Welcome back for a long overdue installment of Faceoff with Steve and Mike, where two of your favorite Puck Drunk Love scribes debate the goings-on in the hockey world. We’ve passed the final quarterpole and are now firmly in the throes of a playoff race. In the first year of the NHL’s newly-realigned landscape, there is plenty up for grabs in the last 10 games of the season.
Today, Steve and Mike go over the playoff races, and discuss who might be poised for a late-season surge, and who might be in a bit more trouble than it seems.
Mike Salerno: Man, last time we chatted the playoffs seemed like lightyears away. Now they’re nearly upon us. As we reach the final dozen or so games on each team’s schedule, we’ve got some really great, albeit somewhat confusing, races on our hands. What sticks out most to you, Steve?
Steve Lepore: That Springfield’s largest tire fire may find itself some competition in the Toronto Maple Leafs. I’ll bury the lede here and say it right now: they’re not making the playoffs. It is remarkable that they have made it as far as they have given the unstructured brand of the sport that they play. The plan appears to be “wait back and hope until the Kessel line returns.”
That, and the fact that Mike Babcock is magic. He’s simply the best coach in the sport by a wide margin, with all due respect to the likes of Quenneville and Julien and Hitchcock. The Red Wings look like a playoff team despite missing eight regulars from their lineup. That is absurd.
Mike: You’re not kidding about Babcock. One or two more injuries to the Wings and they may ask one of us to lace ‘em up. It makes you wonder if he’ll finally get some respect in the Jack Adams race. At this point in the season, the games you have yet to play are often the most important thing, and with two games in hand on Toronto I have a hard time seeing how Detroit doesn’t sneak into the playoffs…again.
One could argue that Washington and Toronto are eerily similar in that they’ve become dependent on one player. I think I speak for all hockey fans when I say it’s great to see Ovechkin playing at such a high level again, but is anyone else on the Capitals going to step up? I’m not sure they have enough to overtake the Leafs, as desperately bad as they seem to be playing lately.
Maybe that’s just a general fear for the health and safety of Toronto’s fine patrons, though. I’m not sure.
Steve: The one thing that’s going to save the Leafs is that the two main teams under them (Washington and Columbus) are going to be pretty starved for goals save for Ovechkin going wild or Nathan Horton suddenly turning up in Columbus. That said, look at the Leafs and their schedule. After losing to St. Louis tonight, they have Philly on the road, then play Detroit at home in a game that may be to save their season.
It lightens up a little bit down the road, but still, teams like Tampa and Boston remain on the Leafs’ schedule. And man, it’s hard not to look at the incredible momentum running against that club. I was with them a little bit on Sunday in Jersey and, man, it’s not good. I like Columbus or DC finding a way before I do Toronto.
Mike: Scheduling can’t be understated, and one extra disadvantage Toronto is at comparatively to Washington and Columbus, is that they’re not in the Metropolitan Division.
The Rangers seem like a team that’s not totally safe, but it’d be awfully hard for them to be passed by four teams to push them out of the playoff party. I fully expect the Flyers to overtake them, in part because of the two games they’ve got in hand, and part because Claude Giroux has been playing like a man possessed. Did you see that goal at the end of overtime last week? My goodness.
Ironically, the Western Conference playoff race seems to be a victim of realignment. Minnesota, who has been one of my favorite stories of the year, looks to be safely secured into one of those Wild Card spots. In fact the only likely question is whether it’ll be Dallas or Phoenix that squeezes in as the final team. Who do you like there?
Steve: Tough call, assuming Mike Smith eventually gets back, I’d wanna say Phoenix, but a healthy Kari Lehtonen and that top line of the Stars is hard to deny. Those two play on the final day of the season, and I’d be shocked if it’s not for that final spot. The Stars have a six-game run where they play five Eastern teams and the Predators within the next two weeks, I really want to bet on them.
Now, let’s put on some tinfoil and head back East. Phoenix begins their stretch to end the year in Newark on Thursday night, and the Devils are a team that I think has to be looked at as the Charlie Kelly-esque Wild Cards in the… well, Wild Card race. They’ll be five points out to start play on Thursday with 10 to go, but look at their schedule:
vs. Phoenix
at NY Islanders
vs. Florida
at Buffalo
vs. Washington
at Carolina
vs. Calgary
at Ottawa
vs. NY Islanders
vs. Boston
I’ve been wanting to write the Devils off for months now, but they have five points to make up with the cupcake schedule to end all cupcake schedule. They have the Leafs in freefall and the Caps and Blue Jackets not necessarily doing anything special. They will have Cory Schneider and what’s left of Martin Brodeur probably giving them decent goaltending, and the magic of Jaromir Jagr doesn’t seem to be running out yet. I want to say a definitive no, but realistically… is there a shot at the wildest of finishes here?
Mike: Talk about great theatre. The only way I can see them getting back into the mix in the final few games is if they ride Schneider the whole way. With that said, their schedule does look mighty friendly now that you mention it.
It’s also worth noting, as we all lament the existence of the shootout for the 305th time this week, the Devils have significantly more regulation/overtime wins (31) than either Toronto (27) or Washington (25). Can I see them passing them in points? I’m not sure. But playing the final game of the season with a chance to earn a playoff berth on a tiebreaker? Maybe.
Steve: Funny that you bring up the shootout. The Devils are 0-8 in the shootout this season, with one goal all season in the skills competition, scored by a rookie (Reid Boucher) who is long back in the American Hockey League by now. The Devils have been so, so, so inconsistent and so insistent on keeping Brodeur around that I don’t see it happening.
But, if they get to that last game of the season… it’ll be against a Boston team with little, if anything to play for. Which would be thrilling drama, and bring back memories of a Devils team in 2006-07 that started Scott Clemmensen on the final day of the season, who was part of a 3-2 loss to the Islanders in the shootout, which got the Icelanders into the postseason. The team the Islanders knocked out in the season’s last minutes? The Toronto Maple Leafs.
Mike: What’s that line about those who don’t learn from history? Ah, nevermind. It’s probably not important anyway.
