With the start of February upon us, it's the time of year again when some front-running teams start clinching playoff spots. A quick look at the standings shows us that indeed, three teams in the West could/should clinch their postseason invitations in the next week or so:
- Kamloops will clinch a spot with 3 wins or Prince George losses
- Tri-City will clinch a spot with 4 wins or Prince George losses
- Portland will clinch a spot with 5.5 wins or Prince George losses
(To be perfectly accurate, when I say "clinch a spot" in these cases, I mean they will clinch at least a tie for the last playoff spot in the Western Conference, and therefore at least a 1-game tiebreaker "playoff" game. If you want the number required to clinch a guaranteed playoff spot, add 0.5 games to each number.)
In the East, the spread between the 1st and 9th place teams is not as large as it is in the West, and so there are no teams that close to clinching spots yet. The closest is of course first place Edmonton, who are 10.5 wins or Red Deer losses away from wrapping up a spot.
2 comments:
Of course, I assume that's factoring in Everett dropping points as well. Three straight losses for PG will not get Kamloops in unless the Blazers get one more point (or two to avoid tiebreakers). Same goes with TC & Portland, although, they would need a little more help from Everett than Kamloops.
Yes, that is true. These magic numbers are calculated against the team with the 9th best possible finish in the conference, which does exclude the possible performance of the 10th (and 11th and 12th, in the East) team(s).
The way I compensate for that is, if Everett wins some games and P.G. loses, at some point Everett would become the team with the 9th best possible finish, and I would shift the magic number to say "X wins or Everett losses" instead of P.G. losses.
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