The Great Pacific Playoff Race

[mouser]

Thompson has played in 14 games.

I used to think Lehner was so solid and made fewer big mistakes than Fleury but lately he has been painful to watch.

Apparently there's a reason

 

[Vegan Knight]

I still put our chances under fifty percent due to needing the win and the slight disadvantage in schedules. We have St. Louis in place of Arizona and only one home game while all theirs are home.

We probably have to beat the Stars in regulation in a road game and pick up all points against our other opponents.

But either Vegas or Dallas is probably fighting to lose 4-1 to the Avalanche in an extra week and a half of games.

 

[azvgk]

Yeah we do need to win the Stars game in regulation because I doubt they drop any points to SEA/AZ/ANA.

Just for the record, if we beat them in regulation and each team wins it's last 3, and each has 97 points, we have 33 regulation wins to their 29, though ROW currently is 39-38 Dallas.

 

[sabresfan65]

Just for the record, if we beat them in regulation and each team wins it's last 3, and each has 97 points, we have 33 regulation wins to their 29, though ROW currently is 39-38 Dallas.

ROW only matters if RW is tied. Dallas cannot tie us in points and RW so ROW will not come into play.

 

[willy702]

I still put our chances under fifty percent due to needing the win and the slight disadvantage in schedules. We have St. Louis in place of Arizona and only one home game while all theirs are home.

We probably have to beat the Stars in regulation in a road game and pick up all points against our other opponents.

But either Vegas or Dallas is probably fighting to lose 4-1 to the Avalanche in an extra week and a half of games.

I can already see how this ends. We win the first two and then lose to Chicago in a game we go 0 for 8 on the PP and miss out by a point to Dallas. And yet Spott will still have a job.

 

[Puckstop40]

I’m not liking our chances to make the ploffs. We have to win out and I don’t see us beating St. Louis.

 

[Vegan Knight]

I’m not liking our chances to make the ploffs. We have to win out and I don’t see us beating St. Louis.

They may not have anything to play for and we would be desperate if we needed the win.

For me it's more about having to beat Dallas on the road in regulation to kick off a three games in four days road trip. I don't know if we get all six points (Dallas in regulation) plus two against San Jose.

Dallas probably doesn't lose in Dallas to Arizona or Anaheim without Getzlaf. So we need them all.

 

[Super Cake]

I’m not liking our chances to make the ploffs. We have to win out and I don’t see us beating St. Louis.

I already accepted that this team is going to miss the playoffs this year.

I just don't see them winning out.

 

[mundyc3]

Think they will get in because of tie breakers vs Dallas

 

[sabresfan65]

3 things I would like to see happen today. Vegas win, Minnesota win, St. Louis loss. Vegas win is easy but the other 2 help Vegas in 2 ways. Minnesota winning (in regulation hopefully) and St. Louis losing means Minnesota moves 2 points ahead of St. Louis for home ice in the first round which potentially takes all meaning out of the end of the season matchup with Vegas. The second way is that a Nashville loss to Minnesota today means Vegas is only 2 points behind for the 1st wild card with 3 games to go. They would need to finish with more points than Nashville because Nashville will win any tiebreakers.

 

[Vegas07]

Dallas has been struggling too. They might win the easy games on their schedule but I could see them dropping a game or two if they start panicking. Upsets happen a lot in this league.

My bigger concern is I don’t trust our team and we could still lose to them which would kill our chances.

 

[Vegas07]

Dallas has been struggling too. They might win the easy games on their schedule but I could see them dropping a game or two if they start panicking. Upsets happen a lot in this league.

My bigger concern is I don’t trust our team and we could still lose to them which would kill our chances.

No wonder I didn’t trust our team.

 

[Big Z Man 1990]

Regardless of their playoff fate, the Knights are still assured of finishing with their 5th straight winning season in terms of number of games won to start their existence. They have 42 wins, and the most possible losses they can have, regulation and OT combined, is 40. This will mean that the Knights remain the only NHL franchise never to have lost more games than they won in a season.

 

[willy702]

Regardless of their playoff fate, the Knights are still assured of finishing with their 5th straight winning season in terms of number of games won to start their existence. They have 42 wins, and the most possible losses they can have, regulation and OT combined, is 40. This will mean that the Knights remain the only NHL franchise never to have lost more games than they won in a season.

If only we had an owner that paid tribute to these facts instead of fixating on a Cup you can't assure yourself of winning by buying full priced free agents

 

[timw33]

As I'm not a capologist, does Thompson not burn a year off his ELC if he plays less than 10 game,s and if so, is that one reason they're not playing him? Not sure how many games he's dressed for this season.

Just FYI: the only time the 10 game rule matters is if a player is on their ELC and are in their 18 or 19 year old seasons. If they play less than 10 NHL games their contract can "slide" a year and begin in a subsequent year.

If they are in their 20 year old season, or sign their ELC in the same calendar year where they turn 20, then the ELC slide rule does not apply and the contract starts immediately.

Since Thompson was 23 when he signed his ELC his contract began immediately.

 

[hail2skins]

Regardless of their playoff fate, the Knights are still assured of finishing with their 5th straight winning season in terms of number of games won to start their existence. They have 42 wins, and the most possible losses they can have, regulation and OT combined, is 40. This will mean that the Knights remain the only NHL franchise never to have lost more games than they won in a season.

VGK is going to have roughly the same record this season as it did in its second season, when it got them 3rd place in the division.....unfortunately, barring something unforeseen, it won't be enough for the playoffs this year. But I don't remember the same gnashing of teeth after that season than I hear now. And even though there is no doubt that the 5 minute major screwed Vegas in Game 7 against SJS, the fact that the series went to 7 after VGK was up 3-1 makes you wonder if that second season team was really that good.

 

[Vegas07]

VGK is going to have roughly the same record this season as it did in its second season, when it got them 3rd place in the division.....unfortunately, barring something unforeseen, it won't be enough for the playoffs this year. But I don't remember the same gnashing of teeth after that season than I hear now. And even though there is no doubt that the 5 minute major screwed Vegas in Game 7 against SJS, the fact that the series went to 7 after VGK was up 3-1 makes you wonder if that second season team was really that good.

The team lost a bunch of games at the end of that season and was basically coasting and resting Fleury as Subban was starting every game. A playoff position was pretty much locked up. I think if they needed to push it they would have won more games.

And they did have a lousy start with Schmidt and a few others being out in the first 20 games. There were plenty of times during that season when the team looked pretty good. This season the team never looked that good because someone (usually multiple players) was always injured. We’ve still never seen this team fully healthy (Stone, Patches, Lehner and Reilly Smith are all hurt).

Also Stone didn’t join that team until very late in the season and he definitely made the team much better. A healthy Stone from the start of that season makes that teams record much better IMO. I think that’s one reason there was more optimism. I was looking forward to seeing Stone with the team an entire season. Same with Pacioretty, who needed time to adjust to a new team and looked more comfortable playing with Stone.

Going up 3-1 on the Sharks was really impressive IMO. That Sharks team was really good, and was up 2–1 on St. Louis before being killed with injuries. I wasn’t surprised the Sharks won game 5 in San Jose being the more desperate team. We didn’t finish our huge number of chances in game 6 and choked game 7 after playing so well the first 50 minutes (and got screwed by the refs).

I was so disappointed because I thought a win against the Sharks meant we were likely to see our team in the conference finals at least.