Upcoming Must Win Games to make the playoffs

[hockey jedi]

Good read Josh. I'm already missing Blues hockey on Tuesday, but the boys have been competing hard. Hopefully this will recharge their batteries and they continue to play .800 hockey. Eleven on the seventeen games are against teams that have records worse than ours, and we've been playing well against better teams. Tall order to make the playoffs, but doable.

~~~

If the Blues make the playoffs, I would be so pumped !

After their sell off in 2023, I figured they’d miss the playoffs in 2023-24; and they did.

But if they make it back into the post season in 2024-25, I would be beside myself with disbelief and joy !

~~~

I'd be pumped to. I hate that feeling Blues hockey is over. Then, I can't wait for the draft. This feels to me like 2019. The Blues are playing smothering hockey against good teams. They players are playing for each other and doing the hard to do no fun things. BTW, I love Minnesota and their slump. I can't remember the year, but does anyone remember the Blues late swoon that we couldn't pull out of? It might be the Ryan Miller trade year.

[JoshInFenton]

3/10 Games:

Toronto @ Utah - 1 point for Utah. coulda been better, coulda been worse.

3/11 Games:

Colorado @ Minnesota - Minnesota wins. fancy that, colorado only losing games when they might help us.
Montreal @ Vancouver - Montreal does us a solid.

3/12 Games:

Vancouver @ Calgary - as long as the 3 point game is avoided their is benefit either way. Vancouver winning would be slightly more helpful.
Anaheim @ Utah - We'd prefer Anaheim, but also just rooting against 3 point game here too.
You could also root for Seattle to lose, but honestly i think they're long gone already.

3/13 Games:

Blues @ Pittsburgh - Must win game, honestly doesn't matter if Pittsburgh gets a point but we need the 2 here.
New York Rangers @ Minnesota - Given some recent points gained, i think this will say a lot as to whether or not the WC1 spot is up for grabs much longer. Minnesota needs to be at 85 points or less by 72 games played imo for there to be a legitimate shot of catching them, a win here would get them to 80 at 66.

[JoshInFenton]

3/12

Vancouver @ Calgary - Vancouver in OT, terrible outcome pretty much. would've taken either team with a clean regulation win over this.
Utah @ Anaheim - no 3 point game, but the team closer to contention for the WC2 spot won.

3/13

Blues @ Pittsbrugh - Binner the bed in this one, blues lose (he made the hard saves, the easy ones he wiffed).
New York Ranger @ Minnesota - Rangers currently lead this one with a few minutes left in the 2nd.

3/14

Colorado @ Calgary - We need Colorado to win this one pretty bad. Need to have some help to make up for our lack of capitalization on the Pittsburgh result.
Utah @ Seattle - Utah now being right up tied with us, we need Seattle to do what Pittsburgh did to us.

[callitwhatyouwant]

I’m predicting it’s going to take 12 wins or 24 points however you scratch them. Tonight doesn’t change anything except the fact that the back to back this weekend has to be won. Before it was fine giving up 1, now you have to gut that out.

Bummer Binner laid a stinker. First one in like 9 games. Bad timing as the blues dominated. But, like a poster said before. Binner is best in the league the last 2 years when tied. Which indicates he’s terrible playing from behind. Giving up a softy early indicates the floodgates coming unless the team responds quickly which we failed to do

[hockey jedi]

The Blues lost some drive after being off a couple of days, but it did help them recharge the batteries. I expect a quick rebound. I had the Pittsburg game as a must win. However, the loss is tolerable because the Blues have been playing well against teams from the third paragraph in the original post. As callitwhatyouwant says, the Blues have to win both games this weekend.

[dhsux]

Frustrating game and yes JB was not on his game but geeez so many missed opportunities to score.

Lots of good in this game but in the end you have to bury the biscuit.

2 points lost that should have been gained.

[hockey jedi]

I would say today against Minn is pretty important, if not a must win, due to giving 2 points to Pittsburgh the other night.

