The Gauntlet That Is the 2012 Western Conference
How good are these Western Conference playoffs going to be? In one word, fantamagnifiexcellent. If that makes any sense at all.
The Detroit Red Wings have won 23 straight home games, making the casual fan think they are running away with the West. Wrong. The Vancouver Canucks are only two points behind Detroit with a game in hand. The Central Division may be the best division the NHL has ever seen. Detroit, St. Louis, Nashville and Chicago could all legitimately finish the season with over 100 points. Even Chicago, who has struggled mightily over the last two weeks have won three games in a row and are currently holding down the 6 seed.
The points race is an excellent precursor to how good these playoffs are going to be, or you could just watch the games.
As great as Pavel Datsyuk’s game winner was against Nashville earlier this week, it came with 5 seconds to play in a game that was about as tight as a hockey game can get. Playoff style hockey at its finest; physical play, great goaltending, and exciting hockey. Detroit controlled things for the most part against San Jose, but still needed to hold on and close out their 3-2 win with some stiff defending the last few minutes.
The Vancouver Canucks keep trucking along, going without a regulation loss in the last 10 games; they are clearly the class of the Northwest Division.
San Jose, Phoenix, and Los Angeles are all within four points of each other for the Pacific Division race. Although the Kings need to start finding the net or they may miss the playoffs altogether. I’m still not sure how a team with Drew Doughty and Anze Kopitar can struggle so hard to score goals. Phoenix is 8-1-1 in their last 10, making a strong case that these are not your fathers Phoenix Coyotes. That team can play.
And then there are the Anaheim Ducks. Brutal doesn’t begin to describe the beginning of the Anaheim season. They fired head coach Randy Carlyle and brought in former Capitals’ coach Bruce Boudreau, and have been playing outstanding hockey ever since. They have gathered 15 of the last 20 points available to them and look like a squad that can challenge for the 7th or 8th playoff spot. They find themselves only 5 points back of a playoff spot, and have been playing as good of hockey as anybody over the last month. The top teams do not want to see Jonas Hiller between the pipes in a first round playoff series. In 2009, the Jonas Hiller led Anaheim Ducks came in as the 8 seed, took out San Jose in the first round and took Detroit to 7 games. Look out for the Ducks.
Everybody still has more than 20 games to play, and things are definitely going to change, but I can’t wait for spring. There isn’t anything quite like playoff hockey, especially when the field is stacked like it is this year.
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