Around The League - Everyone But The Habs

The Chicago Blackhawks have agreed to a three-year contract with Frank Nazar, one of the team's top prospects.  The Blackhawks are hoping the 20-year-old Nazar can become a key player in the team's ongoing rebuilding project. The 5-foot-10 forward was the No. 13 overall pick in the 2022 NHL Draft.

Here's where thing stand with respect to the playoffs:

In the Metro, the NYR hs clinchedh the President's trophy and will be the 1 seed. Carolina will be the 2. The Isles will be the 3 and open against the Canes. The winner of the 8 seed will be the 4 here. Washington gets in with a win. If Washington doesn't win, then Detroit is in with a win. If both those teams lose, then Pittsburgh is in with a win. Philly needs to beat Washington in regulation and have Det and Pit both lose in regulation.

In the Atlantic, Boston needs a win against Ottawa to hold onto the 1. If Boston doesn't win, Florida moves up to 1 if they beat the Leafs. Toronto is the 3 and TB is the 4.

In the Central, Dallas is 1. Winnipeg will be the 2 unless they drop their last two games and Colorado wins its remaining game. Vegas, LA, or Nashville could all be the 4 here.

In the Pacific, Vancouver will be the 1 if they grab one more point in their remaining 2 games or if Edmonton drops a point. This would leave Edm as the 2. LA is holding down 3 right now, but is only 1 point ahead of Vegas. Nashville is the frontrunner to be the 4 here but could fall out of this spot if Vegas wins its remaining two games and LA gets at least 3 pts in its last two.

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So now the next question is, what's best for the Habs? Here's my take:

Winnipeg won't win its division, but they need to go out in the first two rounds to prevent their draft pick from falling to 29-32. Winnipeg will face Colorado in round 1 but probably have home ice advantage against the Avs. We should be cheering Colorado. Barring that, we want a tough round 2 match-up, maybe with Dallas. However, the more non-division winners who make the final 4, the more Winnipeg's draft spot improves. So best-case scenario for us is that Colorado knocks off Winnipeg and then either they or the 4 seed there move on. I think the best odds of someone doing that are if Vegas finishes in that 4 seed spot. That means we need LA to win games and for Vegas to drop one point somewhere to Chicago or Anaheim. Likewise, we would benefit if Bos/Fla (whoever wins out division), NYR, and Van go out in the first two rounds. The Atlantic could be a complete crapshoot to win, and Carolina and Edmonton should provide strong competition in the other divisions. So even if Winnipeg finishes 6ht-to-8th overall, there's technically still a way that pick could improve by up to 4 more spots. So I'm cheering for Vegas to end up playing Dallas and for Nashville to draw Vancouver. And I'll be cheering for Colorado, Edmonton, and Carolina to win their first-round match-ups and give us maximal odds of upsetting the division winners.

Ovechkin with 30 goals now. What a 2nd half of the season. The first 30 games he had like 5 goals and was on pace for 14. At that point it looked like he may be "done" as a goal scorer (he is 39 in september) but now he's back at it.

I had real doubts to start the season that he could break gretzky's record (i know he could play for 5 more years & score 15-20 each year but would a team realy pay him to do that? would he want to?) but with this season's resurgence he's only 42 goals away from the record. I think he breaks that in 2 - maybe 3 years.

Still say Bossy was the GOAT (with lemieux a close second) but NO ONE in NHL history has played at such a consistently high level for so many years. Heck, Ovy is likely going to be the goal scoring leader, all time and he's never broken 65 and only broken 55 twice. Dude is the model of consistency.

Not hearing any WE WANT FLORIDA chants in Leaf nation tonight. LMFAO

Can't say i'm upset Matthews comes up short. Only going to get half the articles on him tomorrow.

The last time the Leafs beat the Bruins in a playoff series was in 1959! You don't have to like it , it is just the facts. Boston also has won 7 in a row against the Leafs and went 4-0 against them this year. The psychological edge isn't just against the Leafs players and organization, its against a traumatized fan-base that remembers every single hope being dashed at the hands of The Boston Bruins.

Part 1 [x] Check!
Part 2 [ ] Pending...