Breaking down the Western Conference Wildcard picture

Anthony Trudeau
Anthony Trudeau(atrud00)
Breaking down the Western Conference Wildcard picture

Last week, I checked in on the crowded field of Eastern Conference wild card hopefuls to see where each team stood. The Columbus Blue Jackets and Ottawa Senators have played well enough in the interim, and I’m still bullish about their chances.

A similar breakdown of the Western Conference wild card picture should be much easier; six of last year’s playoff teams are tracking for 100+ points, as are the surprising Minnesota Wild, who have joined them as a near-lock. Someone still has to claim that eighth seed, though, and if the East has too many solid options, the West has too few. 

The leading contenders for the final playoff spot are the rebuilding Calgary Flames, the imploding Vancouver Canucks, and a handful of teams that are at or below .500. Disaster films do numbers at the box office for a reason, and it will be intriguing to see which team escapes this towering inferno of mediocrity to reach the postseason. 

If we write off the St. Louis Blues, and they seem to be doing that themselves, this is a four-horse race. Read on to see how they measure up.

The Favorite

This team should have enough talent to make the postseason. Can it stop self-sabotaging long enough to play to its potential?

Vancouver Canucks

When 2024 Jack Adams winner Rick Tocchet took over the Canucks’ bench two years ago, he inherited a team that made too many mental errors for its obvious talent to matter. If you missed last season, when the ‘Nucks won the Pacific Division and took the Western Conference champion Oilers to the brink in the playoffs, you’d think Tocchet never made a dent. The Canucks are right back to square one, and the friction between star forwards Elias Pettersson and J.T. Miller was already an unwelcome distraction before President Hockey Operations Jim Rutherford inexplicably added fuel to the fire.

Disharmony isn’t the only problem for the Canucks. Thatcher Demko was the Vezina runner-up last year but hasn’t been the same player (.867 SV%, worst among goalies with 600+ minutes played) since a bizarre injury derailed his summer and delayed his season debut until December. Superstar captain Quinn Hughes and Filip Hronek are the only defensemen on the roster who can reliably transport the puck. Perhaps worst of all, Pettersson’s scoring touch has gone ice cold (3 G, 5 P in last 16 GP), and Vancouver’s 23rd-ranked scoring offense is treading water. 

On the bright side, the Canucks’s issues have provided them a clear playbook on how to turn their cursed season around: 

  • Cut Miller loose, even at a reduced price, to end the drama and land a mobile D-man.
  • Double down on Pettersson (they don’t have much choice at $11.6 million AAV) and give him a chance to be the 1C. 
  • Make clear to Kevin Lankinen (2.56 GAA, .906 SV % in 32 GP) and everybody else that the net is his; Demko’s rehab can’t take priority over the playoffs. 

With Hughes playing at an MVP level (56 points, 22 more than nearest Canuck) and a deep stable of wingers led by Connor Garland (33 P, career-high 19:22 ATOI) and Kiefer Sherwood (13 goals, league-high 273 hits), there’s still plenty to like about this team. If the Canucks clear the air and perform some roster surgery, they should have the talent to make up a one-point deficit in the standings. Are Rutherford and GM Patrick Allvin ready to accept that they need to take a loss on Miller to make that happen?

The Dark Horses

These teams didn’t come into the year with any expectations, but they’re still in the fight as they approach the 50-game mark.

Calgary Flames

When the Flames rattled off an impressive 5-0-1 start, most experts wrote it off as a mirage. In the early stages of a rebuild, the heater was a nice surprise to start what was sure to be a difficult season. Over 40 games later, the eighth-placed Flames still haven’t gone away, and the early points they collected could push them into an unexpected playoff berth.

Undersized rookies Matt Coronato (11 G, 24 P in 44 GP) and Jakob Pelletier (11 P in 23 GP) have acquitted themselves well in top-six roles. Rugged veterans Mackenzie Weegar and Rasmus Andersson anchor the top two pairs on an underrated blue line, and Jonathan Huberdeau (team-best 19 G, 36 P) has shown he still has some game left. 

