The NHL’s Western Conference playoff race is an extremely hotly-contested one, but there’s one team that sits far and away above the rest of the pack; the 36-11-9 Vancouver Canucks.
The Canucks sit not only ahead of the West, but the entire NHL with a nine-point cushion separating themselves from the West’s No. 2-seeded Detroit Red Wings. On Saturday night, the feared Canucks won yet again, in a 4-2 affair over the Calgary Flames.
With the loss, the surging Flames fell, temporarily at least, out of the picture as the Minnesota Wild won their own Saturday night showdown and moved into eighth. The proximity of all the teams in the West (just six points separate the 3rd from 11th seed) helps put Vancouver’s success this year into perspective. If that doesn’t work, their +57 goal differential ought to do the trick.
According to Bodog’s online sportsbook, the Canucks have a league-best 4/1 odds of winning the Stanley Cup this summer. If they can continue to get solid production out of their Roberto Luongo/Cory Schneider goalie tandem and an offense that currently leads all teams with 190 goals for, expect them to stay at the top of the pile until the postseason rolls around.
Think the Canucks can make good on their inevitable home-ice advantage in the playoffs? The club will be gunning for its first appearance in the Stanley Cup finals since the 1994 season and their first title in franchise history. The club fell in the second round in each of the past two seasons, will this be the year they finally make that historic run?
If their play all season is indication, it very well may be.