A look at the Standings

While it may not feel like it, the end of the season is approaching fast and the Sabres have little time left to solidify their playoff spot. Fortunetlly things are looking pretty good for them.

According to Mirtle's simple standard of needing 91 points to make the playoffs, the Sabres need to finish the season with a 14-13-1 record. While that does not make Buffalo's entrance to the post season automatic, it is simple enough that they should have no problem in achieving it.

According to sportsclubstats.com the Sabres have a 76.5% chance of making the playoffs and can guarantee themselves a spot if they finish with a 20-8 record. Still even if they only have a 16-12 record they would still have a 96.8% chance of making the playoffs.

Currently the Sabres are seventh in the conference which would give them a playoff spot. However they are third in their conference and while they are right behind Montreal, they are well behind the Bruins and are unlikely to catch them, meaning that Buffalo is unable to get one of the top three seeds.

The Pittsburgh Penguins are in trouble though. Currently they are in tenth in the East and have already played more games than anyone else. They only have a 29.7% chance of making the playoffs.

Meanwhile out west, the Dallas Stars who started the season so poorly are now sitting in fifth place with a 72% chance of making the playoffs. Since getting rid of Avery they have really turned things around and are currently second in their division behind only the very good Sharks.

Goose leads comeback against the Stars

The Sabres came out flat to start the game and quickly found themselves down 3-0 to the Dallas Stars. However the Sabres came back, lead by Paul Gaustad to eventually win the game in the shootout.

The turnaround was twice the result of Gaustad's effort in this game. The Goose got the Sabres first goal. Then after Buffalo looked to have ruined their comeback chances after going down 4-2, Gaustad scored again to bring Buffalo right back into the game. After that there was little doubt that the Sabres would be able to complete the comeback. Buffalo did, and while they outplayed the Stars at the end of the game and in overtime, they were unable to win before the shootout.

In the shootout, two very good goalies were in, as was showed by the inability of both teams to score. Buffalo did win after six rounds, with Miller stopping five of the six shots against him.

Still not everything went well for the Sabres in this game. Dallas' first two goals both came on the powerplay, and the third right after another powerplay had just expired. Buffalo had been very good down a man until this game. Not only did the Sabres allow goals against, but they never really looked as if they had control, and gave the Stars multiple chances to score. Allowing Ott to walk in almost uncovered was a huge mistake, and how you don't expect them to press when up a player is inexcusable.

Official Three Stars

Paul Gaustad

Steve Ott

Trevor Daley

My Three Stars

Paul Gaustad (two goals, 8 for 10 on faceoffs)

Jason Pominville (two assists, five shots, shootout goal, plus two)

Steve Ott (one goal, one assist)

The Situation in Dallas

The Dallas Stars have really been a wreck of a team so far this season. Dallas is dead last in the Western Conference with a 9-11-4 record. Things got even more interesting when Sean Avery was suspended this week for an inappropriate comment that he made to the media.

The Stars won their game without Avery, so perhaps he is a large part of the problem. Team management has since talked about how they intend to hold him accountable, and about how his actions are unacceptable to their organization. They should have thought about that before they signed him. They knew what they were getting, and now they are suddenly paying for their mistake. Avery signed for a four year deal, so the Stars are stuck with him for awhile.

The thing is the team doesn't even want him around anymore. One of the biggest critics that Avery has in his own locker room is goalie Marty Turco. Turco describes Avery's comments as "ignorant", and this isn't the first time that the goalie has condemned his teammates behavior. The Stars need to realize that Turco's contract is up in 18 months, and there is no reason to believe that he would elect to continue playing on a team with Avery who will still have two years left at that point. Perhaps Turco's problem this season is that he honestly does not care about the success of his team.

The Stars lack of leadership is what is killing them this season. The loss Stu Barnes is what is killing this team. Mike Modano is still there, but given how the team is doing you have to wonder why. About Avery Modano said that "out of what we expect out of each other" and that "It's gonna be dealt with". Still the team is a mess, and Avery will continue going on doing whatever he wants.

Even if the team released Avery it looks as if the Star's current season is already a loss. The bigger issue is that in the coming seasons it only looks as if things are going to get worse for Dallas in the coming seasons.

Pacific Division

The Pacific division is set to be one of the toughest divisions in the NHL this coming season. The division's top two teams in Dallas and San Jose are almost guaranteed to make the playoffs, and a third is likely to do so as well.