[TheJackBurton]

Well yesterday went quite well.

Both Utah and Calgary lost their games so the loss to Pitt doesn't sting as bad.

[JoshInFenton]

Power is back on, and minus some pieces of paint/wood from the surface of the deck and some siding dings we're ready to resume.

3/14

Colorado @ Calgary - Colorado did us a solid and gave Calgary a regulation L.
Utah @ Seattle - Seattle also took down Utah in regulation, meaning they don't jump ahead of us just yet.

3/15

STL @ Minnesota - We've been really bad against Minnesota for the last two seasons, this would be a REALLY good time to start a streak of wins against them. While a regulation win would be nice, even an OT win is helpful.
Chicago @ Vancouver - Not expecting the world of chicago here, but if they can even limit vancouver to 1 point i'd consider that a W for us.

3/16

Anaheim @ STL - this i consider a must win. I know we'll be playing the 3rd game in 4 nights, but this is a team we should be beating still.
Utah @ Vancouver - Honestly, as long as this isn't a 3 point game it's an ok result. probably would lean towards Utah being the better team to have win this one, but i think it's a marginal edge, i think that vancouver is going to get caught by utah at some point.

[TheJackBurton]

Power is back on, and minus some pieces of paint/wood from the surface of the deck and some siding dings we're ready to resume.

3/14

Colorado @ Calgary - Colorado did us a solid and gave Calgary a regulation L.
Utah @ Seattle - Seattle also took down Utah in regulation, meaning they don't jump ahead of us just yet.

3/15

STL @ Minnesota - We've been really bad against Minnesota for the last two seasons, this would be a REALLY good time to start a streak of wins against them. While a regulation win would be nice, even an OT win is helpful.
Chicago @ Vancouver - Not expecting the world of chicago here, but if they can even limit vancouver to 1 point i'd consider that a W for us.

3/16

Anaheim @ STL - this i consider a must win. I know we'll be playing the 3rd game in 4 nights, but this is a team we should be beating still.
Utah @ Vancouver - Honestly, as long as this isn't a 3 point game it's an ok result. probably would lean towards Utah being the better team to have win this one, but i think it's a marginal edge, i think that vancouver is going to get caught by utah at some point.

I say we want Utah to win in regulation as they will have played the same amount of games as us. With Vancouver staying one game back of us we need them to start racking up losses.

Especially if they win tonight and take the WC lead.

[hockey jedi]

We have one game left against Vancouver and Utah, who are in the second wildcard hunt. Absolutely no three point games. Obviously those are must win four-point games, meaning you gain two points on each team and eliminate one game for them to get points. = 4 points

You have to win your games against lesser opponents. We have three games against Nashville and single games against Anaheim, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Chicago and Montreal. = 16 points out of 16 possible

Then we need to play .500 hockey and no three point games in the two games against Colorado, and single games against Detroit, Edmonton, and Winnipeg. = 4 points out of 10 possible

That gives us 95 points and puts us knocking at the door.

[hockey jedi]

We have one game left against Vancouver and Utah, who are in the second wildcard hunt. Absolutely no three point games. Obviously those are must win four-point games, meaning you gain two points on each team and eliminate one game for them to get points. = 4 points

You have to win your games against lesser opponents. Three point games against these teams are okay. We have three games against Nashville and single games against Anaheim, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Chicago and Montreal. = 16 points out of 16 possible

Then we need to go 3-0-1 (and three point games are okay against these teams) in the two games against Colorado, and single games against Detroit, Edmonton, and Winnipeg. = 7 points out of 10 possible

Revised 03/15/2025: That gives us 98 points and puts us knocking at the door. That's a 13-1-1 clip, Unlikely, but this might have a fault tolerance for one extra loss and ending up with 96 points.

