The pro hockey playoffs are just around the corner and one’s favorite team may or may not still be in the running for a Stanley Cup championship.
The National Hockey League admits 16 of its 32 teams into postseason play. The league is divided into four geographic regions with eight teams in each. Eight from each conference will qualify for postseason play.
Playoff qualification is largely by division with wild cards. The top three teams in each division, based on regular season finish, qualify for the playoffs while the next two highest teams in each conference, regardless of division, will also qualify for the playoffs.
The Western Conference playoff field, as it stands now, would include the top three teams from the Pacific Division (Vancouver Canucks, Edmonton Oilers, Los Angeles King) and the top three teams from the Central Division (Colorado Avalanche, Dallas Stars, Winnipeg Jets).
The Eastern Conference playoff field, as it stands now, would include the top three teams from the Metropolitan Conference (New York Rangers, Carolina Hurricanes and Philadelphia Flyers) and the top three teams from the Atlantic Conference (Florida Panthers, Boston Bruins, Toronto Maple Leafs).
The race for the two Eastern Conference wild-card qualifiers is filled with intrigue with seven teams within nine points of one another battling it out: Tampa Bay Lightning, New York Islanders, Detroit Red Wings, Washington Capitals, Buffalo Sabres, New Jersey Devils and Pittsburgh Penguins.
The race for the Western Conference wild-card qualifiers is more defined with six teams within 13 points of one another battling it out for the two spots: Nashville Predators, Vegas Golden Knights, St. Louis Blues, Minnesota Wild, Seattle Kraken and Calgary Flames.
Teams on the outside in the Eastern Conference appear to be the Montreal Canadiens, Ottawa Senators and Columbus Blue Jackets.
Teams on the outside in the Western Conference appear to be the Arizona Coyotes, Anaheim Ducks, Chicago Blackhawks and San Jose Sharks. The Ducks, Blackhawks and Sharks have the three worst records in the entire league.
Chicago and San Jose have already been eliminated from the playoffs.
With 17 regular season games remaining on average, there is still some wiggle room for teams to move up or down. The final two weeks of the season should be fiercely fought for those teams that still haven’t locked up a playoff berth.
The NHL regular season concludes April 18. The Stanley Cup playoffs face off shortly afterward in four best-of-seven elimination series.
The 2024 Stanley Cup champion should be crowned sometime in June.
The Golden Knights are the defending NHL champion while the Panthers finished runner-up in the 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs.
Qualification for the American Hockey League’s Calder Cup playoffs is division-based. For instance, seven of the 10 teams in the Pacific Division will advance while six of the eight teams in the Atlantic Division will qualify. Five out of the even teams in each of the Central and North divisions qualify.
A total of 23 of the league’s 32 teams will taste postseason action but only one will drink from the cup. The Hershey Bears are the AHL’s defending champion while the Coachella Valley Firebirds finished runner-up in the 2023 Calder Cup Finals.
Hershey became the first team to qualify for the 2024 AHL playoffs.
Birds of a feather
Locally, the San Diego Gulls, the Ducks’ top developmental affiliate, remain a puzzle yet to be solved. The Gulls got off to an atrocious 2-10-3 start with a tiresome 13-game winless streak (0-10-3). The team has played above the 0.500 mark since the midpoint of the season (xxx) but the early season slump has kept the team out of the playoff picture to date.
Time is running out. The Gulls have 18 games left in regular season play — nine home and nine away — and are 14 standings points out of a playoff berth. It’s been a tooth and nail struggle for the past three months and looks to continue until either the team manages to finally break into paydirt or is eliminated from postseason play.
The Gulls have beaten some of the top teams in their division but have continued to languish near the bottom of the standings all season while waiting to finally make a move upward.
Consistency has been an obvious problem.
The Gulls suddenly turned around the direction of their flight path in midseason to capture points in 14 of a 20-game stretch (11-6-3). But a downturn abruptly followed to sink the team back to the bottom of the division standings.
“Learning how to win is a process,” Gulls head coach Matt McIlvane underscored. “You have to learn how to work, you have to learn how to compete and then you have a chance to be able to learn how to win.
“Our team competence is growing by the day. It really helps that we know who we are. We know what drives our success. We also know what it looks like when we’re off. The guys, they’re earning the right to feel confident going into these close games and we’ve come away with several of them recently and hopefully we can continue that.
“It’s a focus for our group, because we know it makes us successful. When we are physical, when we’re aggressive, when we’re hard to play against, it’s a harder brand of hockey to play against and that’s what we’re trying to instill in our group.”
The maturation process appears to be paying off the second half of the season.
“I think it comes with experience,” San Diego goaltender Calle Clang said. “We had a tough period there in October, November, too. Now, we find a way to win hockey games and I think our thing right now is to be consistent and try to do those performances each and every night.”
The Gulls faced off their current six game home stand with three wins and one loss against teams above them in the standings — a 5-3 win over Bakersfield, the team then two rungs above them in the division standings on March 4, a key 4-3 shootout win over division-leading Coachella Valley on March 6 and a 2-1 win over fourth place Ontario on Wednesday. But included in that run was a disappointing 5-1 loss to Coachella Valley on March 8.
At 3-6-1 in their last 10 games, the San Diego team faces a stiff challenge this weekend with games against the Central Division-leading Milwaukee Admirals, owners of a recent 19-game winning streak.
