Which Teams will not be making the Playoffs and Why -NHL Special Part 1
It is definitely not easy to tell which teams in the National Hockey League (NHL) might be making the playoffs irrespective of the fact where they stand in the start or even midway through the regular season.
A number of teams which led their respective conferences, have now fallen down to the lowest depths of the league and finding a way to save themselves from being ousted from postseason glory just seems close to impossible now.
We will be mentioning some of the teams that now, have now chances of making the 2012 NHL playoffs at all, along with what went wrong for them.
Columbus Blue Jackets
It is yet another season when the Columbus Blue Jackets remain out of the playoffs and certainly have said it themselves that they have lost all hope this time around.
Seeing why they are where they are now is not easy since at one point, Columbus was expected to boom with their offseason superstar acquisitions, but have once again, fallen to the lowest spot in the league at number 30.
Columbus is number 15 in the Western Conference with only 53 points, 13 below their 14th place counterparts, Edmonton Oilers and 16 behind Eastern Conference 15th place team, Montreal Canadiens.
With players like Jeff Carter from the Philadelphia Flyers and James Wisniewski, Columbus was ready to rock a revolutionary season for the franchise but ended up where they were a year ago.
It forced them to trade Carter to Los Angeles Kings to open up some salary cap space and will eventually have to send off the face of their organisation, Rick Nash, as he too is demanding a trade to pursue a better career with someone else.
These moves will eventually make Columbus a team with a huge salary cap space and it will definitely be exciting to see what they do with the money during the long offseason they will have to endure.
Montreal Canadiens
The Montreal Canadiens might still have hope of making the playoffs with just a 10 point deficit from the final playoff spot, but looking at their lack of consistency, it is safe to say their dreaming an impossible reality.
Other teams will also be working towards securing their positioning and even though Montreal wins all their upcoming games, it would still be extremely difficult to make it back on time.
It was not always like this though. Montreal was doing good last season and went into the playoffs at number eight, but why a huge setback just a year later, it is easy to see that the same question has been boggling around in their mind as well.
Team chemistry has always been an issue for the Canadiens. At some moments, it just seems the team is unable to play in harmony amongst themselves and find it hard to communicate properly during matchups. This also cost their former coach his job and now
with ex-Anaheim Ducks head coach, Randy Carlyle, in the seat, things have not changed at all.
It would not be surprising to see Montreal making some huge changes in their line-up during the offseason as it seems to be the last resort for the Canadiens at this moment in time if they hope on getting back into the playoff rankings next time.
Acquiring some solid leadership should be their goal and with Rick Nash set to be on the open market, Montreal might just be a frontrunner for the captain.
To be continued in part 2....
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own and in no way represent Bettor.com's official editorial policy.
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