Final push to playoffs

It's almost playoff time. Teams are revving up their engines and getting prepared for hockey's "second season," and the final ten games should get most fans excited for the Stanley Cup Championships.

The top eight seeds in each conference have been pretty much decided -- unless the New York Rangers make a miraculous run -- but the order is still very much in the air.

Meanwhile, the top three in the Western Conference are all within one point of each other. The Detroit Red Wings, with 100 points, were on fire, before being slammed by the Minnesota Wild last night. The Dallas Stars, also with 100 points, clinched the Pacific Division last night as well in their 3-1 victory over the St. Louis Blues.

And the Vancouver Canucks, one back with 99 points, are in the most dangerous position of the top three. The Colorado Avalanche are merely six points behind Vancouver, and they have two games in hand on Vancouver. The Avs have dropped in play a bit recently, but if they finish the season strong they still have a good chance at catching Vancouver in the final sprint.

The Canucks could allow themselves to lose their first division title in the last eight years due to a number of injuries to key players. Starting goaltender Dan Cloutier missed 16 games because of a knee injury, returned, then was unable to play last night against the Washington Capitals. To make matters worse, backup Peter Skudra has not been playing well, forcing Vancouver to play rookie goalie Alex Auld.

Top-four defenseman Mattias Ohlund is still out with a knee injury, and a number of role players are nursing aches and pains as well, which will hurt Vancouver's depth down the stretch and in the playoffs.

But Vancouver can always rely on their top line of Todd Burtuzzi, Marcus Naslund, and Brendan Morrison. Burtuzzi and Naslund sit one-two for the Rocket Richard trophy for most goals at 45 and 43 respectively, followed closely by Ottawa Senator Marian Hossa and Colorado Avalanche Milan Hejduk.

The last time two players from the same team finished in the top two positions for goals scored was when Mario Lemiuex and Jaromir Jagr did it for the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1996.

Also clinching a playoff position last night was the $21 million Wild. This team has outperformed every expectation, and is one of only three teams to make the playoffs in their third year of existence. Down the stretch, expect to see Coach Jacques Lemaire start to favor one goalie for the playoffs.

Lemaire has operated a near-perfect split between goaltenders Dwayne Roloson and Manny Fernandez this season, but he has hinted that he will pick the hot hand to ride into the playoffs. Expect the honor to go to Roloson, who picked up the ball when Fernandez was hurt last month, and who has better numbers than Fernandez with a 1.89 Goals Against Average versus a 2.39.

The more interesting battle in the Eastern Conference is at the bottom rather than the top, where the bottom three seeds of the Capitals, the Boston Bruins, and the New York Islanders are fighting to avoid the league-leading Senators or the New Jersey Devils in the first round. Whoever grabs the sixth seed out the three teams will get the chance to face off against playoff novices in the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Boston is in rough shape through the last few games, after firing coach Robbie Ftorek. General Manager Mike O'Connell is sitting behind the bench for the moment, and Bruins fans better hope that he has someone in mind to get behind the bench before the season ends. If not, it will not have made much sense for O'Connell to fire a coach without a replacement ready, and that kind of move could make Boston's playoff round a very short one indeed.



Sign of the week that the New York Rangers are getting desperate

Rangers GM Glen Sather has been railing on New York Islanders Garth Snow for the size of his equipment, complaining that Snow's pads were not regulation size, leading to inspections of Snow's equipment. It was decided that Snow's chest protector was slightly large, but that it was only a minor fault.

Snow had some of the biggest pads in the league ten years ago before the league instituted the size regulations for players' equipment. But these past few months, Snow has been playing better than he has in years, and has become the Isles' go-to guy after they traded away Chris Osgood to the St. Louis Blues before the trade deadline. Don't be surprised to see Sather try some other tricks to get into the heads of the teams the Rangers need to beat to get into the playoffs.