Right now, the Crunch have a record of 25-25 with nine overtime losses and three shootout losses. At .500, they sit second to last in the North Division, only Binghamton having a worse record than them. According to the AHL's Playoff Primer, Toronto, Albany, and Utica are holding playoff spots in the North Division at this very moment. Rochester holds the wild card spot for the division, meaning they would be the fourth team from the division in the playoffs, but they would play a crossover series with a team outside the division.
Right now, the Crunch find themselves in a four team race for two playoff spots. They currently trail the St. John's Ice Caps (.516), Rochester Americans (.525), and the Utica Comets (.583) in the race for those spots. Meanwhile, the first place Toronto Marlies (.738) and the second place Albany Devils (.683) have jumped out and put pretty good distance between themselves and the danger zone. You're probably wondering why winning percentages are being used. Playoff spots for the playoffs are being determined by winning percentage this year instead of points. Really, the number of points a team holds should directly correlate with their winning percentage. They will take more of effect in the case of tiebreakers. In any case, with all four teams very close in the standings, the last month of the season will be key to the Crunch, or any of the other three teams, making the postseason.
Can the Crunch make the playoffs? If you look at their schedule, hope looks grim and fans shouldn't get their hopes up. Unfortunately for Syracuse, 13 out of their last 14 games have them facing division foes. 12 of those games feature the Crunch going against division foes who currently lead them in the North Division. This Friday, the Crunch take on Binghamton, the only team with a worse record than them. Their final game of the season is against Leigh Valley, a team who sits at .484 in the Atlantic Division but has recently found success when playing the Crunch. Otherwise, the Crunch play opponents who not only have better records in the North Division, but have beaten the Crunch several times this year. To be more specific, St. John's is 5-1, Utica is 4-2, Toronto is 5-1, Rochester is 6-2, and Albany is undefeated (4-0) when facing the Crunch this season. If there were strength of schedule rankings, Syracuse would have one of the hardest in the AHL.
Even with a difficult schedule ahead, there is hope for the Crunch when it comes to grabbing a postseason birth. Since February 28th, the Crunch have had five games where they tallied three of more goals. Several players have found their way on the score sheet in that streak, including Jeff Tambellini, Mike Blunden, and even the controversial Jonathan Drouin. Even Gudlevskis and Wilcox have been better between the pipes.
On the other hand, there a couple negative factors. The biggest one of them all is the third period. Teams have figured out that if they can stay close to the Crunch through the first two periods, they can take control and capture the game with a strong third period. The most recent example of this was this past Saturday, when Rochester scored five goals in the third period to sink the Crunch 7-4. Like against Rochester, Syracuse has found many ways to collapse in the final period of play and give games away when doing it. Captain Mike Angelidis suffered an injury last week that will keep him out of the lineup for at least a couple weeks. This lack of leadership on the ice will play a major role in how the Crunch preform on the ice during that time. Finally, Syracuse has proven overtime is their biggest Achilles heel. They have lost nine games in overtime and three requiring a shootout. If the Crunch want to win, they need to get out to early leads, hold them in the third period, and not need to play any overtime in their last 14 games.
If you are a person who likes to gamble, the safest bet for you is to have the Crunch missing the AHL playoffs. The competition in the Crunch's final 14 games is very strong and could prevent the Crunch from racking up the wins they need to get in a playoff spot. For the Crunch, they need to get desperate and pull some wins out and fast. They also have to hope teams above them starting losing and drop in the standings out of the playoff spots. If these things don't happen, it will be a hockey-less spring for the Salt City.
Thanks/Credit:
The American Hockey League- theahl.com
March 15th AHL Playoff Premier- http://theahl.com/playoff-primer-2016-p201276
Syracuse Crunch- syracusecrunch.com