Almost there...

The season wraps up this weekend and, just as Herr Bettman wishes it, not all the playoff spots have been decided but many of the top seeds are squared away.

In the more boring of the two conferences, the West's top three looks like this:

1. Detroit

2. San Jose

3. Minnesota

Minnesota locking down the Northwest Division title and the #3 seed is key for them as they'll likely face another team from their division in a battle of attrition. Given the number of ups and downs teams in the Northwest have faced this year, Minnesota rising to the top is a bit more surprising given that for a good part of the season, the scoring touch was gone. Now with Marian Gaborik and his wonky groin (knock on wood) both working at optimum potential, the Wild can be a scary team. If the standings hold in the West, and there's still potential for movement here below the top-3 fold, your first round matchups look like this:

1. Detroit vs. 8. Nashville

2. San Jose vs. 7. Calgary

3. Minnesota vs. 6. Colorado

4. Anaheim vs. 5. Dallas

Fans in Nashville, hey remember that team?, are happy to not have to get eliminated by San Jose again this year and for their reward they get a banged up and much-maligned Red Wings squad.

Out for Detroit: Tomas Kopecky - done for the playoffs. Kirk Maltby and Mikael Samuelsson out for Game 1. Kris Draper and Tomas Holmstrom will play the final game against Chicago to warm up and get their legs back for the playoffs. Brad Stuart may be ready to go in Game 1. Add to that that Dominik Hasek is old and bat-crap crazy and hasn't been right most of the second half of the year leads you to believe that Chris Osgood may get the nod for Detroit. Heck, Detroit just signed Michigan State product Justin Abdelkader to a pro deal and he's probably going to be starting in the playoffs.

Nothing like hitting the playoffs in full stride!

San Jose against either Calgary or Minnesota in no way scares me if I'm Ron Wilson. The scarier of the two matchups, to me, would be Calgary given that Mikka Kiprusoff still plays goal for the Flames and Jarome Iginla has very secretly been having an MVP season. Two guys cannot carry a team through the playoffs. They might steal you a round, but San Jose is too freakin' good to get beat by these guys.

I hope the Sharks are wise enough to unleash Douglas Murray and Jody Shelley once Iginla decides the Flames have had enough, things can get ugly fast when he gets frustrated...he might even get a backup goalie to follow him.

Minnesota seems destined to have the "Familiarity breeds contempt" Herr Bettman special series with getting either Colorado or Calgary to face off with in the opening round. Minnesota can knock around Colorado, but again, the wild card is Calgary. I fear that Kipper and Iginla might be the dynamic duo that could derail a team like Minnesota. If I'm Jacques Lemaire, I'd much rather not see Calgary come waltzing into Minnesota ready to play. To add to this, Minnesota's past with teams like to come out and hit you in the mouth doesn't look so stellar after they allowed every loser who laced up skates for Anaheim get under their skin last year.

Calgary is low on skating losers, but with Keenan cracking the whip on them, I'm sure their tired of hearing it from him and besides, I can only imagine that Mike Keenan becomes even more of a psycho in the locker room once it's playoff time.

Dallas and Anaheim. Yeah. I just can't picture Dallas having the cojones enough to get through a full series with this pack of felons. Steve Ott is going to be a very, very busy guy for Dallas and the unleashing of Krys Barch on the rest of the hockey world should be short-lived but quite exciting when he tries to put his fist into everyone on Anaheim's mouth.

Perhaps he could start with Randy Carlyle or jump Brian Burke in the parking lot before the game. You know, do things in real WWE style since that's what its going to best resemble. For things to go right for the Stars, they have to not get completely frustrated with Anaheim's abject ruination of hockey and for Jean-Sebastian Couchcushions to go ice cold while Marty Turco stonewalls everything.

Yeah...that's not looking good at all.


The East is just one spot away from being filled...and its the #3 seed. Yeah, I know, everyone's been busy taking a dump on the Southeast division this year and folks are treating whoever ends up the #6 seed as the favorite to beat the #3. There's one huge thing here, however. Most people were expecting that Carolina was going to be that team and the Washington Capitals are one point away from winning the division. That means the league's most dynamic and damaging scorer, Alexander Ovechkin, becomes a huge factor for whoever #6 turns out to be. Ovechkin has morphed into what folks expected we would get out of a guy during the Boring Years of hockey. Big, physical, scores in bunches. Problem was that hockey sucked then and scoring was viewed as the ever-present Satan.

Now that scoring isn't quite the demon it used to be, and now you've got a guy scoring like the old days, at last count 65 goals, people are seeing him as the new Messiah, usurping the throne out from under Sid the Kid. After all, Sid isn't getting MVP talk this year (thanks injuries!) and his teammate Evgeni Malkin more than aptly held down the fort in his absences.

