NHL East: Leafs, Hurricanes, Islanders miss playoffs

Earlier this week I wrote a post about the tight Eastern conference playoff race that broke down as follows:

3 playoff spots + 5 points + 6 teams = priceless

Well 4 days later, and 6 out of the 39 games remaining for these teams, the race has become tighter than a devout nun.

3 playoff spots + 3 points + 6 teams = even more priceless

In fact you could argue that there are now 8 teams fighting for 4 playoff spots if you include Atlanta, which could conceivably be caught by Tampa Bay, and Florida who are only 6 points out of that final playoff spot.

As of today there are 31 games remaining for the 6 teams, 14 of which are head to head matchups between the contenders for the final three spots.

Rangers - 87 points in 6th - 5 remaining, 3 head to head, a possible 16 point swing
Lightning - 86 points in 7th - 5 remaining, 2 head to head, a possible 12 point swing
Canadiens - 86 points in 8th - 5 remaining, 2 head to head, a possible 12 point swing
Maple Leafs - 85 points in 9th - 5 remaining, 3 head to head, a possible 16 point swing
Islanders - 84 points in 10th - 6 remaining, 2 head to head, a possible 14 point swing
Hurricanes - 84 points in 11th - 5 remaining, 2 head to head, a possible 12 point swing

Looking over the above numbers it looks like the teams with the best chance to make the playoffs are the Rangers, Lightning and Leafs if you only look at the numbers.

If I had to predict the outcome of the remaining games in the East they would end up as follows (assuming that Rick DiPietro is gone for the remainder of the regular season!):
Rangers - 3 wins (PHI, NYI, MON), 1 loss (PIT), 1 IT/SO Win (TOR) for 8 points
Lightning - 3 wins (CAR, WAS, FLA), 2 losses (CAR, ATL) for 6 points
Canadiens - 2 wins ( BOS, TOR) , 3 losses (OTT, BUF, NYR) for 4 points
Maple Leafs - 2 wins (PHI, NYI), 2 losses (PIT, MON), 1 OT/SO loss (NYR) for 5 points
Islanders - 1 win (PHI), 5 losses (BUF, OTT,NYR,TOR,NJD) for 2 points
Hurricanes - 3 wins (FLA,FLA,TAM), 2 losses (TAM, ATL) for 6 points

This leaves the standings as follows:
6 - Rangers - 95 points
7 - Lightning - 92 points
8 - Canadiens - 90 points
8 - Maple Leafs - 90 points
8 - Hurricanes - 90 points
9 - Islanders - 86 points

Giving us a threeway tie for 8th place. The tiebreaker is number of games won putting Montreal in 8th (and the playoffs), Carolina in 9th and Toronto in 10th.

Interesting no?

As pivotal as the head to head matchups will be in the final days of the season the real clincher is likely to be games against Florida, Washington, Boston and Philadelphia. Each of the teams in the race for the East have at least 1 game against these weaker teams. Missing out on those two points will decide the season for more than 1 team in this years playoff race.

Islanders vs Rangers: The Throwdown

This is it, what they have been waiting for. The Islanders and the Rangers play Sunday for the first time since the Chris Simon stick swinging incident.

This was the first incident in recent memory (followed quickly by the Jordin Tootoo sucker punch) that occured outside of Vancouver. Both the Marty McSorley and Donald Brashear attach and the Todd Bertuzzi ambush on Steve Moore both occured in Vancouver.

Why is this important? For a few reasons:
1) If you own or can grab Aaron Asham, Brendan Witt, Colton Orr or Ryan Hollweg off of your leagues waiver wire you are likely to get a few PIMs out of tomorrow's game
2) The NHL and the entire hockey world will be watching to see what happens.

In case you missed it, Chris Simon is out for the rest of the season so the remaining tough guys on both teams are Aaron Asham and Brendan Witt for the Islanders and Colton Orr and Ryan Hollweg for the Rangers. After Colton Orr's demolition of Todd Fedoruk and Ben Eager last week I pity anyone who steps up to the plate with Orr.

This game has larger implications than just who will fight who. The plethora of incidents over the last several weeks include: Wade Belak fighting Cam Janssen, Colton Orr fighting Todd Fedoruk and Ben Eager in retaliation for incidents which occured weeks in the past. Not to mention the Jordin Tootoo sucker punch that sent Stephan Robidas to the hospital with a concussion.

Todd Fedoruk was removed from the ice on a stretcher after being KO'd less than a minute into the game on Wednesday night and the following night John Sim was sent to the hospital with a fractured orbital bone after tangling with Mark Bell.

This rash of fighters injuries and retaliation has prompted Directory of Hockey Operations Colin Campbell to suggest that the NHL needs to take a look at fighting in the game and implement procedures to limit it.

So the question becomes... will there be a fight in tomorrow's game? And if there is, what will be the repercussions?

Perhaps even more importantly, if a hockey fight occurs in New York in the middle of the day and no one is watching... does it make any noise?

Forsberg sweepstakes has interesting fantasy implications

The Flyers are apparently planning to move as many as 6 players before the trade deadline. Forsberg is the biggest name in the bunch and a large number of teams are interesting in renting his services for a playoff run.

The latest news hints that the Detroit Red Wings are pursuing Forsberg hard and the fact that they already have 7 Swedish players on their roster makes it likely that Forsberg would be willing to waive his no trade clause to join the Wings. Oh, yeah, and the fact that they are the Red Wings, a successful franchise and an original 6 team to boot.

What does this mean for Fantasy? Forsberg's value can do nothing but go up as the rumours continue to swirl around his imminent departure from Philly. With most players out there a fantasy rumour can hurt or improve their fantasy value depending upon the teams involved in the rumour, with Forsberg just about any team is better than Philly.

While it is obvious what this means to Forsberg's value it is still important to watch the trade rumours closely, why? Well, let's say you the rumours to the Red Wings are true... what happens if Forsberg heads to Detroit? Pavel Datsyuk, Kris Draper, Robert Lang and Jason Williams all play the same position (center) as Forsberg. Who is the odd man out? Assuming that someone slides to a different (likely Williams as he has already done most of the season) that still leaves 4 pretty talented Centers on one team. Someone else with have to slide over to a slot on the wing.

In fantasy hockey we are generally only interested in first or second line players (except for specialty categories like PIMs) so who gets bumped? Tomas Holmstrom has been hot lately while combined with Zetterberg and Datsyuk, how long do you think that line combo will last with Forsberg on the team?

What this means is that even if you don't own or want to own Peter Forsberg (and let's be honest, he is a serious injury waiting to happen) this trade rumour could still affect your team in how it will play havoc with existing lines in Detroit.

If you own a Zetterberg, Datsyuk or Williams this is likely good news for your team. But if you own some fringe Red Wing players such as Holmstrom, Lang, Draper you should be watching how this plays out quite a bit.

I focused specifically on the Detroit Red Wings here but there have also been rumblings that Forsberg is being pursued heavily by both the Avalanche and the Rangers. Obviously the same logic applied above (that was logic right?) to the Detroit Red Wings can be used to evaluate the impact of this trade on your fantasy team if you own Colorado or New York Rangers players.