Sunday, April 06, 2008

The Off-Season

College basketball and CBJ Hockey are both wrapping up this weekend. Just in time for yardwork, I guess. I'll catch an occasional NHL playoff game and let that tide me over until the Olympics. As infrequent as they are anyway, sports references will dry up considerably on Blue Bexley for the next several months. By the time college football starts up again, the political campaigns will be in full swing, so there won't be much until after October. I'll do one last bit of moaning, though...

A couple of weeks ago I wrote that if the CBJ played as well as Nashville the rest of the way, they could make the playoffs. I received email mocking that assertion, and the fact that the Jackets are not going to finish among the top 12 in the West, let alone the top 8, would seem to validate the mockery. Just for the sake of argument, however, let's examine the wonderful world of what-if... The Predators have gone 5-2-1 since I made that post, including two wins over Columbus. If Columbus were the better team down the stretch, even by a bit, Nashville should have gone at best 3-2-3 over the last eight (changing two regulation wins over the CBJ to OT losses), leaving them with 89 points on the year. The Blue Jackets have gone 1-6-1 over that same period. If they had played just better than the Preds (an identical 3-2-1 against the same competition, plus 2 OT wins against Nashville for 5-2-1), they'd be sitting at 88 points with one game remaining. Assuming Calgary hangs on against Vancouver (4-1 after two as I write), we'd be looking at a three-way tie for 9th, with Columbus making the playoffs with a victory over St. Louis and any type of a loss by Chicago vs. Detroit.

So it appears 6-2-1 over the final 9 might well have done it, as long as 2 of the 6 were against the Preds. Tough to do when you're starting a roster full of minor-leaguers, but still...

1 comment:

Ben said...

No baseball?