The Flames host the Minnesota Wild tonight at the 'Dome, and will be aiming for their record 10th consecutive home win (7PM MT, RSN West). Above (click to enlarge) is three different expressions of the Northwest Division standings, which I don't imagine need too much in the way of explanation. The left is the real standings; the centre shows all shootout results as ties; and the right shows all regulation ties as ties.


For all three, W% is % of possible points earned. The fourth table here at the left is the same as the third, but with W% shown simply as Wins/GP. I don't begrudge Minnesota their success in extra time at all, but it is interesting, and it's also hard to believe that this pace (in OT/SO) is sustainable, the Rolston Rocket notwithstanding.

Last note on this topic: you see how in Table #3, there's a 10.2% gap between EDM and COL? There's actually no other team in the conference in that gap either; ranking the whole conference in the same way, CGY is 6th, EDM is 7th, and COL is 8th.

Injuries are a big wild card (as are trades), and sometimes teams simply improve (or start to suck). But what it looks like right now is that there are 7 Western Conference teams (including the Flames and Oilers) that are perceptibly better than the other 8 (including the Wild). I know it's easy (everybody's doing it!) to predict that the NW Division will stay tight all season, but I just don't see it. It looks to me like there are 7 at the top, 7 at the bottom, and the Wild -- who will either improve their regulation play with the returns of Demitra and (eventually) Gaborik and thus join the top group, or they will not... in other words, I don't see a dogfight in April for the bottom few seeds in the WC; I see either a fight for 8th, or all teams mathematically clinching their spots with a week or so left in the sked.

Of course, after all that, I know where tonight's game is going. There's a regrettably, but considerable, likelihood that most of the Flames have mentally already headed out on their 6-game road trip; yes folks, it's a Classic Trap Game^TM!!! Call it anti-karma, but I'm picking a disgusting, boring, agonizing, frustrating, 2-0 Calgary loss. I really hope I'm wrong, i.e., Go Flames.

Postscript: sometimes I miss Darryl Sutter's grunting. The Herald game preview has a quote from Coach Playfair that sounds like it was ripped out of a Dilbert cartoon:

"It's not about looking at the bottom end and saying we're this close to not being there. It's about pushing ourselves to make a push for first place. And doing it right away."

Who is responsible for discouraging Jim Playfair from speaking English? I want answers.

AH-NUTS-TO-THAT UPDATE, 130PM: I see that Warrener and Zyuzin are both out for tonight's game, and Yelle/Nilson are still out, meaning Richie Regehr, Mark Giordano, and Tomi Maki are all in the lineup. They might lose, but none of the veterans are thinking cakewalk now -- no Trap Game. I'm changing my prediction to call for a statistically-most-probable 3-1 Win. Hah! And, Go Flames.