Chirps from Center Ice

Took my lunch period today and ran records vs. remaining opponents for Connecticut,Wilkes-Barre, Hershey and Bridgeport in an attempt to figure out who finishes where in the Eastern Conference.

I previously crowned the Norfolk Admirals the East Division Champions. Let me go on record here and crown the St. John’sIceCaps as Atlantic Division Champions.

Now that that’s out of the way, Seeds 3 through 6 are still up for grabs. Northeast Division winner gets the 3 seed. That is either going to be Connecticut or Bridgeport. I am projecting Connecticut as the winner of this race. Here’s the table, teams current points are in parenthesis:

You have in-division four point games in there as well. Bridgeport plays Connecticut once more. Hershey and Wilkes-Barre play each other once more as well.

It would appear at least to me that Connecticut has the Northeast Division locked up. Bridgeport has lost its last five straight. I’m not considering Manchester in seventh because they’ve played two more games than the Sound Tigers and sit three points back.

Put this together and what do you have? Potentially a very interesting final weekend of the regular season, is what. The Penguins play a home and home vs. Bridgeport. By that time, all of the above are likely in playoffs and just jostling for seeding. If the Penguins win, they can’t help their seeding, so do they tank to let Bridgeport leapfrog Hershey and get the Sound Tigers in Round One? Personally I don’t see it and it really is asinine for me to suggest, but it makes you wonder.

Elsewhere…

Penguins can trim their magic number from the comfort of their couch cheering for the Rochester Americans to beat the Syracuse Crunch in regulation tonight. An Amerks regulation win trims the Penguins magic number from 8 to 6. An Amerks OT or SO win makes it 7. Any win by the Crunch keeps it at 8.*

Jonathan Bombulie mopped up the Steve MacIntyre madness from two weekends ago with Steve’s thoughts. Quite interesting.

Let’s Go Pens!

* – I think