NHL Playoff Scenarios a Plenty Coming Into Final Day

Thursday was certainly a big day for the NHL. All sixteen teams locked their place in the playoffs. However, there is still a lot of seeding to be determined in the teams' final games Saturday. All thirty teams will be in action for just the 4th time in NHL history. There are 29 potential first-round playoff series matchups. The talented folks at NHL.com put together this chart, so that you can easily see all of them. I will try and breakdown and explain some of the possible implications of Saturday's games.

The Presidents' Trophy is up for grabs. The St. Louis Blues (107 points) came into Friday trailing the Vancouver Canucks (109 points) and New York Rangers (109 points) for the lead. A win on Friday would make it a three-way tie with all three teams playing decisive games on Saturday. The tiebreaker is total wins, which means the Rangers hold the edge with 51. The winner gets guaranteed home-ice advantage throughout the playoffs.

Blogger Update: The Phoenix Coyotes defeated the St. Louis Blues 4-1 Friday night. This eliminates the Blues from Presidents' Trophy contention. The Coyotes now lead the Pacific Division and have the correlated #3 seed.

With a win Friday, the Phoenix Coyotes would take the Pacific Division lead with 95 points. The Los Angeles Kings and San Jose Sharks are both in contention for the division title as well with 94 points heading into Saturday's games. On Thursday, the Kings beat the Sharks 6-5 in a shootout at home. On Saturday, the teams faceoff again in San Jose. The Coyotes play at the Minnesota Wild in their final game. The division winner will get the #3 seed for the playoffs and home ice for the first-round.

The Southeast Division title is still able to be won. The Florida Panthers have had the lead for awhile, but they saw their lead shrink to just two points when the Washington Capitals defeated them on Thursday. The Panthers play the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday, but are just 1-3-5 in their last nine games. The Capitals will win the division if they beat the New York Rangers on Saturday and the Panthers lose to the Hurricanes. These two teams are fighting for the pride that comes with the division title, the #3 seed in the Eastern Conference, and the first-round home ice that comes with it.