The Vancouver Canucks can take another step towards clinching first place in the Pacific Division tonight.
Vancouver has a five-point lead on the Edmonton Oilers, but Connor McDavid and company have two games in hand. Speaking of McDavid, it looks like he’ll miss tonight’s game in Edmonton against the Vegas Golden Knights due to a minor injury.
Both the Canucks and Oilers technically control their own destiny because they play each other on Saturday.
The magic number for the Canucks to clinch is now seven.
Any combination of points gained by Vancouver and points lost by Edmonton the rest of the way equalling out to seven will clinch the playoff berth for the Canucks — provided that they don’t lose the tiebreaker.
The Canucks (42) have a huge edge in regulation wins, which is the first tiebreaker, over Edmonton (37). The second tiebreaker is regulation or overtime wins (ROW), and the Canucks (48) have the edge over the Oilers (45) there as well.
A Canucks win against the Arizona Coyotes tonight, coupled with an Oilers regulation loss to Vegas, would drop the magic number to three. If Edmonton were to lose a second straight game in regulation Friday against Arizona, the magic number would drop to one.
That means that the soonest the Canucks could clinch first place is Saturday, though everything would need to break their way for that to happen.
The Canucks have just four games left, against Arizona (tonight), Edmonton (April 13), Calgary (April 16), and Winnipeg (April 18). Edmonton, by contrast, has six games left: Vegas (tonight), Arizona (April 12), Vancouver (April 13), San Jose (April 15), Arizona (April 17), and Colorado (April 18).
It’s been 11 years since the Canucks last won their division. Edmonton hasn’t won a division title since 1987.
Just what prize will be waiting for the Pacific Division winner remains to be seen. If the playoffs started today, the Canucks would play Nashville in the first round and the Oilers would play Los Angeles.
But a lot can change between now and the end of next week. Vegas is currently holding down the final wild-card spot, but they could still leapfrog the Predators and/or Kings.