50 games in/5 teams 2 openings
Here we are 50 games into this CPHL season and for all intensive purposes the Gretzky Conference playoff teams have been established. Although we have 34-36 games left on most teams schedules the gap between the 3 teams tied for the final spot and the 9th place team is 13 points. To put that into persepective lets assume the Lightning play out the stretch at .500 with a 17 and 17 record. That would give the Lightning 93 points on the season. In order for the pursuing Islanders, Leafs, or Nordique to get to that total these teams would require 47, 48, and 49 points respectively to get there. Which is a record of like 23-9-3 for the closest team. And that just draws that team even. Thats asking a team who's been playing .450 hockey to crank it up to .670 hockey just to equal things out. Call me a pessimest, but it's not going to happen. The top 8 teams are set, and now it's all about jockeying for position, and it appears the top 4 is starting to distance itself from the lower 4. Pittsburgh probably could keep pace if they were healthier to make it 5 and 3.
But over in the Howe, things are much more interesting in terms of the playoff race. Today all but 2 Howe conference teams have played an even 50 games. The top 5 teams are separated by 4 points and hold at least a 9 point cusion on the 9th place team. These teams are probably safe in terms of being in the playoffs. But its the 7-11 spots where the real race is. 5 teams are currently within 4 poitns of each other as the 7th place Canucks hold a one point lead on the 8th place Jackets who in turn are a point up on the 9th place Preds, and so on with the Yotes, and Blues all one point behind the team in front of them. The Flames were hanging in there, but a recent 4 game skid has them 8 points out and probably a bit too far to mount a charge.
Vancouver has been the hottest of this group lately racking up 6 wins and 15 points in their last 10 games. This has allowed them to move from 10th back up to 7th. Paul Kariya seems to be fitting nicely, and Rory Fitzpatrick has had the luck of the Irish recently scoring more goals in the last 3 games than his real life pesona has in a decade.
Columbus went 5 games into the New Year without a single win prompting GM Sylvanfan to declare the season over and make a couple of moves to bring in a few younger players. The Jackets have since posted 4 wins and a tie in their last 6 to move up from 11th and back into 8th. Still look at the Jackets lineup....smoke and mirrors this team will need to continue to rely on overachievement to stick around.
The Predators called it a season much earlier than the Jackets and pawned off a huge chunk of veteran talent in November. The young kids got hot and the Preds won at a blistering pace getting back into the race and moving into playoff position. But recent moves don't seem to have taken quite as well and Hannu Toivonen came back to the earth a bit and so so play has moved the Preds back to the outside. Preds GM claims he's looking at next year. He's put some nice pieces in place and signed a lot of his players. This poster suspects he'll continue to try and hunt down a goalie for his team with next season in mind, and try to find deals in the trade market for the purpose of flipping them for better returns later on.
The Coyotes didn't seem to lose a game after GM Drunk pulled off the steal of the year getting Sundin and Yashin for Jason Allison and some other stuff. They scored 7 goals a night and Yashin, Sundin and Rucinski piled up points leading the Coyotes from the bottom of the conference up to 5th place at one point in time. But than Jaromir Jarg and Daniel Tjarnquist came in and the Coyotes team is only scoring 4 goals a game and that's exposed the fact that they give up 5 goals quite frequently resulting in losing 4 of their last 5 and falling back to 10th place. The Coyotes still have a few assets at their disposal and this reporter suspects even Drunk will realize he needs to get a defenceman or two and make the moves required to try and move his team over the top.
St.Louis might as well rename their team the Streakers. Seems like they're always on a 3 game win streak or 4 game losing streak. The last 3 seasons have seen the Blues struggle at the end of the season and miss out on the playoffs. There is talent on the Blues team but consistancy seems to be lacking. The team doesn't have the stock pile of high draft picks and top end prospects it used to in order to try and make themselves that much better. So they may have to look at changing up the CPHL team a bit. Will Saskatoon66 be willing to make such moves, or will he opt to move out some vets for more assets in an attempt to position his team to really go for it next year? Tough to say.
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