How the Eastern Conference playoff race raised the bar

Back in February, it appeared the Eastern Conference would wind up the 2010-11 regular season much as it had begun. There were a few elite teams, a couple clubs in, shall we say, “rebuild” mode, and a whole lot of mediocrity in between. That is until about a dozen games ago, when the teams battling for those last few spots above the cut-line became very hot.

Four so-called “bubble” teams, led by some solid goaltending, found an entirely new level of their games, thus raising the bar for all of them, as they made the push to reach the playoffs. Looking at the last 30 games for each team, particularly the records of the Buffalo Sabres and Toronto Maple Leafs, we can see how competitive they made this run.

The Rangers have sustained a playoff position for most of the season, and similarly the Hurricanes have hovered in 9th place since the fall. The Sabres and the Leafs were the upstarts who crashed the party, (leaving aside the collapse of the Atlanta Thrashers since the new year, which is enough a whole 'nother story). Take a look at the comparison of records of these four teams before and after the All Star Break.

Team		Games 1-50				Standings		Games 51-80				Standings
		W	L	T	Pt%	as of 2/1/11		W	L	T	Pt%	as of 4/7/11
Buffalo		24	22	4	52%	51 pts/10th		17	7	6	66.7%	92 pts/7th
NY Rangers		28	19	3	59%	62 pts/ 6th		15	13	2	53.3%	91 pts/ 8th
Carolina		25	19	6	56%	56 pts/ 9th		14	11	5	55.0%	89 pts/ 9th
Toronto		21	25	5	47%	45 pts/ 12th		16	8	6	63.3%	85 pts/ 10th

The Rangers (currently in 8th place) and the Hurricane (in 9th), were consistent (and mediocre) from one side the All-Star weekend to the other. However, Buffalo, the winner of the Northeast Division last season, endured a terrible first-half before they turned it around with the new calendar year and moved from the bottom tier to the main floor. The Maple Leafs were coming off a lousy 2009-10 season that resulted in the horrific sight of their second overall pick last June going to the Boston Bruins, thanks to GM Brian Burke’s trade to acquire Phil Kessel. How sweet it is that, even after Burke made some more moves at the deadline including sending Tomas Kaberle to those same Bruins, we watched how an unlikely hero named James Reimer could raise the hopes of the Greater Toronto Area to levels unseen in recent memory.

As the Conference rankings started to fall into place in mid-March, it was these same four teams who challenged each other every night, putting together their best hockey of the season, especially when they played each other. Here are the overall records for these last 10 games when broken out.

Those few losses they suffered? Since March 15th, Buffalo and Carolina each lost to Toronto, while the Rangers and Carolina lost to Buffalo.

Team		Games 71-80
		W	L	T	Pt%
Buffalo		7	1	2	80%
NY Rangers		7	2	1	75%
Carolina		7	2	1	75%
Toronto		6	3	1	65%

Finally, take a look at what the 5 goaltenders were doing along the way, with another rookie, Jhonas Enroth answering the bell when Ryan Miller was injured in (where else?) Toronto. Every recap of these teams’ wins has included the winning goaltender as a difference maker. While Philadelphia’s conundrum in goal may in fact be part of their slide, going just 3-4-3 in their last 10, the confidence in Miller/Enroth, Lundqvist, Ward and Reimer has been easily the most key element to their teams strong records coming down the stretch.

Goaltenders, since February 1
	Starts	W	L	OTL	Pts %	Save%	Shutouts
Ryan Miller	24	12	8	4	58.3%	0.919	2
Jhonas Enroth	7	6	0	1	92.9%	0.926	1
Buffalo combined	31	18	8	5	66.1%		3
Henrik Lundqvist (NYR)	26	14	10	2	57.7%	0.921	4
Cam Ward (CAR)	29	14	10	5	56.9%	0.928	2
James Reimer (TOR)	27	16	6	5	68.5%	0.919	3

It is said that by Dec. 1 in any given NHL season, those teams in the “Top 8” of the conference standings are highly likely to be the same eight that earn a spot in the playoffs come April. Buffalo appears close to clinching a spot and proving an exception to the rule. Carolina has some momentum but needs to win out and a loss from the Rangers to be the second to break through.

Perhaps the best story of all is how Toronto gave both Carolina and Buffalo more than they could handle this spring, beating both teams twice down the stretch. (They had finished their series with the Rangers by January.) Yes, they fell short, but the club seems to have turned a corner toward greater optimism and establishing a team identity based on youthful exuberance and scrappy play that bodes well for the future.

With all the complaints about Eastern Conference mediocrity, the battles in the middle of the pack this season have brought a level of intensity and excitement that has forced all the teams to play better, work harder, and display tremendous resilience. They’ve gotten all these from some unlikely personnel on the ice and, let’s not leave out, their coaches who may have bought themselves some time from their most demanding and critical fans.

With some of the higher-ranked teams struggling as the regular season winds down, these challenges to the bottom half of the brackets may turn out to be just what the lower seeds needed to force them to find a higher level of play. Will it have made them tough to beat once the playoff series begin or have they overspent both physically and mentally? What’s left in the tank? We’ll know soon enough.

Photo credit: Getty Images