Into oblivion?

1) As we get into week 9 of the NHL season a few teams are quickly becoming 'after thoughts' as they sink deeper and deeper out of playoff contention. While it still relatively early (most teams have 55+ games left the writing is on the wall for several teams. With teams playing each other combined with the 'loser point' it become very difficult if not impossible to overcome double digit deficits.  So with 3/4 of the season to go there are already in our opinion 4-7 teams that could fit that description. 4 are not a shock, and two are.

2) As of this post we believe that the following teams are clearly becoming irrelevant with respect to the playoff race, and although fans are still amazingly still going to Oilers games the other 4 teams might have completely empty buildings before the All Star Game!

• Buffalo
• Columbus
• Carolina
• Edmonton
• Arizona

3) In addition to those 5 it could be argued that the Flyers and Avalanche are fast also getting to that point as well. Our hesitancy to place them into the above 5 is their rosters should be far better and more likely to have a bit of a turn around in the remainder of the season, but they better get moving soon. We may very well see some coaching turnover with one of these  7 teams in the next few weeks. How in the hell does Dallas Eakins still have a job!?!