5. New York Islanders – 91<\/p>\n
Columbus, Washington and the New York Islanders are all hunting down Philadelphia for the No. 3 spot in the Metropolitan Division.<\/p>\n
The Blue Jackets, Capitals and Islanders can’t qualify as wild-card teams. Ottawa and Boston secured their postseason berths as wild-card squads on Saturday. <\/p>\n
Sunday is a critical day for the chasing pack in the Metro. Washington is at home to a Pittsburgh squad that rested its veterans on Saturday, Columbus hosts Boston and the Islanders are on home ice against Montreal. <\/p>\n
The Islanders have the trickiest of the three games because the Canadiens are still in the mix for a top-two spot in the Atlantic. <\/p>\n
Any losses by that trio helps the Flyers’ cause. The Flyers can clinch a playoff spot with a win on Monday combined with a Columbus defeat on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Buffalo and Tampa Bay have the inside track to the top two spots in the Atlantic. The Sabres should beat Chicago on Monday and they should get a Dallas team resting players on Wednesday. The Lightning face two eliminated sides to conclude the regular season.<\/p>\n
The Canadiens seem destined for third in the Atlantic because they face the Islanders and Flyers. <\/p>\n
Ottawa should claim the top wild-card spot and avoid Carolina in the first round. The Sens finish with New Jersey and Toronto and they enter Sunday on a four-game winning streak.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"5. New York Islanders – 91 Columbus, Washington and the New York Islanders are all hunting down Philadelphia…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":674148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2288],"tags":[5,2328,2304,4,2305,2303],"class_list":{"0":"post-674147","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb-postseason","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-major-league-baseball-playoffs","10":"tag-major-league-baseball-postseason","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-mlb-playoffs","13":"tag-mlb-postseason"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116392195848394185","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=674147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/674148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=674147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=674147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=674147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}