NHL Playoff Race: Flyers, Capitals, Blue Jackets vie to play Penguins
A few days ago, we had Saturday circled as the ‘make or break’ day as far as finding out who the Penguins would likely be playing in the first round of the playoffs. Philadelphia was one point up on the NY Islanders and Saturday would see the Flyers play the Winnipeg Jets and NYI take on the Ottawa Senators. The results were conclusive — the Flyers romped to a 7-1 win, the Islanders got shutout and lost 3-0. Then, yesterday the Islanders made their elimination official by losing to Montreal.
As a result, via Hockeystats.com, the Battle of Pennsylvania is coming into further focus for the first round of the playoffs. Here are the odds of opponent for the Penguins.
The Flyers have two games left – one tonight against a Carolina team that has first place sewed up. The Hurricanes have won three straight, they haven’t employed a ‘pack it in and wait for the playoffs’ strategy by any means so it might be a tough game. Then Philadelphia plays tomorrow night against the Canadiens, who have incentive to win to strengthen their chances of winning the Atlantic Division. Should Philadelphia win either game or pickup overtime/shootout losses in both games, then their ticket to the playoffs is punched.
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The playoff race only gets interesting if the Flyers suffer a regulation loss tonight against the Hurricanes. That would throw at least some hope to Washington and Columbus — who play each other on Tuesday. Here’s the standings.
While Philadelphia gets their chance to win and get in, the situation would get a lot more interesting if the Flyers lose tonight. The Capitals (36 regulation wins) hold the first tiebreaker over the Flyers, so a Washington win tomorrow against CBJ would put pressure on the Flyers to have a must-win game on Tuesday – assuming a PHI regulation loss tonight.
Columbus, at this point, needs a lot of help. They would need the Flyers to lose both of their games in regulation AND do their part by defeating Washington in regulation…
