On Tap<\/p>\n
There are three games on the\u00a0NHL schedule Wednesday, all with playoff implications:<\/p>\n
Vancouver\u00a0Canucks at Colorado Avalanche (8:30 p.m. ET; ALT, SN, TVAS)<\/p>\n
The Avalanche (49-14-10), the team with the most points in the\u00a0NHL (108), can move closer to locking up first place in the Central Division and winning the Presidents’ Trophy with a win against the Canucks (21-44-8), who are last in the League with 50 points, at Ball Arena. Colorado has won five of six, including 9-2 against the Calgary Flames on Monday, when the it scored five times in the first period and went 3-for-4 on the power play. The Avalanche lead the Dallas Stars by eight points in the race for first in the division and in the overall NHL standings. In addition, Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon<\/a>\u00a0will try to keep pace in the race for the Art Ross Trophy as the League’s leading scorer. MacKinnon, who had a goal and two assists against the Flames, is third in the League with 120 points behind Connor McDavid<\/a> (125) and Nikita Kucherov<\/a>\u00a0(121).<\/p>\n St. Louis Blues at Los Angeles Kings (9\u00a0p.m. ET; FDSNMW, FDSNW)<\/p>\n The Kings (29-26-18) can jump into the second wild card from the Western Conference before facing the team they’re currently trailing by a point, the Nashville Predators, on Thursday. They haven’t played since Saturday, when they lost 6-2 to the Utah Mammoth, and have two wins in their past eight games (2-3-3). The Blues (31-31-11) need a win to keep up in the crowded Western Conference wild-card race after losing 5-4 to the Sharks on Monday. They’re four points behind the Predators with the Kings, Seattle\u00a0Kraken, Sharks and Winnipeg Jets all ahead of them too. St. Louis went 10-2-2 in March to get back into the playoff race but will fall further behind with a loss in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n Anaheim Ducks at San Jose Sharks (9\u00a0p.m. ET; HBO MAX, truTV, TNT)<\/p>\n The Sharks (34-31-7) have a chance to take advantage of a game in hand and potentially move into a playoff position with a win against the Ducks (41-28-5), who are first in the Pacific Division. San Jose is two points behind Nashville for the second wild card and one point behind the Kings. A win against Anaheim at SAP Center coupled with a loss of any kind for Los Angeles will move San Jose into the second wild-card position by the end of the night. The Sharks have a game in hand on the Kings and two on the Predators. The Ducks can move closer to clinching first in the division with a win. They’re two points ahead of the second-place Edmonton Oilers with a game in hand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Tap There are three games on the\u00a0NHL schedule Wednesday, all with playoff implications: Vancouver\u00a0Canucks at Colorado Avalanche…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":535211,"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-535210","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\/116330979870637413","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535210","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=535210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}