Quote:
Originally Posted by Bingo
I think he's missing the element of someone will emerge in that group and get to 93 points. If St. Louis holds that's your hurdle.
If every team is bad, it's likely one or two of them benefit by playing all the other cappy teams.
If the hurdle is 95 (might be 1-2 points high) the Oilers need to go 39-20-3 the rest of the way to get in. That's a 107 point pace.
Not a good plan to just assume the middling teams just stay at .500 with no one emerging.
Flames need to go 36-21-3 (103 point pace)
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And it is incredibly unlikely that all the middling teams stay at .500. The league will more likely than not return close to the mean as some teams are heating up while others are falling. Some years are higher and some are lower in terms of points to make the playoffs, but there are always teams that make a push and teams that fall flat.
The Oilers are in the position that the Canucks have had the last few years and even with the Canucks going on heaters in the second half they ended up well outside the playoffs. It would take a very significant run by the Oilers and a bunch of teams falling back to get that team back into the contention.