I would like to begin by saying congratulations to the great Adam Graves for having his number retired by the Rangers this past Tuesday.  It was a great ceremony, and yes this is my own photography!

As the final push for the playoffs approaches there is a great deal of excitement mounting that this could be a race that will involve more teams than usual.  In the east we are seeing three teams pretty much establishing themselves as potential division winners.  The Bruins, Capitals, and Devils have all been on fire over the last month and are building a cushion.  That statement especially applies to the Bruins and Caps who at this point I feel have it in the bag unless something drastic happens.  The Devils lead is only 4 points and they can obviously be passed by any of the teams in the division (other than the Islanders) but just have not shown signs of slowing down recently.  I believe the return of Marty Brodeur will actually slow the team’s momentum.  Stay tuned for that, hopefully Marty “the greatest goaltender of all time” will finally be exposed as a product of a good defensive team when he returns and we will learn that he is no more talented than Scotty Clemmensen.

Anyway, the four through ten spots are all up for grabs in the east (three through ten if the Devils cool off) with 9 points separating those seven teams.  I am standing by my predictions in the last article but I do believe these teams will all stay knotted up and keep it close right up to game number 82.  As I write this I see that Eric Staal was just injured.  This will obviously have a major effect on whether or not the Hurricanes can stay in the playoff race.  Stay tuned for that as well.  Either way I do not have the Hurricanes getting in, although I do believe they will stay in the hunt (assuming Staal does not miss a lot of time).  My only prediction that I may begin to waver on is Pittsburgh getting back in.  Right now you just have to think they are going to crawl out of this slump and get back in the mix, but they are still playing very inconsistently while Buffalo and Florida continue to play well.  So who knows?

Out west teams are knotted up even more than the east.  This is going to be a very exciting finish and I have to admit that my playoff predictions were pretty much just a guess after the fourth seed.  I picked Vancouver to come back and win their division figuring Mats Sundin would start becoming a major contribution, but I don’t know they have been on a very rough stretch and have not been able to capitalize on Calgary’s recent losing streak.  Although I think I made a mistake there I am standing by it, there is not credibility in making predictions if I change them as the season goes on.

While the top four teams in the conference appear that they will stay there, there are only six points separating the fifth through fourteenth seed.  This is just unbelievable, positions are changing daily in the Western Conference and it has been weeks now without any team pulling away or falling out of the mix.  It is a sports cliché but every game will truly count for those ten teams.  We could end up seeing NFL week 17 type situations with tie breakers and complex scenarios deciding playoff berth.  Stay tuned for that as well.  Until next time hockey fans.