March 13, 2006
The Eastern Battle
Six teams jockey for three playoffs spots.
By Wendel Clark

(TORONTO) -- As the NHL's regular-season winds down, focus drifts away from last week's trade deadline and turns solely to the hunt for the playoffs.

In the Eastern Conference, six teams are brawling for the final three playoff spots currently held by New Jersey, Montreal and Tampa Bay. With Atlanta, Toronto and the New York Islanders on the outside looking in, the next six weeks should be exciting, to say the least.

The Devils, who sit in sixth position with 74 points, likely have enough to keep themselves within the playoff picture. Martin Brodeur gives them a chance to win day-in, day out, but they no longer have the depth they once possessed. With Patrik Elias, Brian Gionta and Scott Gomez leading the way up front, the Devils are going to need to get their entire team on a roll if they want to make any surprises this season.

Montreal, who occupies the seventh playoff spot with 71 points and faces off tonight against the eighth seeded Lightning, have been playing the best and most consistent hockey of the top three clubs.

With just one regulation loss in their last ten games, the Canadiens have been riding a high led by 30-year-old goaltender Cristobal Huet. 

The Habs no longer have Jose Theodore to harp on, and with Huet between the pipes the Canadiens should be in good shape. The addition of David Aebischer gives Montreal the opportunity to put another capable No.1 netminder in goal, and as long as the team continues to play well-rounded hockey, they will battle New Jersey for sixth.

Unlike Montreal, however, the Lightning need to find a way to play better hockey – and fast. They have struggled most of the year, battling through what appears to be a two-year Stanley Cup hangover.

They miss the leadership brought to the table by Dave Andreychuk, who was a big fixture both on and off the ice and kept everyone on the straight and narrow.

The Lightning tried to improve their hockey club last week, but there were only a few available pieces they thought would have helped their cause. 

With a salary cap in place, many different factors come in to play, and the Lightning just didn't have the room to add to their roster, especially with Brad Richards and Pavel Kubina set to become free agents this summer.

Tampa is a team that needs to play with a little bit of urgency, or risk losing their playoff spot to a team like the Thrashers, who have been playing the best hockey of all clubs below Buffalo in the last ten games, going 7-3-0.

The Thrashers have decided to play well at the right time. The question now falls on Kari Lehtonen and whether or not he can perform consistently down the stretch. 

Every team needs to have solid goaltending or they're not going to make it. While it's tough to put so much pressure on one player, the Thrashers will need Lehtonen to shine if they want to sneak into the eighth and final playoff spot. 

The Maple Leafs and Islanders, meanwhile, still have a shot, albeit it a long one. 

Toronto has started to perform, obtaining five of a possible six points in their last three games, with wins over Montreal and Tampa, while the Islanders have won five of their last six contests.

With 19 games left in the regular-season, both the Leafs and Islanders need to win about 14 games if they want to postpone April's golf trip. Undoubtedly, this will be a tough task to achieve. Not only do they need to win, they are going to need help from the Conference's bottom feeders if they want to squeeze into the playoffs.

Teams like Pittsburgh, Washington and Boston tend to surprise at this point in the season. These are the clubs that are the hardest to play against. With nothing else to lose and no more stress hanging over them, these teams find a way to win. 

The Devils face the Bruins once more this season and will dance with Pittsburgh on three more occasions; the Canadiens play Pittsburgh and Washington twice more, and the Lightning will clash against the Pens once and Capitals twice.

But if the Leafs, or Isles, can find a way to overcome adversity, they would be able to edge themselves into eighth past Tampa. They would have to be playing as well as any team in the league and could cause some damage in the first round, as teams riding with that much momentum carry it over with them into the post-season.

Any way you look at it, the six aforementioned teams are in a dogfight to the finish. Whether Montreal can leapfrog over New Jersey, or the Thrashers or Maple Leafs outmuscle the Lightning, we are in for an exciting home stretch.

Wendel Clark, drafted first-overall by the Toronto Maple Leafs in the 1985 NHL Entry Draft, played in 793 career NHL games with six different organizations. Over his career, the former Leafs captain accumulated 330 goals, 234 assists and 1,690 penalty minutes. Now, as a columnist for TheFourthPeriod.com, he offers his "17-cents" on the NHL throughout the entire season. Check out Wendel Clark's column every Monday, exclusively on TheFourthPeriod.com.