A Look At the Playoff Race in the West

by Brandon Bibb on Mar 10, 2009 9:08 AM CDT in Dallas Stars News

First, the up to date standings in the West Playoff Race with explanations for some of the columns on the spreadsheet:

Pos	Team	W	L	OTL	GP	GR	Pts	PtPct	PrjPts	MaxPts	PtsRq'd	PtPctRq'd
1	Detroit	43	15	8	66	16	94	0.712	117	126	---	---
2	San Jose	32	12	10	64	18	94	0.734	120	130	---	---
3	Calgary	39	21	6	66	16	84	0.636	104	116	4	0.135
4	Chicago	36	19	9	64	18	81	0.633	104	117	7	0.203
5	Vancouver	34	23	8	65	17	76	0.585	96	110	12	0.362
6	Columbus	33	27	6	66	16	72	0.545	89	104	16	0.510
7	Nashville	33	29	4	66	16	70	0.530	87	102	18	0.572
8	Edmonton	32	27	6	65	17	70	0.538	88	104	18	0.538
9	Dallas	31	27	8	66	16	70	0.530	87	102	18	0.572
10	Minnesota	32	28	5	65	17	69	0.531	87	103	19	0.568
11	Anaheim	31	30	6	67	15	68	0.507	83	98	20	0.677
12	LA	29	28	9	66	16	67	0.508	83	99	21	0.666
13	St. Louis	29	28	8	65	17	66	0.508	83	100	22	0.656

Everything from Pos column to the 'Pts' column should be self explanatory. As for the rest:

PtPct - Point Percentage (Pts / Total Number of Points Possible up to this point in the season)
PrjPts - Projected end of season point total based on current Point Percentage
MaxPts - Total number of points a team would get if they win out
PtsRq'd - This is the number of points needed to reach the projected point total for the 8th seed, which is currently 88.
PtPctRq'd - Percentage of Points a team would need in it's remaining games to reach the projected point total for the 8th seed (Detroit and San Jose have already surpassed the 88 point barrier).

LA beat the Canucks, 3-2, to win their third consecutive game and climb within 3 points of the final playoff spot. Still, they would need to gain points at a 66% clip in order to hit that 88 point mark.

As for the Stars, they're on the outside looking in as of this morning. Their situation's made worse by the fact they only have 31 wins and would, as of now, lose a tiebreaker to Nashville, Columbus, Edmonton, and Minnesota.

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Comments

Man that loss against Montreal is going to hurt.

As will all those games in January where we gave points away to other West teams in all of those three-point games.

Defending Big D: A Dallas Stars blog on SBN: easy to use, free to join.

by Brandon Worley on Mar 10, 2009 9:55 AM CDT reply actions

BTW, your formatting of this post looks better than mine

I was in a bit of a rush this morning to get that up around work obligations.

Defending Big D an SBN Dallas Stars Blog | TheStarsFans

by Brandon Bibb on Mar 10, 2009 2:58 PM CDT up reply actions

No problem...

The table formatting takes some getting used to.

Defending Big D: A Dallas Stars blog on SBN: easy to use, free to join.

by Brandon Worley on Mar 10, 2009 3:25 PM CDT up reply actions

Can the Stars beat Detroit or San Jose

assuming they are healthy of course. Turco’s not afraid of the Wings anymore so I would say as long as they don’t get the Sharks in the first round, maybe there’s room for optimism. Of course getting in will still be a struggle, especially if they can’t win a home game.

Signature! I don't need no stinking signature!!

by DerekSTheRed on Mar 10, 2009 12:11 PM CDT reply actions

Honestly

I would rather get the Sharks or Flames in the first round, i am least scared of them. The two i do not want the stars to see in the first round are the Blackhawks and the Red Wings. We have had success against the sharks so I don’t see why we should be afraid of them and the Flames I just don’t see as a deep playoff team. Turco has conquered a few of his demons against the Red Wings in the regular season but not so much in the playoffs so they still worry me and the Blackhawks have demolished us this year.

born to destroy

by Lifewish on Mar 10, 2009 1:57 PM CDT reply actions