#1 Dallas Stars
Stu Barnes may have moved into coaching, but the bedrock of the Dallas Stars is in goal. Marty Turco is the best goalie in the league, and is more than capable of carrying the team. However he now has the supporting cast to help him. Dallas doesn't have many big names (besides the aging Mike Modano), but has solid depth all around, and a talented forward in Brad Richards. That said, an injury to Turco would end their season.

#2 San Jose Sharks
This team is also able to benefit from top quality goaltending, and have the league's second best goalie in Evgeni Nabokov. The team however is weaker as a whole. They have lost both former Sabre Brian Campbell, and current Sabre Craig Rivet from their defense, and instead are going to have to rely on the overpriced Boyle. Up front the team is based around it's veterans like Jeremy Roenick, former Sabre Mike Grier, and the very talented Jonathan Cheechoo.

#3 Phoenix Coyotes
The desert dogs are a team on the rise, and have a shot at making the post season this year. They need to hope that goalie Ilya Bryzgalov's success last season was not a fluke, and that they can get better production from their younger players. They have also brought in Olli Jokinen from Florida, who while very talented leads the league in games played without a playoff appearance.

#4 Anaheim Ducks
While stocked with good players, this is a team that may be too dysfunctional to have a phenomenal season. They have a good shot at getting third in the division, but won't be able to get into the top two. The team is over the cap and is still trying to get Teemu Selanne onto the team. While stocked with good players like the Niedermayers and Gigure in goal, the team has also traded away other top line talent like Andy McDonald.

#5 Los Angeles Kings
The Kings being at the bottom of this conference shouldn't surprise anyone. They have a young team, a number of goalies that nobody has heard of, and a history of finishing last. The team is barely over the cap and has no expectations to do anything.

See also the reviews of the Central division and the Southeast division

Why I will not be rooting for any team in the West

Cheering for an eastern conference team, leaves you with a lack of knowledge about what is going on out in the western conference. However come playoff time you have to pick a few teams to root from on the other side of the country.

After watching his team get eliminated in seven games after earning three shutouts in the series, I got over the whole no-goal thing, and started rooting for Marty Turco and the Dallas Stars. Given how much they rely on their goaltending they had a decent postseason this year. And then this offseason they sign free agent Sean Avery. It's already hard enough to root for a hockey team in Texas, and with Avery now in the equation I don't think I can do it.

So out west I then have to turn my attention to the Calgary Flames. The Flames have Jerome Iginla as a captain, who is probably the best and most classy player in the league. Given that Kiprusoff and Phaneuf are both likable enough, and being in Canada, the city has no below the frost line reasons to dislike it. Then what does my beloved western conference team do? They sign Todd Bertuzzi. I'll still have a problem rooting against Iginla, but this isn't going to have me rooting for the Flames this season. Even without the whole Moore incident there are plenty of reasons to not like Bertuzzi. It's sad to see a class organization like Calgary go down like this.

Next thing you know the Chicago Blackhawks will be trading hard working Buffalo boy Kevyn Adams to Ottawa in exchange for Chris Neil. Then I really would have no use for any team not in the East.

This Off Season's Most Coveted Free Agent

Marián Hossa was a critical part to the Pittsburgh Penguin's run to the Stanley Cup finals this past season, but now he is the most sought after unrestricted free agent in the National Hockey League.

Hossa had a very good post season, earning 26 points in 20 games for Pittsburgh, and ten points in the 12 regular season games he played with the team. However, the Penguins are already pretty close to the salary cap, and are approaching an off-season in which half of their roster (10 players including Hossa) will be unrestricted free agents. Given that this doesn't even include the fact that Malkin is still on his rookie contract with only one season remaining, there is no way they can afford to resign him.

Marian Hossa earned seven million last season, but due to the nature of his contract only counted six million against the cap. His value is only going up, and to see him sign for five years at ten million a year is a very real possibility. This is big money, but any team with room would be willing to add a player of this caliber to their lineup.

Besides Pittsburgh the other two teams Hossa has played for are the Ottawa Senators and the Atlanta Thrashers, but he is unlikely to return to either of these teams. It seemed all season as if he wanted out of Atlanta, and after being traded for Daniel Heatley it remains unlikely he would want to return to the team that drafted him. Both teams could use him, but as a free agent the choice really belongs to Hossa.

The two teams most likely to pick Hossa up this summer are the Dallas Stars, and the Washington Capitals. Both teams made the playoffs this past season and are expected to next year as well even without any big moves this off season. They would give Hossa the chance not only to be the star, but to actually play for a good team as well. Dallas has relied to greatly on their goaltending to win games for them, and could benefit from the additional talent up front.

