Trailing the New York Rangers by two points for the eighth and final Eastern Conference playoff spot, the Carolina Hurricanes face a lot of 'ifs' in their playoff hunt with two games remaining.
Let's not get into all the different permutations calculating the different ways Carolina can sneak past the Ranger with one or two wins in their final pair of regular-season games.
Just know that if the Canes and Rangers end their regular-seasons Saturday night with the same number of points, the following tiebreakers come into play:
- The team with more regulation/overtime wins will receive the higher conference ranking. Currently, the Canes and Rangers are tied with 34 apiece.
- The next tiebreaker would be points earned in head-to-head games. In that case, the nod goes to the Hurricanes who earned six points (2-0-2) to the Rangers’ four (2-2-0) in the teams’ four regular-season games.
The Rangers host the Atlanta Thrashers tonight (7 p.m., Versus) and close Saturday at home against the New Jersey Devils (12:30 p.m.).
Carolina is on the road Friday night against Atlanta (7:30 p.m., FSCR) and close their regular season at home Saturday night against the Tampa Bay Lightning (7 p.m., FSCR)
Assistant sports editor Lorenzo Perez has bounced back-and-forth between The News & Observer's news and sports department several times since joining the newspaper in 1999. His latest assignment has him working with The N&O's ACC writers and online news. E-mail
Comments
To quote the great....
Fri, 04/08/2011 - 09:56 — louis12580Al Davis "Just win baby." Oh, and to paraphrase him as well, "The Rangers must go down, and go down hard."
Well uh again.....
Fri, 04/08/2011 - 00:30 — Hockeydad92The Rangers have choked so it is in the Canes hands now. If they can finish (big if) they can play more than two more games. They have hand it in their hands a couple times already late this season and let it slip away so lets see if they can bring the same compete level from the Redwings game to the next two..
Canes control their destiny
Fri, 04/08/2011 - 00:29 — NCBuff_CaniacThanks Thrashers! Now the Canes have to play the Thrashers tomorrow night like they did against the Red Wings and win Friday night and at least equal what the Rangers do against the Devils on Saturday and we'll have to spend some $ on playoff tickets after all. Go Canes! Just Win, baby!
hmmm...........
Thu, 04/07/2011 - 16:15 — nicholswfuwhere exactly is the math?
Its the new math
Fri, 04/08/2011 - 09:48 — AN0NYM0US2 (Canes wins) + 1 (Ranger loss) = 6,000,000 (profit in $$ from 1st round of playoffs)
New Math Not So Simple
Fri, 04/08/2011 - 15:34 — robotron2084There may have been different reasons for it, but as I recall from a few years back, the Canes don't really make a lot of money on the playoffs until the later rounds. Not sure if that was because it was cancelled out by regular season losses or because the league takes a cut or both. Either way, it's certainly not all profit. In addition, the Canes have only a very modest price change for the playoffs, so they're certainly not cashing in on the opportunity as much as they potentially could have.
Still, it's much better than the guaranteed $0 for missing the playoffs.
And one last thought, no one really talks about revenue sharing anymore, so I strongly suspect the Canes haven't benefited from that feature of the CBA recently either.
Here's some math for you ;)
Fri, 04/08/2011 - 08:56 — LainiencAssuming an 82 game season and 90 point cutoff to get into the playoffs, the NHL rules awarding points for overtime losses could allow a team winning only 8 games in regulation with 74 overtime losses to get into 8th place in the playoffs. Not that such a team would generate much of a fan base and associated revenues, but theoretically valid.