Quote:
Originally Posted by Itse
I don't think it's a goal the organization should have at this point, but the west and Pacific especially is just so weak this year that making the playoffs can happen almost by accident.
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I just took a look at the standings. Thanks to the idiotic abundance of loser points, each conference, in total, has an identical record at 56 points above .500. The difference is that the West has the two best teams in the league by a wide margin – Colorado and Dallas, with Dallas being 8 points ahead of Anaheim and Washington, who are tied for third; and the West also has four out of the five worst teams. Whereas most teams in the East occupy one big clump in the middle of the table.
Ten of the 16 Eastern teams are in the range from 32 to 36 points.
At the moment, the cutoff for a wild card spot in the East is 35 points, in the West 31. Those two powerhouse teams have been feasting on everybody else in the conference and driving their numbers down.
Incidentally, in the league as a whole, 13 teams are in the range from 28 to 32 points, with Toronto at the top of that group and Calgary at the bottom. This helps to explain why teams have been so reluctant to make trades this year. Almost anybody could finish almost anywhere, and GMs don't know whether to shoot or go blind.