Penguins had their game start at 1 and Carolina is playing in Washington at 5, so the scoreboard watching is a little off today. Anyways, doesn't matter because there are games today that really matter, so here they are:
- PIT vs. TBL: game's actually already done. Pittsburgh won 6-3 after a rather penalty filled game. In the sense that top players were tossed from the game and Vincent Lecavalier, captain of the Tampa Bay Lightning, accrued as many penalty minutes in one fight as Matt Cooke has all season long as far. Wow. That says something. More importantly for the Penguins, this ends their losing streak with a Malkin natural hat trick to end the game. This win temporarily brings the Penguins into 7th place, leap frogging Washington and Toronto BUT Washington plays at 5, so the standings are temporary. The worst that could happen is that Washington wins and Pittsburgh drops down to 8th.
- CAR vs. WSH: in a game that surprised a lot of people, Carolina WON last night against Boston, which brought them up to 13th. A win in this game will push them up to 12th, ahead of Montreal while an overtime loss would keep them in 13th. Washington winning would have them in 7th, leaping over Toronto and Pittsburgh while an overtime loss would bring to 8th, ahead of the Leafs.
- NYR vs. MTL: the best team in the East versus the 12th team in the East. This will be interesting because both teams played last night. The Rangers won while the Canadiens lost. The weird thing is that regardless of whether each team wins or loses, they don't go anywhere in the standings BUT Montreal needs to be worried because if they lose and Carolina wins, they now drop down to 13th, probably the worst they've been in the last few seasons.
- SJS vs. CHI: San Jose may or may not have anything to worry about since they've only played 41 games and already have 55 points and are on top of the Pacific division BUT the next closest Pacific division rival is actually only 3 points behind, so maybe they'll want to win this game. Chicago currently sits 4th in the West after losing yesterday's game to Detroit, but a win or an overtime loss will give them more points than St. Louis, which moves them into 2nd in the West, again.
- LAK vs. EDM: LA winning will keep them in 7th place, losing the tiebreaker to Nashville because they've played more games than Nashville but have the same number of points. Edmonton winning will give them 38 points but that doesn't move them out of the bottom of the West (hurray to being 13th in the West!)
- ANA vs. VAN: Vancouver will (or should be) motivated to win this game because them winning this game will give some separation from the 2nd place team in the West (the Central division leader). Anaheim winning and Edmonton losing will move them into 13th place and some motion of actually going somewhere (hey optimism!). A loss or anything other than a win will keep them in 14th.