At The Quarter Pole!

1) With nearly all teams having now played 20% of their schedules  we decided as we usually do when there is a full NHL season to project  (NOT predict) the finals standings. Obviously there is plenty of time for teams outside of the playoffs to get back in, but some trends are clearly becoming evident. This is NOT a Prediction!! We merely are projecting an 82 game season point total based upon each teams current point total/games played. Although we delineated the top 8, with the new playoff structure, its not a done deal that he 8th seeded team would qualify if the season ended today

2) First in the East:

Boston-113
Tampa Bay-109
Toronto-105
Pittsburgh-104
Detroit-93
Washington-93
Montreal- 89
New Jersey-82
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NY Rangers-78
Carolina-78
Ottawa-74
Philadelphia-74
Colorado- 70
NY Islanders-70
Florida-60
Buffalo- 39

3) Next the West:

St. Louis- 127
Colorado- 123
Chicago-119
San Jose-121
Phoenix-121
LA- 116
Dallas- 98
Vancouver-93
Nashville 86
Winnipeg- 82
Calgary-67
Edmonton-50

4) Again this is a PROJECTION not prediction. Some interesting story lines  seeing teams like Tampa, Colorado and Phoenix off to better than expected starts, while teams like Philadelphia, Rangers, Nashville, surprisingly struggling after a quarter of the season completed.  As always occurs many of these same teams will either go back down or upwards to their expected positions by season's end.  We will do a post like this at the half way mark.  Look for that in late December and compare.
As always, keep it here for all the latest!