Hawks-Wild battle for home ice

Four of the five Midwest based National Hockey League teams should be involved in the final dance this season but it will be the end of an era with the Detroit Red Wings on the sidelines for the first time in 26 years.

It’s a tough way to wrap up the final season at the Joe Louis Arena but not totally surprising as the Wings dropped closer and closer to the elimination line in recent seasons.

On the other side — the battle for top spot in the West Conference should be a dog fight between a pair of Central Division rivals who both need to be considered legit Stanley Cup contenders.

Chicago Black Hawks

Record as of March 15  (69 Games Played) 44-20-5; 93 points; 1st place in Central Division.

The Hawks are the masters of getting hot at the right time and they appear to be getting into the playoff mode with nine wins in its past 11 games, including seven straight. That was broken up by back to back losses against Anaheim and the Red Wings, but the Hawks rebounded with a vital 4-2 win in its final meeting of the regular season against the Minnesota Wild this week.

Key Deadline Pickups — The Hawks returned a familiar face on trade deadline day as Johnny Oduya will give the team a little more defensive depth once again. The team is already loaded on the blue line with the likes of Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook and Niklas Hjalmarsson so they don’t need a lot of minutes from Oduya. He is an underrated shutout defender though and has already hoisted some Cups with the Hawks. The team gave up minor league forward prospect Mark McNeill and a conditional fourth round pick in 2018 to Dallas in return to the defenseman.

The Hawks also added a bit of a project in Tomas Jurco. The 24-year-old Slovakian forward has found it hard to stick in Detroit, playing just 16 games with the Wings this season and now another half dozen with the Hawks. He has yet to add to his 39 NHL points total this season. He does perhaps though give the BlackHawks an option if injuries occur in the post season.

Key Games ahead — There really are none. The Hawks are basically done with division rivals for this season — of course collecting two points against any team is tough at this point of the season.

Minnesota Wild

Record of as March 15 (68 Games Played) 43-19-6; 92 points; 2nd place in Central Division.

Despite some rough play of late –losses in four of its past five game, including that key 4-2 defeat against the BlackHawks, the Wild are right there with the Hawks again and could still surge back into top spot, a position it has held for most of the second half of this season. There is some urgency for the Wild who have definitely made it clear it intends to make a long playoff run this season. The BlackHawks continue to be the team’s nemesis and it remains to be seen if it can finally get by the Windy City crew in a best of seven series yet. Key Wild players are now north of 30 years old and while the window appears wide open at this time, it seems important to finally get into the later rounds now.

Key Deadline Pickups — Just one, but it was a biggie. Martin Hanzal was certainly not brought in because of his great playoff experiences, having played for the Coyotes for the past decade, but he is a proven goal scorer and the Wild hope he will help it come up with the big goal when necessary. The Wild showed how important this addition was, surrendering its first round pick as well as next season’s second rounder and a conditional fourth round pick in 2019 as well as Grayson Downing, a 24-year-old forward prospect for Hanzal, Ryan White and a fourth round pick. Hanzal has contributed four assists in seven games since the trade and White has a goal and two helpers in that stretch as well.

Key Games ahead — Like the Hawks, the Wild have no real key divisional match ups in front of it, but a game against the Washington Capitals on March 28 is at least interesting — Both teams appear to be in ‘now or never’ stages of development and this could be considered a possible Stanley Cup Series preview.

St. Louis Blues

Record as of March 15  (69 Games Played) 36-28-5; 77 points; 2nd and final Wild Card.

The Blues are one of the most perplexing outfits in the NHL this season, but find itself right in the playoff hunt — just two points behind the Nashville Predators in the Central Division and while it currently holds down the final Wild Card spot, the team seems to be playing its best hockey of the season at this point. The Blues are four points in front of the Los Angeles Kings, really the only other team in the West Conference with a shot at landing a playoff position. While that is far from comfortable, a four point margin is bigger than it seems at this point of the year.

Looking at its past 11 games, the Blues have been somewhat ordinary with a 5-6 record, but the teams is also 5-1 in its past six as it wraps up a three game West Coast trip at San Jose tonight (March 16).