Ovechkin, on the other hand, has dealt with having a team of nobodies around him, the second best player on the team being injured and ineffective for most of the season (Alexander Semin) and is single-handedly responsible for the awakening of Nick Backstrom emerging as Joe Thornton-lite in his assisting capabilities. Not to mention that if you tick off AO even a little bit, you won't catch him flopping on the ice or feigning injury to get the refs eye. He'll come right back and hit you in the mouth, good friend or not.

That said, the fact that Washington needs just one point to win the Southeast Division and the #3 spot in the playoffs speaks a lot to the shortcomings of Herr Bettman's points welfare system. For Washington to make the playoffs, all they have to do is either: win in regulation or make it to overtime. Not win in OT - just get there.

Does that sound even remotely sane?

Anyhow, here's how things sit in the erstwhile East as of this writing:

1/2. Pittsburgh/Montreal
3. Carolina or Washington
4/5. New Jersey or New York
6-8. Boston, Ottawa or Philadelphia

Montreal is mercilessly banged up at this point, but with that said, they could still end up with the top seed. The Bruins went 0-8 against Montreal this season and looked like that even if Montreal played each game a man down, they'd still win. The B's would very much like to not see their playoff nemesis in the first round.

Ottawa, too, is much maligned as both Mike Fisher and Daniel Alfredsson are out for "weeks" of time and appear to be gimping into the playoffs. Bryan Murray's career in Ottawa is on the line here after firing John Paddock earlier this season and hopping back into the chair as head coach the team has been listless and uninteresting while being consistently mired in problems ranging from Ray Emery being a weirdo who can't stop pucks anymore to swinging a deal that helped out Carolina more than it did his own team. Whoops.

Philly is lurking in the weeds as a potential Anaheim-lite type of team that will require dirty tricks and shenanigans to advance further. If they end up against a team short on both nerves and people to fight, they could provide oodles of headaches. The Flyers relish wearing the black hat in the playoffs, however, and are used to being booed both on the road and at home. If the Flyers end up playing Pittsburgh in the first round, get my popcorn ready and the dent in my couch warmed up...it'll be a bumpy and entertaining ride.

New Jersey and New York seem destined to face off in the first round, which, works out well for the Rangers as they have flogged on the Devils all year long and Martin Brodeur seems to really hate that....that and Henrik Lundqvist.

Once the field is squared away - the real analysis, poking and prodding begins here. Giddy up!

WARNING: Parity Has Seized Control

In doing some of what I do to fill time in what is a generally hockey-overloaded life, I find myself getting in discussions with lots of fans about the game - fans from all over the map even. It's interesting how this season has shaken out so far because I've discovered that there are actually NHL hockey fans in Boston and Chicago.

I don't know if they were hibernating awaiting the sunshine of success to awaken them or if they're new to the whole thing and riding the wave of winning. Generally though, I find myself talking with people who are hardcore fans, some of which don't often see hockey outside of their own teams. I don't fault them for that at all, but it does allow me to be amused by I get to hear and read though.

And besides, what's more exciting than having your team in the thick of things when it comes to the playoff hunt? Nevermind that we're less than halfway into the season and things are far too far away from being hashed out - nevermind all of that! The thing is, and it's likely something that Gary Bettman is most happy to see, just about everyone right now is in the mix. Your team would have to be doing colossally horrible to not even be within whiffing distance.

That said, at this point in the season you can be eight points out of the eighth spot and still have a fighting chance to get into the mix. If your team goes on a four or five game winning streak - BAM! - right back in the mix. Case in point: The New Jersey Devils started off the year horribly, buried towards the bottom of the Eastern Conference. A nine-game winstreak later, they're in first place in the division and second in the Eastern Conference. Not bad, eh?

It's this sort of tenuous state of being that exists for most teams in the NHL right now, with the semi-glaring exceptions of Ottawa and Detroit which have become bastions of glowing success even in spite of having problems.

In Ottawa, both Martin Gerber and Ray Emery became sieves while the team allowed others to skate all over them leading to a stretch where they lost 8 out of 9 games through November and into early December. Yet even through that, they remain six points ahead of New Jersey for first in the Eastern Conference and six ahead of the Boston Bruins for first in their division.

Detroit, on the other hand, has seen their all-world goaltender suffer through both injury and ineffectiveness this season and has seen that amount to....no change at all as backup Chris Osgood, an old man in his own right, fill in more than admirably while Dominik Hasek struggled physically and in-game as well. In fact, Osgood has played better than Hasek this season and have streamlined the Red Wings into losing just six games in actuality and three others via the skills competition (copyright: Howie Rose, New York Islanders play-by-play man).

