I don't mind an overtime loss to Washington on the road.  We got a point last night, so that's good.  The Rangers lost last night, so that's good too.

Today is  big though.  The Canes play Pittsburgh tonight here in Raleigh.  I think they need to win.

There are a lot of other big games involving eastern conference teams tonight that affect our playoff hopes.  The teams we really need to LOSE are in bold.

• St. Louis vs. NY Islanders - Not all that important, as the Islanders are behind us, but I'd rather see St. Louis win this one.
• Boston vs. Philadelphia - we need Boston to lose.  In regulation.
• Tampa Bay vs. Toronto = Go Toronto!   Win it in regulation!
• Columbus bs. Atlanta = definately, go Columbus.  Win it in regulation!
• Florida vs. Colorado = Avalanche need to win in regulation.
• Calgary vs. Ottawa = Ottawa is out of reach, so I'm indifferent here.

I was impressed by the Canes last night, battling back from a 2-0 deficit to take the game to overtime.  I think they can build on that tonight in front of the home crowd and beat the Penguins.

Seriously.  Technically speaking it's not.  When the Canes went on that 14 game losing streak early in the season, they were mostly healthy as I recall.  Then, as the fatigue of losing set in, they got hurt, and that certainly didn't help.

But then, on January 20, Eric Staal was named captain.  Since then, the Canes are 13-4, which is made even more impressive because the Canes are 8-1 since Cam Ward last played, giving up only 16 goals in those 9 games.

Clearly, it's not the same team.  Matt Cullen, Niclas Wallin, Aaron Ward, Scott Walker, Andrew Alberts, Joe Corvo, and Stephane Yelle are all gone.  6 of those were important parts of the regular lineup, including four of our top 6 defensemen.

But the  Canes are healthy now, and winning games, with timely offense and solid goaltending.

They can still make the playoffs too.

Yeah, I said that.

If you take the total number of points each team currently has, and you project their final totals based on the current number of games played for each team, you can see an approximation of the final standings and, more importantly, the final point totals.

As of today, this projection has Boston finishing in 7th place with 88 points, and Montreal in 8th place with 87 points.  So how do the Canes make the playoffs?  Finishing with 89 points would probably do it.

Some of you may argue that 89 points is never enough to get into the playoffs.  But the Eastern conference is weak this year.  Aside from Washington, who is well on their way to winning the President's Trophy (projected to have 121 points), the western conference is dominating.  Currently, the western conference teams have 1,125 points, compared to only 1,071 points for eastern conference teams.   This disparity, when combined with the dominance of Washington, means that the lower seeds will require less points than usual to get into the playoffs.

The Canes are currently at 61 points.  They need 28 more to get to 89 ponts, so that's either 14-3 or maybe 13-2-2 or something like that.

Yeah, it's unlikely.  But they're 13-4 in their last 17.  Whose to say they can't go 14-3 in their next 17?

Personally, I really can't afford to buy playoff tickets this year, so my wallet will thank them for not making it.

Go Canes!