The Eastern Conference race is coming down to two playoff spots

The playoff picture in the Eastern Conference has been a nebulous mess pretty much all year, but now that teams have just a handful of games left in the regular season, it has begun to take on a more clear and distinct shape. In the Atlantic Division, the Tampa Bay Lightning, Buffalo Sabres, and Montreal Canadiens firmly occupy the top three spots, and the Boston Bruins‘ strong play of late has given them a stranglehold on the conference’s first wild card spot.

In the Metropolitan Division, only the Carolina Hurricanes and Pittsburgh Penguins have seperated themselves enough to confidently book their tickets for the postseason. That leaves the third playoff spot in the Metro and the second wild card spot still up for grabs, with as many as five teams realistically still vying for those last two slots.

On Monday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, hosts Tyler Yaremchuk and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton discussed the race for the remaining playoff spots in the Eastern Conference.

Tyler Yaremchuk: The Flyers have been getting much, much better goaltending as of late, and they are now firmly in the driver’s seat in the Eastern Conference to grab that third spot in the Metro. From there, Boston has pretty much all but locked up their spot in the playoffs. It’s looking like it’s now going to come down to Columbus, Detroit, the Islanders, or the Senators. Only one of those teams will get in. The Senators right now with 90 points, they have a game in hand on the Islanders as well, so the odds would tell you that if Ottawa can take care of business, they should be good. Their remaining games, they get Tampa, they have a head-to-head still against the Islanders, then they get Florida, Toronto, and New Jersey. So Ottawa’s the team in poll position, if you want to call it that for right now. But again, that head-to-head game, that’s basically going to be your season if you’re the New York Islanders. If you can beat the Senators when you play them head-to-head, you’re going to leapfrog them. Even though there’s game in hand, we can go back to the old line of “games in hand are only meaningful if you win them.”

You can catch the full discussion and the rest of Monday’s episode here…