Deadline moves — The Blues were within a couple of wins of qualifying for the Stanley Cup last season, but since then it has traded away its captain (David Backes), its playoff goaltending hero (Brian Elliott) and a key dressing room guy (Steve Ott) and then followed that up firing its coach in what was supposed to be a Swan Song final season.

More of that unexpected Twilight Zone stuff occurred on trade deadline day when the Blues dealt veteran defender Kevin Shattenkirk to the Washington Capitals. Now, this move was hardly a surprise as it appeared the Blues would need to deal the defenseman eventually to balance itself Salary Cap-wise. But, to this writer, the trade of Shattenkirk and minor league goaltender Pheonix Copley for 22-year-old forward prospect Zach Sanford and veteran Brad Malone along with the Caps’ first round pick and a second rounder in 2019 is the move of a team selling at the deadline. It tells the players that management doesn’t believe this is a season that the Blues have a chance to win it all. None of the moves the Blues have made since an awesome run last season make much sense here though.

Key Games Ahead — A game against the Calgary Flames — the other Wild Card team as of right now — seems interesting as both the Flames and Blues have done an about face on the season. The Flames in particular are red hot right now and of course this will once again pit Jake Allen against Brian Elliott against each other in what could be the biggest meeting of the season between these two teams.

Columbus Blue Jackets

Record as of March 15 (68 Games Played) 44-18-6; 94 points — 2nd in Atlantic Division

Coming off of a pair of horrendous seasons, the Blue Jackets wanted to get the 2016-17 season off to a strong start. That start has was amplified by a 16-game winning streak in the middle part of the season and now, with a 7-2-1 record in its past 10, the Jackets are not only assured of a playoff spot, they are a legitimate concern for the other teams in the tough Atlantic Division.

However, that — as of right now — appears to be the toughest of the four NHL groups. Certainly the defending Stanley Cup Champion Penguins are a threat to repeat and the Washington Capitals are on pace to wrap up a second straight Presidents’ Trophy and have to be considered contenders as well. The Jackets will likely face one of these teams in the opening round but will certainly enter the set with a lot less pressure than the favorite.

Deadline Moves — The only move made by the Blue Jackets involved getting Lauri Korpikoski and Kyle Quincey from the Dallas Stars in exchange for Dillon Heatherington and Dalton Prout a move that appears to add a little more experience both up front and on the blue line in exchange for a defender that became a bit obsolete with the Jackets and a young defensive prospect.

Key Games Ahead — The Jackets will play at Washington March 23 and then both at home against Washington and at Pittsburgh in the final week. The importance of those contests will range between basic playoff preview matches to spoiler to role and as of right now, they are legit battles for top spot in the division, conference and even the league. Not bad for a team that picked third overall last June.

Detroit Red Wings

Record as of March 15 (68 Games Played) 26-31-11; 63 points —

This is the season Wings fans dreaded but also somewhat expected as the trend of replacing retiring vets with vets on the verge of retiring has been eradicated in Motown. In other words, the Salary Cap era has finally caught up to the Wings.

A stellar minor league system — Grand Rapids Griffins and Toledo are among the more dominant teams in the AHL and ECHL respectively — has not translated into continuity with the mother ship. The Wings have not had a top notch defenseman on its crew since Niklas Lidstrom retired five years ago and the offensive corps has been eroded as well now with losses of Tomas Holmstrom and now Pavel Datsyuk.

There seems a ton of solid young players coming from the Grand Rapids squad each season, but inconsistency and perhaps expectations that exceed the talent levels of said prospects, has seen the team slip further and further from the playoff hunt. In the final weeks of this season, the biggest question for the Wings is how close it will get to top pick overall and what does the future hold for them.

The team, as one would expect, is affected by a severe limp heading to the finish line, winners of just three in its past 10 games, but two of those wins came against the Chicago BlackHawks and Pittsburgh Penguins.

Deadline Moves — For the first time in a quarter century, the Wings were sellers at the deadline and the team came out of it well, setting Thomas Vanek, Steve Ott, Brendan Smith and Tomas Jurco free for a collection of three third round picks, a second rounder and a sixth rounder as well as the addition of Dylan McIlrath, a solid 24-year-old defenseman who is playing for his third NHL team this season.

Key Games Ahead — None really, unless you take interest in Lottery matches against Colorado, Arizona and Carolina interesting. They seem to have a ton of those coming up.