QMJHL Standings: five races to watch
With 18 days to go in the regular season, all bets are off in the QMJHL standings. Here are five races to watch between now and March 23.
A battle to the finish between the Voltigeurs and the Huskies
The Drummondville Voltigeurs (41-12-5-1) and Rouyn-Noranda Huskies (40-14-1-4) both have nine games left to play. Drummondville has 88 points and Rouyn, 85. It’s tight! First place in the West is really important, in that it guarantees the top seed will have home-ice advantage in the first two rounds, minimum.
The Victoriaville Tigres (38-17-4-0) are also hoping to leapfrog the Voltigeurs, but with an eight-point deficit, the task looks daunting, to say the least.
What to watch for: don’t miss the matchup between the two best teams in the league, the Baie-Comeau Drakkar (48-9-2-1) and the Voltigeurs, this Wednesday, 7 pm ET, on RDS.ca.
Oceanic, Sags or Eagles: who will have home-ice advantage?
Fourth place in the Eastern Conference means home-ice advantage in the first round. Currently, three teams are vying for this privilege:
4th- Rimouski Océanic, 69 points in 61 games, 31 regular season or overtime wins (ROW)
5th- Chicoutimi Saguenéens, 67 points in 61 games, 29 ROW
6th- Cape Breton Eagles, 65 points in 60 games, 28 ROW
Of the three, the Saguenéens are certainly the ones with the most momentum, having recently strung together 10 wins and allowed their head coach, Yanick Jean, to set a QMJHL all-time record with his 590th win.
With 61 points in 61 games, the Acadie-Bathurst Titan (7th) is not far behind the Eagles and still hoping to climb the standings to avoid the Halifax Mooseheads (39-15-7-1) in the first round.
Where will the Phoenix-Armada series start?
It’s pretty much set in stone that the Sherbrooke Phoenix (29-24-1-5) and the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada (27-27-4-1) will face off in the first round of the Eastern Conference. It remains to be seen where the series will start, as Sherbrooke has just five points more than Blainville-Boisbriand with nine games to play.
The Phoenix and the Armada meet on Wednesday night. A game with a playoff feel to it!
The Shawinigan Cataractes (25-31-3-1) and Gatineau Olympiques (23-30-4-4) are five points behind the Armada. This ground be hard to make up, especially with the Laurentian fleet having played one less game than Shawinigan and two less than Gatineau.
Sixth place between the Cataractes and the Olympiques
Speaking of the Cataractes and Olympiques, they’re currently tied with 54 points; Shawinigan is sixth in the West, having played one less game and having one more regular or overtime win than the Olympiques.
Barring an unexpected turn of events, the team finishing sixth will face Victoriaville in the first round, and the seventh-place club will play Rouyn-Noranda.
Regardless of where they finish, the Cataractes and Olympiques are in for quite a challenge.
Who will be the last team to qualify?
The Val-d’Or Foreurs (15-39-3-2) are currently 18th and last in the overall standings, seven points behind the Quebec Remparts (19-36-4-0) and the Saint John Sea Dogs (17-34-5-3). With 19 regular season or overtime wins, the Sea Dogs hold the tiebreaker.
One year after winning their first QMJHL championship in 47 years, the Remparts are in danger of missing the spring tournament for the first time since… 1983!
But whether it’s the Remparts or the Sea Dogs, the team finishing ninth in the Western Conference will crossover to the East and play the conference champions in the first round. Drummondville, most likely.
Note: in the event of a tie in the standings, wins in regulation or overtime (ROW) constitute the first tiebreaker. The second is the differential between goals for and goals against.
