What's at stake over the final week of the NHL season
Some playoff and awards races to watch
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With eight days and just a handful of games left for each team, we have some interesting races for playoff spots and individual awards on our hands.
Let's look at the playoff picture first, with a focus on the Canadian teams.
In the Eastern Conference, seven of the eight playoff berths are officially spoken for, while Montreal has all but clinched the final wild card with six consecutive wins heading into Friday night's game at Ottawa. If the Stanley Cup playoffs started today, the Canadiens would face Alex Ovechkin's top-seeded Washington Capitals.
The Senators, who are returning to the post-season for the first time since 2017, currently hold the top wild-card spot and are in line to face Toronto in the first Battle of Ontario series in 21 years.
The Maple Leafs tightened their grip on first place in the Atlantic Division (and the No. 2 seed in the conference) with a big 4-3 overtime win last night at Tampa Bay. Matthew Knies scored the winner to complete a hat trick and put Toronto three points ahead of the Lightning, who are pointed toward a Battle of Florida against the Stanley Cup champion Panthers.
One Eastern matchup is locked in: Carolina will face New Jersey in the first round, and the Hurricanes will likely have home-ice advantage as they lead the Devils by seven points for second place in the Metropolitan Division. Washington clinched first place in the Metro earlier this week.
WATCH | Ovechkin scores No. 895, breaking Getzky's coveted goal record:
In the Western Conference, three of the eight playoff entries are technically still up for grabs. However, Edmonton has a seven-point lead on Calgary for the Pacific Division's third spot with just four games left, while the Flames trail wild cards St. Louis and Minnesota by five. Calgary has two games in hand on the Blues and one on the Wild, so we shouldn't count them out yet. But their odds of making it are under 10 per cent, according to Money Puck's model. Vancouver was officially eliminated last night.
Looking at the top of the standings, Winnipeg has a three-point lead over Washington in the race for the Presidents' Trophy for the league's best record. Perhaps more importantly, the Jets are four points up on Dallas for first place in both the Central Division and the conference. The top team there gets a favourable first-round matchup against a wild card, while the runner-up has to face high-octane Colorado, featuring reigning MVP Nathan MacKinnon and Norris Trophy favourite Cale Makar.
Having said that, those wild cards suddenly don't look like such easy outs. St. Louis won 12 games in a row before losing its last two, while Minnesota's offence exploded last night with the return of a pair of injured stars. Joel Eriksson Ek scored four goals in his first game since late February, and Kirill Kaprizov potted two (including the OT winner) in his first game since Jan. 26 to give the Wild a, well, wild 8-7 win over San Jose.
Vegas is poised to take the Pacific Division and face a wild card, meaning we're looking at yet another opening-round series between Edmonton and Los Angeles. They've met three years in a row, with the Oilers winning each time.
Draisaitl is expected back from his lower-body injury in time for the playoffs, and he should hang on to win his first goal-scoring title. He leads second-place William Nylander of Toronto and Tage Thompson of Buffalo by eight with just four or five games left for those guys.
The race for the Art Ross Trophy is more interesting. It's a two-horse race between MacKinnon and Tampa Bay's Nikita Kucherov, who are neck-and-neck with 116 points each — 10 more than the third-place Draisaitl. But MacKinnon has been ruled out of tonight's game against Vancouver and could miss all of Colorado's final three games due to an undisclosed injury.
MacKinnon captured his first Hart Trophy as league MVP last year but has never won the Art Ross. Kucherov took both trophies in 2019 and won his second Art Ross last year.
Winnipeg's Connor Hellebuyck is a lock for his second consecutive Vezina Trophy and third of his career as he leads all the major statistical categories for goaltenders. He's even building a strong MVP case as the best player for the league-leading Jets, and could become the first goalie since Carey Price a decade ago to win the Hart.
Montreal defenceman Lane Hutson is favoured to win the Calder Trophy for rookie of the year after helping the Habs to the brink of a surprising playoff berth. The 5-foot-9, 162-pound American's 64 points are already tied for the sixth most ever by a rookie defenceman and are the most since Hall of Famer Brian Leetch put up 71 in 1988-89. San Jose forward Macklin Celebrini made the Calder race a little more interesting last night with a hat trick and two assists, bringing the No. 1 overall draft pick up to 24 goals and 62 points in 66 games.
Of course, the biggest individual story of the season came to a satisfying conclusion last weekend when Alex Ovechkin scored his 895th career goal to break Wayne Gretzky's NHL record. Ovechkin, who ranks fourth in the league with 42 goals despite missing six weeks with a broken leg, has five games left to reach 900 before the end of the season. He'll need to average a goal per game, but it's not out of the question after he scored six in his last five to surpass Gretzky.
Here's a look at tonight's clinching scenarios and projected playoff matchups from the NHL.
