Western Conference Playoff Race Primer

When the Stars hit the ice tonight, they'll begin a stretch run of 21 games over the next 6 week that is daunting, to be sure.

Doable, but still daunting.

Just how daunting is after the jump. There's informative spreadsheets to be found!

Bland, but still informative.

Much of this should self explanatory. Point percentage is determined by taking the number of points a team has gained and dividing it by the maximum number of points they could have attained had they won all their games. Dallas sits at 68 points out of a possible 122 for a point percentage of .557.

Points per game is simply point percentage multiplied by 2.

I added 8 columns at the end to show the projected points each team in the west would have to attain in order to clinch that particular point position based on the pace the current teams in those point positions have set through the season. Right now, 91 points is the cutoff point for the 8th and final seed.

Keep in mind, however, that the three division winners are guaranteed one of the top 3 seeds, regardless of where the other non-division winning playoff teams wind up. So while Phoenix and Los Angeles could wind up with 2 of the top 3 records in the West, they'd still do no better than the 4th seed since San Jose is in their division.

So with that out of the way...

25 points out of a possible 42 for a point percentage of .595.

That's what the Stars have to shoot for just to make the playoffs.

And oh, by the way, they still have a road trip to Pittsburgh, Washington, and Buffalo to knock out this weekend, along with home games against Ottawa and Philadelphia. A quick peek at the standings indicates that's 5 of the current top 6 teams teams in the Eastern Conference.

Throw in the fact that Detroit got quite a bit healthier during the Olympic and it shows just how crucial it will be to get wins at home this week against the Kings and Blues.