Recent trends good for ‘Nucks?

With just under a month until the playoffs begin, it would still be a stretch to nominate the Canucks as an elite team in the Western Conference.

But what has to be reassuring to Vancouver’s faithful fans is that no team has established itself as the clear-cut favourite to win hockey’s Holy Grail.

The defending Stanley Cup champs are once again atop the standings, but Detroit may have the worst goaltending of any team that qualifies for the postseason. Chris Osgood, who was great in last year’s Cup run, has been abysmal of late, and backup Ty Conklin hasn’t been much better.

Though the Wings boast the league’s best talent outside the crease, that deadly goaltending duo makes Detroit appear much more vulnerable than a year ago. San Jose’s warts have also been on display of late, as the front-running Sharks have hit their roughest patch of the season.

The trendy excuse for losing six of nine games has been the absence of goalie Evgeni Nabokov, but the recent lack of goal scoring is more worrisome to coach Todd McClellan.

San Jose’s sixth-ranked offence has scored more than two goals just twice in their last eleven games, and in both of those instances the Sharks blew three-goal leads.

Goals haven’t been a problem for the Calgary Flames, unless you count the ones they’ve failed to prevent. Saturday’s 8-6 disaster in Toronto capped off a road trip that saw the Flames allow 32 goals in seven games — 27 of those over Calgary’s last five contests.

Chicago is the only other squad ahead of Vancouver in the points department, and that youth movement is stumbling as well.

The Blackhawks have lost seven of ten games, a stretch that could have been worse if not for both an overtime win and a shootout victory along the way. Amidst all of this chaos, the Canucks have been more productive than at any other point this season, winning fourteen of their last eighteen games.

But before you begin planning the parade route, it’s worth noting that all of these trends aren’t meant to suggest that Vancouver has suddenly become the team to beat in the West. However, the stats do imply that none of the perceived powerhouses are infallible.

Given how the Canucks have shown they are capable of playing, winning a seven-game series against any of their conference rivals is no longer Mission: Impossible.

– Scott Rintoul is a college athlete, sports fan and broadcaster. He can be heard Monday-Friday on the TEAM 1040 from 6-9 a.m. scott.rintoul@team1040.ca.