The Central is the most annoying division in hockey if that is where your team resides. The traffic is so steep that we have six points (as of 1/16/18) separating first to fifth place.
Seemingly every night we have each team finding ways to pick up points. We currently have five of the seven teams in the division in a playoff spot. The two teams behind the two wild card teams are two and three points behind.
When you look at it from that perspective you want your opposing teams to chill out in a sense. However, in a division this good, the fan has to think of the gas pedal motive. You want to be in the mindset that every game is a must win. If you’re not in that mindset in a race as tight as the Central, you will not win the race and may not even make the playoffs.
The Stars and Wild are figuring it out. The Avalanche are the most revived team in the league after last season’s dreadful performance. The Hawks are never to be taken lightly. So, you better have your heads on right Central Division fans because this is going to be very interesting down the stretch.
The Resurgent Stars/WIld
Did you see Tyler Seguin’s OT goal against the Bruins on Monday? You need to. The Stars have won seven of their last 10 coming into Tuesday night’s meeting with Detroit. They currently hold the number one wild card spot, but are just two points back of third place, three of second and six of first. Dallas has found their number one goalie in Ben Bishop (19 Ws/2.52 GAA/4 SOs) and are surging.
People were confounded by Minnesota’s slow start (5 Ws in first 14 Games) after their great season last year. The Wild have gotten points in 8 of their last 10 games and have the same number of points (53) as the Stars coming into Tuesday. Eric Staal is having a throwback year (19 Goals/19 Assists) and is on his way to Tampa for the All-Star Game. Minnesota has three players with 30 or more points and seven with at least 20.
If it weren’t for the consistency of these two teams this division would be significantly less congested. These teams could very easily stay hot and compete for a division title. We thought this would be the case in the beginning of the year, but weren’t sure how hectic it would be at this point in the year.
Who are these guys??
The Colorado Avalanche won 22 games last season and had a -112 goal differential. They scored a league-worst 166 goals and gave up a league-worst 278. The rebuild was thought to continue for multiple years, but the Avs find themselves two points out of a playoff spot with 39 games to play. They have the upper hand on Minnesota as they have three games in hand on the second wild card holders coming into Tuesday. No one saw this coming..
The Avs have picked up points in nine of their last 10 games and are currently on a seven-game win streak where they took down first place Winnipeg. They sit a game below .500 on the road, but are a solid 16-7-1 on home ice. After their abysmal plus/minus a year ago, Colorado has a very nice +16 goal differential so far this season. The Avalanche are going with whoever is hot at the moment in net with the 1/1A system. Jonathan Bernier (who’s hot right now) has collected 11 wins for the club in 19 games, while Semyon Varlamov has registered 13 in 26 appearances.
Why is this happening?? Why now?? This division has enough traffic as it is, and as a fan of a Central Division team, this is infuriating. This isn’t the NFL where teams can be revamped from the cellar to the playoffs just like that in one year. I mean whatever if they want to battle, let’s battle.
The cellar isn’t really the cellar..
The Hawks are on their bye week this week. I’m not going to talk about their current spot in last place in the division. With our luck it would spark a second half surge and I don’t want to deal with that. So, let’s think positively as we discuss Chicago. The Blackhawks are only three points out of a playoff spot!
You can’t really count this first half underachievement with Corey Crawford not in action for 21 of their games. By this time Friday, when the Hawks return to practice, Chicago’s number one goalie will have been out four weeks. There is no timetable for his return, but Crawford has notched 16 of the team’s 22 wins, and when he is healthy, the Blackhawks are due for a run. 37 games remain, which gives Chicago plenty of time to earn a spot in the postseason.
Nine points separate the first place Jets and the last place Hawks. A division title may not be in their near future, but the playoffs are not far fetched whatsoever. Patrick Kane as 45 points in 45 games, while three Blackhawks have at least 30 points and seven have at least 20. Their spread out offense gives them the ability to compete with playoff teams as they just took down Winnipeg 2-1 last Friday. Do not judge this team’s first half as they are more than in the hunt when they come out of their bye week.
don’t look back
St. Louis, Nashville and Winnipeg are all clinging to their current positions (1st/2nd/3rd). By the time this gets out something could change. The window for error and inconsistency is almost shut. The Central Division is so jam packed that (as we discussed earlier) the gas pedal must be in full effect.
Fans want to tell other teams to “chill out,” but you ultimately want to feel this way. Teams need to feel like every game is a must win until the end, so they are hot and ready to go coming down the stretch and into the postseason.
This is the most interesting division in the NHL this year. No team is out of it, while first place separation is apparent in every other division. The Metropolitan has significant traffic and is hotly contested as well, but the race in the Central will be the one we play closest attention to down the stretch.
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