Crossing The NHL’s Atlantic Division: Week 27

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Eric Hartline-USA TODAY Sports

Welcome to Crossing The Atlantic, our weekly Atlantic Division round up. We’ve enlisted the help of writers who cover their teams on a daily basis from across the FanSided network. In the order of the Atlantic Division standings, here’s this week’s edition. Enjoy!

Boston Bruins

By Andrew Thompson of Causeway Crowd

The Boston Bruins have locked up a playoff slot and the Atlantic Division. Now their focus is on securing the East and waiting to see who will have the misfortune of crossing the Black and Gold.

The Bruins have had a banner week, as they’re still on a nearly month-long point streak. Patrice Bergeron earned second star of the week honors from the NHL, and Jarome Iginla was named first star for the month of March. This will be their big chance to rest and let some of their AHL talent get a game or two in.

Jeff Griffith-USA TODAY Sports

Tampa Bay Lightning

By Tasha Meares of Bolts By The Bay

This has been an exciting week so far for the Tampa Bay Lightning.

The word must-win gets thrown around a lot when it comes to the end of the season; however, the last game really was a must-win for the Lightning.

In what turned out to be an incredibly exciting game, the Tampa Bay Lightning started out their six-game home stand with a 3-1 win over the Montreal Canadiens. This was a very special game for the Lightning as this win was the win where the stars aligned, with a little help from the Dallas Stars and the Buffalo Sabres, and the Lightning clinched themselves a spot in the 2014 NHL Playoffs.

Now, with the remaining six games in the season, they can begin to work on home-ice advantage. This quest will start on Thursday when the Lightning defends home ice against the Calgary Flames.

The Bolts will finish out the week as they host the Dallas Stars, one of the teams that threw them an assist in earning their playoff spot, on Saturday night at the Tampa Bay Times Forum.

This is certainly going to be an interesting week for the Lightning. The team has one of the best rookie classes in all of the National Hockey League. This was made evident by left-winger Ondrej Palat being named the rookie of the month by the NHL for the second time.

I see many good things in the future for this young team. I, for one, cannot wait to see what the remainder of the season holds.

Jeff Griffith-USA TODAY Sports

Montreal Canadiens

By Andy Bayer

After winning five in a row and eight of their last nine games, the Habs had a letdown performance Tuesday against the Lightning, their probable playoff opponent. The Lightning took advantage of Montreal’s eight penalties, scoring two power-play goals. Montreal can’t give Tampa Bay’s firepower that power-play time in the playoffs. A positive sign recently has been Carey Price rounding into form after returning from injury. This was his third straight very good game.

The worrying thing is the Habs are going back to relying heavily on Price standing on his head. Montreal was badly outplayed by the weak Florida Panthers and then against the Lightning. Another negative that I’ve been pointing out all season is Michel Therrien usage of his defensemen. P.K. Subban somehow had the fewest even-strength minutes against the Lightning despite being far and away their best possession player. Therrien has given Francis Bouillon, Douglas Murray and Mike Weaver heavy minutes, which is not a winning strategy for the playoffs. This is unsurprising given Therrien’s characteristic comment that Montreal was “too fancy”, i.e. didn’t dump the puck in and out enough. Somehow Therrien thinks that giving the other team the puck every time they get possession will lead to scoring goals.

This is upsetting for Montreal fans to see given this could have been a great year to take advantage of a weak Eastern Conference and make a playoff run. Unfortunately, their coach seems to be holding them back from that potential.

Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

Detroit Red Wings

By John Evans of Octopus Thrower

Detroit found a real good way to close out the month of March. Thanks to wins against Toronto and Tampa Bay, offsetting the loss to Montreal, Detroit finds itself in the first wild card playoff position with 84 points, ahead of Columbus by one and with games in hand on the Toronto Maples Leafs and Washington Capitals. The playoffs aren’t in the bag quite yet – the Wings will have to win four of their remaining seven games to reach the 92-point plateau – but their destiny is in their hands going into the month of April.

Gustav Nyquist, the new savior of the Winged Wheel, had a great week. He ended the month of March as the second star of the NHL and scored a goal-of-the-year candidate against Toronto after being hooked on his way to a breakaway goal. There’s been positive news on the injury front, as Pavel Datsyuk will return this week. Justin Abdelkader returned as well and captain Henrik Zetterberg is aiming to return on April 16- the start of the playoffs Detroit hopefully finds itself in. Daniel Alfredsson has been sidelined, however, and is currently day-to-day with a lower-body injury.