[hockey jedi]

Man, I wish Irish Blue still posted here. He always did a nice chart down the stretch, but we ran him off. After tonight, the wildcard standings will probably look like this:

Vancouver 73 points
Calgary 71 points
St. Louis 71 points
Utah 69 points

Projecting the games through March 31st assigning losses against teams with better records and wins against teams with worse records.

Vancouver: Utah-W, Winnipeg-L, St. Louis-W, NYR-W, New Jersey-L, NYI-W, Columbus-W, Winnipeg-L 5W 3L 10 points 83 total
Calgary: Toronto-L, NYR-L, New Jersey-L, NYI-W, Seattle-W, Dallas-L, Edmonton-L, Colorado-L 2W 6L 4 points 75 total
St. Louis: Anaheim-W, Nashville-W, Vancouver-L, Chicago-W, Nashville-W, Montreal-OTL, Nashville-W, Colorado-L 5W 2L 1OTL 11 points 82 total
Utah: Vancouver-L, Edmonton-L, Buffalo-W, Tampa Bay-L, Detroit-W, Tampa Bay-L, Florida-L, Chicago-W 3W 5L 6 points 75 points

I know sports don't work like this. However, if this did go true to course, Utah and Calgary would have a difficult climb with Vancouver and the Blues competing for the second wildcard by month end.

[Russdv14]

4-1 Vancouver late in the 3rd period Sat night

Looks like 2 more points for the Canuckleheads

[JoshInFenton]

We likely have more leeway than is realized. it's still not a ton, but 10 wins down the stretch puts them in the window of plausible playoff outcome this year with how mediocre the line of teams are and how they are all trending right at that 91-95 point pace.

Vancouver's recent trend has them finishing at 91-93 points.
Calgary's recent trend has them finishing at 91-93 points.
Utah recent trend has them finishing at the same exact window.
Minnesota's is the one not seen that might be in trouble here tbh.

Since we did the rest of the projections elsewhere, lets just put the next 7 games into perspective for Minnesota.

Monday - LAK - not an easy matchup. probably an L.
Wednesday - Seattle - are playing better in the last 10-12 games than Minnesota
Saturday - Sabres - the only real lightweight on the schedule.
Monday - @ Stars - Stars are loads better than them.
Tuesday - Las Vegas - Vegas is better than them and it's the 2nd of a back to back.
Thursday - Washington - Another really tough matchup.
Saturday - Devils - at minimum these two teams are equal.

With 3 games against nashville, 1 against the ducks, 1 against montreal, 1 against the canucks, and 1 against the blackhawks, I think 11 points, or 5-1-1, is at least doable for the blues in that same stretch roughly. Minnesota might have to fight to get 6.

Would then put

Wild: 85 Points
Blues: 82 Points

With 8 games left (blues would play that game on the saturday that minnesota plays the devils), that would put Minnesota in a really scary spot. The schedule really evens out at that point so it may still not happen, but it's tough to diagnose what teams out of it or decisively in it will do in the last 3-4 games.

[JoshInFenton]

3/15

STL @ Minnesota - Blues win by a reasonable margin, so a nice 2 points.
Chicago @ Vancouver - I didn't expect Chicago to win, so not surprising to see Vancouver also collect 2 points.

3/16

Anaheim @ STL - this i consider a must win. I know we'll be playing the 3rd game in 4 nights, but this is a team we should be beating still.
Utah @ Vancouver - No 3 point game. slightly hoping for Utah to win more than Vancouver, but as long as no 3 point game it's only marginally worse for Vancouver to win.

3/17

Calgary @ Toronto - Hoping Toronto wins, would begin to push Calgary off the pace.
LA @ Minnesota - Hoping LA wins, they are long gone and not a team we can catch whereas Minnesota is still struggling to keep pace without their star forward and 2 other key pieces.

Calgary despite the games in hand is in a rough spot schedule wise. They're going to need a run of 4-5 games in a row against teams in the playoffs solid or they're likely to fade into the upper 80's finish wise.