What's incredible about those 6.3 losses the Wings have had is that four of them come at the hands of their should-be-and-now-probably-is rival, the Chicago Blackhawks. Given that the resurgent Blackhawks are fully in the thick of the parity playoff soup, you can see the headlines come April when the upstart eighth seeded Blackhawks upend the top-seeded Red Wings. Who can't see this coming from a thousand miles away?

But this is what the NHL and Gary Bettman wants for the league. Everyone is in it, everyone gets involved, and you don't get the same teams involved all the time. That's perfect for them because then everyone gets a taste of success throughout the league! Hooray! It's sports socialism! Don't believe me? Look at the divisional and conference races as they stand now just over 30 games into the season:

In the East, the Devils are two points up in their division and sit second in the East. They lead last place Pittsburgh by five points. Pittsburgh currently sits 10th in the East and two points away from 8th.

We've discussed Ottawa and how they dominate atop the East and the Bruins sit six points behind them. Buffalo currently sits last in the Northeast Divsion with 31 points, good for 11th in the East and three points out of last place.

The Southeast Division is, as always, where hockey goes to die and win Stanley Cups and it sees one of the worst teams in hockey, the Washington Capitals, in last place in the division and conference with 26 points. Carolina leads the Southeast with 35 points and sits just six points ahead of not-so bottom dwelling Atlanta who is fourth in the division with 29 points. Florida is third with 30 and Tampa Bay is just four points behind Carolina with 31. Tampa Bay sits tied for 11th with the Sabres in the East. Yikes.

In the West, Detroit leads the Western Conference by nine points and they lead the Central Division by 13 points with 47 points over St. Louis and Columbus who are tied for second with 34. New-found nemesis Chicago has 32 points and Nashville sits in last with 30. St. Louis and Columbus are tied for 8th in the West and Nashville is 13th.

As you can see, the distance between being nearly at the bottom of the conference and in the playoffs can be made up in just a couple of wins.

In the Northwest, Vancouver leads with 37 points and last place Edmonton is a mere five points back with 32. Vancouver could go from first to fourth in the division in the matter of one game as Calgary sits in fourth with 35 points. Ouch! Edmonton is tied for 11th overall in the West with Chicago but could be sitting in fifth as soon as next week if things broke right. As it is for now, people are down on their Oilers saying they need to re-tool.

Here's the new NHL version of re-tooling: Wait a week!

The Pacific Division is its own bizarre monster in that it has one of the NHL's best teams with the San Jose Sharks at the top along with the ever-boring Dallas Stars, both with 38 points. Anaheim lays lurking with 34 points in third (incidentally they're 10th in the West) and then you've got Los Angeles and Phoenix sitting tied for last in the division and the conference with 26 points and 12 points out of first in the division and 21 behind Detroit for first in the West. Ouch. Phoenix has turned the tide of late after stealing goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov from Anaheim but they will be eagerly awaiting the coming of the draft lottery with L.A.

That is, unless, they get hot and their young guys like Mueller and Hanzal take over and they storm into the 8th spot.

The underlying point here about parity, however, is that while sure its great that just about every city in the NHL can think and dream and wonder about the playoffs... where's the greatness at? Sure, people get annoyed when a team goes on an extended run of success and common fans root against that team to fall - that's normal and that's expected. What was so wrong about having a team assembled that could come out and flat out dominate and show you the way the game is meant to be played?

We saw it come and go in the NBA, the NFL and even for spells in Major League Baseball and we've certainly seen it in the NHL and those teams are revered through the years as some of the greatest hockey they've ever seen. The Islanders of the early 80s, the Oilers for the rest of the 80s, the early 90s Penguins - these teams were dominating forces of nature (although I imagine some will argue on the Penguins given that they didn't win nearly as much as the others, that's fine) - what no one can argue, however, is that those teams were truly great.

What parity is, and we're certainly seeing it in the NFL now, is guaranteeing that greatness will not be tolerated in extended doses becuase it's unfair to everyone else who wants to get to the top of the heap. Instead, it flattens out the mountain so that even the rabble can get to the top and claim that they're better. That, to me as a fan, is insulting because I want to see the best of the best in the end.

I don't want to see hockey whittled down and made into a boring game of chance, the way it's become with the advent of defense-first systems and now the shoot-out to decide games. The GMs want more scoring, the players who don't play goal want more scoring (because nothing nets a bigger contract than goals) and the coaches just want to keep their jobs longer than a year or two.

If the league is this excited about parity, then why not just play a meaningless regular season and then at the end of it all, put all the names of teams in a hat and pull them out to determine playoff spots. With everyone becoming the same pack, that's basically what it's come down to.