The Wings line up some Atlantic Division opponents this week, starting with the Bruins tonight. They take on the Sabres Friday, faceoff against Montreal again on Saturday and revisit Buffalo on Tuesday. All winnable games, we’ll see what they do with what’s handed to them.

John E. Sokolowski-USA TODAY Sports

Toronto Maple Leafs

By Tim Bayer of Editor In Leaf

The Toronto Maple Leafs finally won a hockey game last night, putting an end to that nightmarish eight-game losing streak by beating the second-worst team in the Western Conference, the Calgary Flames, 3-2. Both teams looked sluggish in the first two periods and the Leafs once again allowed the Flames to spend most of the last two minutes of the game in their end of the ice, but a win is a win and it’s exactly what the Leafs needed.

The Leafs sit one point behind the Columbus Blue Jackets and two points behind the Detroit Red Wings (owners of the two wild card playoff spots), but both teams hold two games in hand. The Leafs need to win at least four of their last five, a stretch that begins tomorrow night at home against the brutalizing Boston Bruins.

The Leafs host the Winnipeg Jets on Saturday night before ending the season on the road against the Lightning, Panthers and Ottawa Senators. It’s not the most difficult schedule in the world, but it won’t be easy, either. At this stage of the season, there’s only one option: Just win, baby.

Marc DesRosiers-USA TODAY Sports

Ottawa Senators

By Jared Crozier of SenShot

The Ottawa Senators have kept their extremely thin playoff hopes alive on the strength of their current three-game home winning streak. They haven’t exactly been dominant but they have done enough to win in games against the Chicago Blackhawks, Calgary Flames and Carolina Hurricanes.

They have absolutely no margin for error and dropping any point in their remaining games would likely be a nail in the coffin, but given the fact I said that almost a month ago says something about the turtle race that has been the Eastern Conference.

Erik Karlsson, who returned to almost full strength this season from a terrible Achilles tendon injury last year, was the Ottawa nominee for the Bill Masterton award, as voted by the Ottawa chapter of the Professional Hockey Writers’ Association.

Ed Mulholland-USA TODAY Sports

Florida Panthers

By Rogerio Istiraneopulos of The Rat Trick

The Florida Panthers are about to wrap up their 2013-14 season as they played their last away game last night in Long Island against the New York Islanders. They fell 4-2 and finished the season 13-25-3 on the road. Not only was that game the last away game for this season for the Cats, it also seemed to be Scott Clemmensen’s last game in a Panthers’ jersey.

Ever since the acquisition of Roberto Luongo and Dan Ellis at the trade deadline, the Panthers sent Clemmer to San Antonio to play for the Rampage (Florida’s AHL affiliate) and was recalled when Luongo suffered a neck injury against the Phoenix Coyotes. As Loungo is now scheduled to be coming back next game and Clemmer being an unrestricted free agent at the end of this season, it looks like Clemmer’s stint with the Cats is coming to an end.

The Panthers have five games left and they will fight to finish the year with a winning record at home. They are currently 14-17-5 and it would be very comforting to finish the year above .500 at the BB&T Center. Injuries are still hurting this team but Luongo is on his way back to the ice and the season will end with a lot of “Luuuuuu!”s raining down.

Kevin Hoffman-USA TODAY Sports

Buffalo Sabres

By James Gleason of Editor In Leaf

The Sabres’ season of sadness and seeing players move on is coming to a close. They finally picked up a win after dropping their previous four and five of their last six games. Don’t expect much more W’s in the column as games against the Red Wings, St. Louis Blues, Bruins, New York Rangers and Philadelphia Flyers close out the frustrating 2013-14 season. All of those teams have important games; whether it is to clinch the best record overall or to gain important points in the playoff race, and that makes the Sabres’ remaining schedule a daunting task. Baring any lottery craziness, the Sabres look like they will pick first in the upcoming NHL Draft, and as much as I hate to say this, the losses do help that situation.

Some news did come out of the front office as newly named head coach Ted Nolan was signed to a three-year deal to remain the coach of the Buffalo Sabres. It was a shock to no one as he has been with the club ever since Ron Rolston got canned earlier in the year. It is hard to judge how the coach has done when the team has no talent and there are more losses than wins, but I feel comfortable with this signing.

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