Those guys have been great, but they wouldn’t be in this position without the heroics of rookie goaltender Dustin Wolf, whose outstanding raw numbers (2.56 GAA, .915 SV%) don’t do justice to how valuable he’s been to the Flames; Calgary and its 30th-ranked scoring attack have won just six of battery mate Dan Vladar’s 21 starts.

Given their near-total reliance on Wolf and recent injuries to key players in Connor Zary and Kevin Bahl, you wonder how committed the Flames are to this stretch run. Coach Ryan Huska deserves credit for squeezing results out of a so-so group, but their chances of winning a series are nonexistent. GM Craig Conroy won’t consider veterans save for Andersson, Weegar, and Mikael Backlund untouchable. He may prefer trading from a position of strength to a fool’s gold postseason chase.

Utah Hockey Club

Through 49 games this season, Utah Hockey Club sits at .500, six points adrift of the wild card. At the same point last year, the Arizona Coyotes sat at .500, five points adrift of the wild card. The difference? Then, they were too worried about where they’d ply their trade in 2024-25 to focus on the postseason. Now, free from the penny-pinching con artist that owned the team in Arizona, GM Bill Armstrong can think about making aggressive moves to ensure Year 1 in Salt Lake City is as successful on the ice as it has been off it.

Armstrong proved he wasn’t afraid to make splashy moves in the offseason by adding star puck mover Mikhail Sergachev in a blockbuster trade with the Lightning and veteran defender John Marino from New Jersey. With a revamped blue line and a forward group headlined by newly minted captain Clayton Keller, this team, whatever it’s called, hasn’t had a roster this promising since the Jeremy Roenick era. As for why they’re stuck in the mud at .500 despite the emergence of Dylan Guenther (16 goals, 34 points in 40 games played), Logan Cooley (15 goals, 42 points in 49 games played), and goaltender Karel Vejmelka (2.47 GAA, .912 SV%), look no further than Utah’s wretched injury record. 

Marino didn’t debut until earlier this month after offseason back surgery, all-situations D-man Sean Durzi went down after four games with a shoulder injury, and Guenther is on the IR without a timetable for a return. Most teams with this much bad luck (and this many UFAs) would consider taking a knee on the season. High on the goodwill of their new fans, the Utahns aren’t most teams. If Armstrong can add some complimentary firepower to Andre Tourigny’s lineup, maybe they can press on and prove just how different from the Coyotes they are.

The Longshot

It might seem ridiculous, but the NHL’s most disappointing team still has a chance to turn things around. They did it last year…

Nashville Predators

By now, you know the story. Nashville added three top-five free agents last offseason (offensive defenseman Brady Skjei, veteran sniper Jonathan Marchessault, and future Hall-of-Famer Steve Stamkos) to a roster that had just made the playoffs. Then, the Preds lost each of their first five games in regulation. By US Thanksgiving, they had just seven wins. By Christmas, that number had grown only to 11. The team’s attempt to build a winning roster almost exclusively out of aging stars has been a flop, and they’re 12 points adrift of the playoffs with just 38 games remaining. 

Despite all their missteps, the Preds still have more firepower than any other team featured here, save for perhaps the Canucks. A league-low 8.9 shooting percentage speaks to the rotten luck they’ve had all year, but, led by Stamkos (five goals in last six games), captain Roman Josi (10 points, 26:46 ATOI in last eight games), and electric winger Filip Forsberg (9 G, 19 during ten-game points streak), Nashville is finally starting to piece together a run now that everyone has stopped paying attention. Can the Predators, 7-3 since the turn of the year, use a white-hot second half to sneak into the playoffs for a second straight season?

They’d need to play at a Presidents’ Trophy pace the rest of the way to rack up the ~50 points it would take. Against the weakest remaining schedule in the NHL, it’s not impossible, not if the stars stay hot and Juuse Saros (.486 quality start %, down from .595 career mark) can turn it on and rediscover his best. That’s a lot of “ifs.” Here’s another: if GM Barry Trotz decides to burn it down and trade Ryan O’Reilly, the Predators really are cooked. Still, it’d be quite the story if this team, a favorite punching bag for hockey writers everywhere, winds up coming good after all.

SPONSORED BY bet365

Keep scrolling for more content!
19+ | Please play responsibly! | Terms and Conditions apply