The Capitals on the other end already have plenty of talent up front with Alexander Ovechkin, but are still a young team and could use the added depth and leadership that Marian Hossa could provide. The Capitals have a good amount of cap space, and only really need to resign Huet in goal. Their long term big money commitment to Ovechkin shows that they aren't afraid to pay their top guys well either. This is also the potential downside of this match, as Washington my be wary of committing too much money to their top two guys, which is a strategy that has backfired greatly in Tampa Bay.

A few other teams such as the Wild, and Boston Bruins, but that's less likely. At the end of the day Marian Hossa can go to wherever team he wants to, and the whole league wants him for their own.

The Stars may be for real

The Dallas Stars have won their second straight game against the Detroit Red Wings with a 2-1 victory on Saturday afternoon. Detroit is still up in the series 3-2, but Dallas actually has a realistic chance at this point.

As is usual when Dallas wins Marty Turco had an excellent game. Turco finished the game with 38 saves, and even had an assist on the game winning goal.

Detroit got their one goal on the powerplay, but had a limited number of opportunities with the man advantage throughout the game. The Red Wings had almost twice as many shots on goal as the Stars did at 39 to 21 for the game. Still Turco is the best goalie remaining in the playoffs at this point, and as a result has a greater amount of control over how his team does then anyone else.

Setting up the Sweep

All three of Tuesday's games have given the winner a 3-0 series lead, and a chance to get the sweep. While the Stars wins over the Sharks have been the closest (two of the three came in overtime), they will have the first chance to eliminate their second round opponent when they play on Wednesday night.

There is a possibility that all three teams will pull off the sweep, and the second round will be over much quicker then the first round was. Round two could see three series over after just four games, while round one only saw that happen once, and had three series go to the full seven.

The Penguins are going the best of all the teams and are 7-0 in the playoffs so far. Theoretically they could win all 16 games to take the cup. Regardless they are at least doing much better than the 0-4 record that they put up in the post season last year.

Possible Upsets

Both the Dallas Stars and the Philadelphia Flyers are up in their second round series. While slightly unexpected, the fact that both teams beat out their opponents in round one was not too out of the ordinary. The fact that they are both doing so in round two as well is.

The San Jose Sharks have been a favorite pick to win the cup, but are now down 2-0 to the Dallas Stars and look to be on the way out. Montreal who was also expected to have an easy time beating Boston is now down 2-1 to the Flyers. The other two series are of course currently 2-0 in favor of the favorites so no surprises there.

Both the Stars and the Flyers are relying upon their goaltenders to get them through. While Turco does not need a shutout every game like he did last year, the Stars would not be going anywhere without him. The Flyers meanwhile have gotten excellent play out of Marty Biron in both of their series so far. This is actually Biron's first time playing in the post season, and is a very good 6-4 so far. Both of these teams are helping their goalies though, and I would even pick Dallas to beat the Red Wings if they have to match up against each other.

Additionally NHL.com has an excelent article on Marty Biron.

Buffalo enters the all star break on a high note

The Sabres won a close game against the Dallas Stars with a score of 2-1. Derek Roy got both of the goals for Buffalo, while former Sabre Stu Barnes scored the lone point for Dallas.

It was a close game throughout, and both teams had plenty of opportunities to get the win, but the goalies on both ends played well. Although both goalies were not named for any of the games three stars, both were deserving and played exceptionally well. This would have been a radically different game is both teams had played their backups. Along with the Islanders' DiPietro, Marty Turco is one of the best stick handling goalies in the league. As an aside, ten percent of the league's starting goaltenders are named Marty (Biron and Brodour), what are the odds of that?

The problem that both of the teams had in this game was special teams. Both the Sabres and the Stars were very poor in this regard, many times not even coming close. In a combined twenty minutes of five on four play the teams combined for a grand total of seven shots on goal. Only one of those shots was by the Sabres. In four powerplay oppertnities the Sabres had zero goals and one shot. Having an extra man on the ice is supposed to be an advantage.

The good news is the Sabres have finally won a close game. This is still only their second win since Christams. Lets hope that following the All Star break, this is the team that we see, and that the effort and the ability to win is still there. The Sabres are back at .500 but that doesn't get you into the playoffs anymore...

Official Three Stars

Derek Roy

Thomas Vanek

Stu Barnes

My Three Stars

Derek Roy (two goals)

Drew Stafford (two assists, plus one)

Stu Barnes (only goal for the Stars)