The "bottom of the barrel to the playoffs" statistic for the Blues really annoys me. Yes, they had the fewest points at that point. But that metric is unbelievably stupid, for two reasons:
1) Their points percentage was way higher than some teams. Think St. Louis with 34 points in 37 games is bad? What if they were to, say, really bomb, and only get 1 more point out of 8 in the next 4 games? Congrats, you're the Senators or the Kings on the same day, January 2. Or 2 points in 5 games? You're the Hawks.
2) Strength of Schedule. Just looking at playoff vs non-playoff, maybe this doesn't apply in January, as that month was pretty stacked for the Blues, with a 7-5 mix. February is just as bad - 8-6. But their March/April stretch? 7-12. (I may be off a little - just scanned their schedule and tallied manually.) Their last 6 games included 1 playoff team - the Avs.
And the Bruins were technically at the bottom of the standings this year, too...on October 4.