Soo
on point percentage flames sitting with the 17oa pick , 15 games remaining and 6 games above .500
Worst case scenario is they possibly leapfrog the Canucks but not likely to catch Ottawa/NJD who are both 10 games above.
If they finish the season 6-9 they would likely still finish outside of the top 10.
They would need a disastrous 4-11 end of season to finish below 82 points, which is looking pretty close to 9th overall.
I think, on the safe side, Calgary needs no more than 12 points this season out of a possible 30.
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In actual points though they're only 3 points ahead of 10th. They could fall very easily.
The same way we went from playoffs to most likely bottom 5 and back to the playoffs this season through winning and losing streaks. And we could still fall into 9th or so.
Points percentage is great but I'll take guaranteed points over the chance to lose every game. I'd be more confident in Jersey's 80 points than the Sens winning both games to pass them. Even though a single win next game will give them a higher points percentage.
I'd be a lot more comfortable if Calgary created separation in their next 5-6 games.
Luckily Columbus have been falling apart and the Bruins sold off a ton. I think 1-8 are pretty set, I don't think any of those teams could catch Calgary. But I don't think they're far enough ahead of Detroit/Boston/Columbus/the Isles.
At the same time the Kings haven't exactly been on fire lately so they could even fall out of the pacific 3 spot depending on how Vancouver/Calgary's remaining schedules go.
Shows the remaining strength of schedule for NHL teams based on the points per game of the opponents left on their schedule.
www.tankathon.com
The problem is all the teams we want to win have hard schedules, and the team we want to lose the most in the Sens have the easiest possible schedule in the league. They're basically facing non-playoff teams for 10 or 11 games of their remaining 15.
We also have a relatively easy schedule. Both us and the Sens play the Canes for our final game of the season, so there's a chance Carolina has the opportunity to pick who makes the playoffs between us. Except the Sens are the one with the second night of the back to back where the Canes will probably rest their guys. Just when I thought I couldn't hate the canes more.
Most of our hard games are the next four in a row though. We deserve to miss if we can't grab points after that from Philly, Nashville, Chicago, Boston, Detroit, etc.. Having the bulk of our remaining schedule in the East is also a huge benefit. Preds and Blues are the only road games in the west left, and they're really much closer to the east coast than the west, there's just not enough populated western American cities to have 16 teams.
