Three Points? I say how about 12?

by W1ldfan on Jan 28, 2010 11:14 AM CST Comment 2 comments

Watching NHL on the Fly kind of curious about potvin calling the Wild a long shot to make up the three points to grab the eighth playoff spot. I say who says we can't make up the twelve to grab the 3 seed? The Wild are improving all the time and doing well against the Div. which makes up the bulk of the remaining schedule. Edmonton is dead and the three teams above the Wild all have pretty big question marks. Calgary is imploding and dropping through the standings like a brick. Vancouver is about to set out on a 13 or 14 game road trip, they will not play as a team at the Garage until mid March, If they get a bad start to this road trip, the whole thing could go south in a hurry. Colorado is playing well, but they have a lot of young players that have never playe3d at this level and this is grueling schedule coming up. I like the way they ar3e playing other than the ever shortening lapses. I am not saying they are gonna do it, I just don't think it is as much of a longshot as some people especially the national media. and hopefully it can get some convo going in here.

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Agreed to a point

I definitely agree that there’s no reason the Wild can’t make up enough points to get into the bottom half of the playoffs, but I think getting home-ice is a heck of a stretch.

Proprietor of Hockey Wilderness - We take Minnesota hockey WAY too seriously.

by nathaneide on Jan 28, 2010 12:17 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

Hmm… there’s an awful lot of ifs, and, & buts in there for me. I would not condier them a long shot for the playoffs, save for the fact that they are horrendous on the road. They have 14 road games left, 15 home games. They are 18-6-2 at home, 8-17-2 on the road.

This means they earn 76% of the possible points at home, and only 35% on the road. Doing the math, that gives them another 23 points at home (rounding up) and 10 points from the road (rounding up). Currently at 56 points, adding the extra 33 from this example, they finish with 89 points. In other words, they would finish with exactly the same number of points as last year, and likely finish in the exact same position, 9th in the West.

To get the number three seed, they have to take the conference. To do that will take 100 points. At 56 points, they would need another 44 points in 29 games (a possible of 58 points), meaning they would need to get two points in 22 of 29 games.

While I agree that they could certainly continue the improvement curve and make the playoffs, it would take a perfect storm of events for them to move up into a top seed. Is it impossible? Nah, nothing is impossible. Highly unlikely, though.

Hockey Wilderness

by BReynolds on Jan 28, 2010 12:56 PM CST reply actions 0 recs