has been very inconsistent, as has their scoring, which puts them at risk of missing the playoffs as well.  I don’t like how their top players continually come up small, and I am not a fan of either goalie.

The Montreal Canadiens are probably the biggest quagmire in the East.  One night they look like world beaters and on the next night they look like the Leafs.  Goaltender Jaroslav Halak should get the lions share of the workload going forward.  He looked great at the Olympics and, by all accounts, has earned the starters role.

Keeping Halak between the pipes and Carey Price out gives the Habs the best shot at the playoffs, whether they do this or not is yet to be seen.

Offensively, the Canadiens need a more consistent effort from the likes of Tomas Plekanec, who has no goals in his past four games, and a continued good effort from Scott Gomez, who has three goals in his past five games.

Overall, I like the Flyers, Rangers, and Bruins to make the playoffs in the Eastern Conference, with the Canadiens making things interesting for whichever team ends up being the eighth seed.  Unfortunately for the Thrashers and Lightning, I foresee some early tee-off times in their future, which is not all bad, depending on how you look at things.

Clearly, given how close all six of these teams are in the standings the final 20 games (give or take) will be both competitive and full of implications. Each game for these teams has now become a “must win” situation, fail to get hot and you’re likely out of the playoffs, steal a couple of games (especially the head-to-head battles) and you’re in—that’s how close things are, that’s how slim the margin for error is.

Whichever teams manage to get through to the playoffs, one thing is for sure: they will have earned it by playing great hockey and that should mean exciting games for NHL fans.

To read more of my NHL coverage check out my website at (Use Link)

www.theslapshot.com

check out my fellow Bleacher Report contributor (Louis Pisano) and I at www.morencysports.com  for our show “GET THE PUCK OUT”—6:00pm-7:00pm, Tonight....Saturday Night!!!!!!!

We’ll be taking calls all night long, phone in and voice your opinion at 1-866-964-5710...We'll be breaking down the playoff picture, throwing out some picks and talking about the Leafs future, is there any? 1-866-964-5710, holla!

Until next time,

Peace!