It’s time on NHL Saturday to look at the Western Conference postseason picture, as the season enters its final month-plus of scheduled games. There are 16 teams in the conference, and only eight of them will make the playoffs: the top three in each division (Central and Pacific), plus the next two best teams, points wise. Right now, the top three teams in the Central all have better records, by far, than the top team in the Pacific. This creates an interesting stretch run for the NHL’s Stanley Cup chase.

In the better division, the Colorado Avalanche sport the best record in the league and have 97 points. We can argue readily that this team has the playoff berth sewn up. Yet the Dallas Stars have the second-best mark in the NHL and trail the Avs in the division by only five points. Then there is the Minnesota Wild (88 points), tied for the third best in the league (with the Eastern Conference’s top team: Carolina). It would be surprising if any of these three teams didn’t finish ahead of the Pacific Division’s “best” squad.

There is a tight race for the top team in the Pacific right now, with three teams separated by just two points: the Anaheim Ducks (75 points), the Vegas Golden Knights (74), and the Edmonton Oilers (73). Right now, those teams sit in enviable postseason slots, while the Los Angeles Kings (69), the San Jose Sharks (68), and the Seattle Kraken (67) trail behind the division leaders. Each team generally has a different number of games remaining, so every matchup from here on out carries serious significance now.

Comfortably in the first Western Conference wild-card slot is the Utah Mammoth (74) points, as they lead the next potential wild-card team (Los Angeles) by five points. Thus, on the surface, it would seem seven teams have a good handle on their postseason chances, even if some positioning finalization may remain, while the real dogfight comes for the final wild-card berth between the Kings, the Sharks, the Kraken, and the Nashville Predators (67 points). The St. Louis Blues (64) also have an outside shot here.

[For what it’s worth, we love these team names: Mammoth and Kraken. More sports franchises need to get jiggy with this stuff.]

We will spend the rest of this column examining this five-way scrum for the No. 8 playoff seed—and the right to get swept by the Avs when the first round of the postseason starts. Here’s the breakdown:

  • Los Angeles (27-23-15): 17 games remaining, No. 9 in the conference SRS rankings (sabermetrics based on myriad data).
  • San Jose (31-26-6): 19 games remaining, No. 11
  • Seattle (29-26-9): 18 games remaining, No. 8
  • Nashville (29-27-9): 17 games remaining, No. 12
  • St. Louis (27-29-10): 16 games remaining, No 14.

Let’s start from the bottom: the Blues have the fewest games remaining, which means less chance to accrue much-needed points. Plus, they’re the worst sabermetric team in the chase here, based on strength-of-schedule so far and goal differential (minus-44). That doesn’t bode well for them, as the best predictor of future performance is past results, mathematically speaking. Sure, there are always variables, but they even out over the long 82-game season, so we generally feel St. Louis is a real long shot here.

The Predators have the fewest games remaining of the “top four” teams in this analysis, and the low sabermetric rating isn’t going to help them, either, especially in a head-to-head comparison against the Kraken. Nashville’s minus-28 goal differential also hurts the team’s chances of moving up in the standings. The key about remaining games is that not all schedules are created equally, as a team with a weaker SOS rating right now may have tougher games left to play. SOS rating is factored into the sabermetric ranking.

As for Seattle, its sabermetric profile—including a minus-15 goal differential—suggests the Kraken have a decent shot at leapfrogging the two teams above it for the last playoff spot. Plus, with the second-most games remaining, Seattle can earn more points down the stretch than Los Angeles, for example. Right now, we like the Kraken’s chances best to slide into that No. 8 postseason berth in the Western Conference. This is a generally broad analysis, although the data here does support the assertion.

That leaves the Sharks (minus-24) and the Kings (minus-22): San Jose has two games in hand over the Kings, but it also has a lower sabermetric profile, due to slight L.A. advantages in both scoring differential and SOS so far. We know the Sharks have a tough road trip they’re on right now, even though they did pull off a win the other night in Boston, unexpectedly. It is impossible to predict how these two teams will end up, in a head-to-head sense, although again, the Kings have the edge here in sabermetrics.

In the end, we expect San Jose to miss out on the postseason, finishing 10th in the conference, while Seattle edges Los Angeles for the final playoff spot. We can check back at the end of the regular season to see how this played out, if we remember. Stay tuned!