final playoff push

The NHL playoffs are right around the corner, and there are currently plenty of close races that are certain to end in a photo finish.

With their loss last night, the Calgary Flames all but ended their playoff hopes.  All the teams ahead of them have games in hand, and the Flames have the fewest regulation wins amongst them which is the first tiebreaker.  The team has cooled off after a post-christmas surge, and it seems they dug too big of a hole for themselves at the start of the season.

4 thru 9 in the Western Conference looks like this: Phoenix, Chicago, LA, Nashville, Anahiem, Dallas.  Any of these teams could swap places over the next couple of weeks, and teams like Vancouver, Detroit and SJ will likely have to wait until the last day of the season until they know their first round matchup.

In the East, the Capitals have been absolutely on fire of late and find themselves only 1 point behind the Flyers for the conference lead.  If they can get the goaltending, this team will be very tough to beat in the playoffs.

Big game tonight in Boston as with a win the Habs can move within one point of the division lead.  This is the final meeting between the two teams and Boston has only beat Montreal once this season.  Don't expect any retribution for the Chara hit, as that is not Montreal's game.  The Habs have dominated the Bruins this season with their speed and skill, and Boston will have to come up with a better game plan other than trying to physically run their opponents out of the building.

Without their two superstars, the Penguins have kept themselves in the thick of things in the Eastern conference and are still within striking distance of the Flyers for their division title.  With Crosby back on skates and Fleury at the top of his game, no one wants to face this team in the playoffs either.

This is the best time of the year to be a hockey fan.  With so much more on the line, games are much more intense and the quality of hockey is rapidly increasing.  Teams are now resting banged up players in hopes they will be fresh for a long playoff run.  So grab some beers, sit back, and enjoy.

no suspension for chara

The Chara hit on Pacioretty has been a big topic for the last couple of days, and so it should be.  Max Pacioretty is still in a Montreal hospital suffering with a severe concussion and a fractured vertebrae.  Chara received a 5 minute major for interference and a game misconduct for the hit, but was given no supplemental discipline from the league.  A report out of Quebec today stated that the Montreal police are investigating the incident, but to me this is a waste of time.  Yes it was a brutal hit, which probably deserved a suspension, but in no way can anyone prove this was intentional.  Only Zdeno Chara knows what was running through his mind at the time.  In my mind there are a few flaws in the NHL's discipline system.  Firstly, they base way too much of it on reputation.  If that was Steve Downie making the hit, he would have received a minimum of 5 games.  Also, the league stated that they didn't think there was malicious intent from Chara during the hit, the key word there being intent.  How do you define intent?  No one will ever know if Chara meant to do it or not, as there was a bit of a history between the two players as I have mentioned in a previous post, but for someone in the front office in the league to look at the play and  write it off as an accident is just wrong.  The bottom line is that Chara made a careless play at a very dangerous part of the ice, which resulted in a player being severely injured.  How is this any different from the countless headshots and hits from behind we have seen this season?  An open ice headshot is usually not the intended result of the player making the hit, but the game moves so fast now and a split second can turn a big hit into a devastating one.  The league has made a point of it this year to make players accountable for their actions, and I think they really dropped the ball on the Chara incident.  Enough of this intent garbage, if you make a careless play like that you should pay the price.  Pacioretty could have been killed from that hit.  Chara is an 11 year veteran of the league, has played countless games at the Bell Center playing with both Ottawa and Boston, so don't try to tell me he didn't know where he was on the ice.  The league really needs to get some ground rules on hits like this, as the suspensions we have seen handed out this season have been all over the map.  I mean honestly, if a little Trevor Gillies forearm to the head of Clutterbuck warrants a 10 game suspension and this gets nothing, shouldn't the league reconsider their discipline policy?