2. New York Islanders – 89<\/p>\n
Saturday’s results shifted around the dynamic of the Eastern Conference wild-card race. <\/p>\n
The New York Islanders shot up to second place in the Metropolitan Division, a move that dropped the Columbus Blue Jackets down into the second wild-card spot. <\/p>\n
Columbus is one point ahead of the Ottawa Senators and Detroit Red Wings. <\/p>\n
The Philadelphia Flyers beat Detroit on Saturday to move three points off the final wild-card spot. <\/p>\n
The Washington Capitals are hanging on as well with a four-point gap to make up to Columbus. <\/p>\n
Columbus plays the Boston Bruins on Sunday in a game that could turn the wild-card race in another direction if the Blue Jackets win.<\/p>\n
Columbus has lost three of the last four and it faces a tough schedule down the stretch that features two games versus the Carolina Hurricanes. All but one of its games come against teams in playoff positions, or in the playoff race.<\/p>\n
Philadelphia has a brutal week ahead. It hosts the Dallas Stars on Sunday on the second leg of a back-to-back. Then, the Flyers face the Caps, Red Wings, Islanders and Bruins. <\/p>\n
Ottawa seems poised on paper to claim a wild-card spot because it has a five-game homestand that starts on Thursday. It also closes the regular season with the New Jersey Devils and Toronto Maple Leafs, both of whom are out of the postseason picture.<\/p>\n
At the top of the conference, the Tampa Bay Lightning could be in position to claim the No. 1 seed in the Atlantic Division. They play four straight at home and then visit the Buffalo Sabres on April 6. Buffalo needs to be near-perfect in the next week to avoid a drop from the top spot.<\/p>\n
Ottawa (WC2) vs. Carolina (Metropolitan 1)<\/p>\n
Boston (WC1) vs. Tampa Bay (Atlantic 1)<\/p>\n
Pittsburgh vs. New York Islanders<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"2. New York Islanders – 89 Saturday’s results shifted around the dynamic of the Eastern Conference wild-card race.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532261,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[463,464],"tags":[5,4,60,14,104,718],"class_list":{"0":"post-532260","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl-playoffs","8":"category-stanley-cup-playoffs","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-nhl-playoffs","12":"tag-stanley-cup","13":"tag-stanley-cup-playoffs","14":"tag-stanley-cup-playoffs-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116321845473760555","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}