Wednesday’s game was a perfect example of pulling a win out of a magician’s hat.
Nikita Nesterenko made it 1-0 Gulls with his 13th goal of the season at 10:43 of the first period following a lengthy game-opening fight between San Diego’s Travis Howe and Ontario’s Jacob Doty to charge up the fans – and the SoCal arch-rivals. Andrew Agozzino picked up the lone assist, his team-leading 29th of the season.
The Gulls took a 2-0 lead at 15:38 on a shot by Robert Hagg (his second goal of the season) that went in and out of the net while clanging metal. Glenn Gawdin picked up his 25thassist of the season.
Gulls fans were obviously having a good time in antagonizing the team they love to hate.
Shots at the end of the first period were 12-6 in favor of the Reign despite being outscored 2-0.
Ontario made it 2-1 just 36 seconds into the second period as Samuel Fagemo scored his 35thgoal of the season, assisted by T.J. Tynan (his 44th of the season) and Steven Santini.
The Reign dominated the middle period with a 17-2 advantage in shots but could not tack on any more goals.
The Gulls still led by a goal, 2-1, despite being out-shot 29-8 through two periods.
The hosts definitely showed more life with five shots in the third period, but Ontario rained down with 13 of its own. Still, Clang protected his crease admirably and there was not further scoring in the game as the Gulls pulled out a 2-1 shocker on a team 20 standings points ahead of them.
Clang understandably earned the No. 1 star of the game with an AHL career high 41 saves on 42 shots (the Gulls were out-shot 42-13). Hagg was the second star while Nesterenko was the third star as the hosts swept the post-game honors.
San Diego entered Wednesday’s game 2-7-1 in its last 10 games while Ontario was 8-1-0-1. But the mismatch in records didn’t mean much to a Gulls team clinging to the hope of somehow sneaking into the playoff picture.
“We just tried to honestly survive,” Clang said after Wednesday’s morale-boosting win. “I mean, they’re a really good team, so we kind of have to fight and conquer. I think we did a really good job. Some guys doing big blocks there, that helps a lot, and it was a really good team effort and I’m glad we got the two points.”
“They came in waves, we came in waves, it was back and forth hockey,” Nesterenko said. “It’s like that all the time. We just weather the storm. Obviously, they had a couple more shots than us, but Calle stood on his head, guys made huge blocks and sacrificed their bodies. It was a good team win.”
“I just feel like Calle’s found a really nice rhythm with his game,” McIlvane said. “He’s certainly gone through learning about the American Hockey League this year, the way that the schedule works, opponents, how to prepare. We’ve had really solid goaltending. It doesn’t matter who’s in there, and that’s a really great benefit for our team.
“We thought that our key word going out for the third period was going to be composure. It was going to be can we flip the script on their trap and can we be able to stay calm and composed. I think that sometimes, those little chip outs at the end of the game, kills 20 or 30 seconds, that’s a big play. Block shots that don’t make it to our net, that’s a big play. Had the guys flex some character and we’re happy to get the result.
“We’ve got a Milwaukee team coming in that we’re familiar with. We’ve seen them a few times and we’re excited to have the opportunity to play them again. For tomorrow, our big focus is let’s learn a little bit, let’s get our bodies ready so we can perform in a back-to-back.”
Nesterenko said the team just needs to believe in itself. “Obviously, this is a good Ontario team. We won against them, we can win against anybody. It’s always nice playing at home here, in front of the fans at Pechanga, so hopefully we can keep winning for them.”
“We’re just trying to get four points here,” Clang said. “Big weekend coming up and I think we just got to keep playing to our game, stick to our plan and execute at a high level and get our four points there.
Rookie Ben King earned No. 1 star in the win over Bakersfield with two goals while the hosts swept the three star awards in the win over Coachella Valley: Sasha Pastujov (first star), Brayden Tracey (second star) and Clang (third star with 38 saves) swept the three-star awards for the Gulls as the hosts captured the shootout 2-1.
The Gulls topped the Calder Cup Finalist Firebirds by overcoming two one-goal deficits in regulation to force overtime and a shootout.
If the San Diego team can rack up points in 14 of their final 18 regular season games, it will be interesting indeed to see where the dominoes finally fall.
Playoff bound?
It’s some kind of playoff race developing in the AHL’s Pacific Division.
Five points separated second place from seventh place in the division standings entering this weekend’s slate of games. The Coachella Valley Firebirds remained perched atop the 10-team division with a seemingly safe (for now anyway) seven-point lead over the Tucson Roadrunners and a nine-point lead over the third place Colorado Eagles.
But the Eagles were just one point ahead of the fourth place Ontario Reign, three points ahead of the Bakersfield Condors and Abbotsford Canucks — Nos. 5 and 6 in the pecking order — and five points ahead of the No. 7 Calgary Wranglers.
The top seven teams qualify for the Calder Cup playoffs.
The bottom three teams in the division – Henderson Silver Knights, Gulls and San Jose Barracuda – were separated by eight points between them, San Diego a very reachable four points behind Henderson and San Jose four points behind the Gulls. Henderson was 10 standings points behind both Calgary in the quest for the final playoff berth.
San Diego was 14 points out of a playoff berth with 18 games to play in the regular season while San Jose was 18 points out with 16 games left.
Calgary is the defending regular season champion – 14 points behind Coachella Valley with 16 games remaining this season.
