That was not only a fun game to watch, it had a huge effect on our playoff chances. Let's start with the PPG standings:
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Tied with Orlando for 7th. One spot out of the last playoff spot, on a projected 2.72 point deficit behind New England. Last week that deficit was 6.12. If we lost our PPG would be 1.0,and Orlando's would be 1.29, putting them in 6th, with NE in 7th and us in 8th. The projected deficit between 6th place Orlando and us would have been 9.7 points. So winning instead of losing meant a 7-point swing in the projected deficit between 6th place and us.
Like I said, this win was huge.
The 6th place target dropped slightly, and I'm continuing to say 42 points is where that 6th place teams needs to be.
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The line after RSL denotes our low point. We just hit a new high on PPG at 1.143 if you discount the first 4 weeks of the season as too low a sample to have any meaning. Since our low point our PPG over 9 games is 1.89. If we keep that up over the remaining 13 games that's 48.56 points and that's comfortable playoff range. That's also a huge assumption. Our team is very changed for the better while the schedule gets much harder.
To reach 42 Points we need to get 1.385 PPG over the remaining 13.
To reach 45 points we need to get 1.615 PPG over the remaining 13.
To reach 40 points we need to get 1.231 PPG over the remaining 13.
6 W 4L 3T gets us to 45 points
6W 5L 2T gets us to 44 points
5 W 4L 4T gets us to 43 points
6 W 6L 1T gets us to 43 points
5 W 5L 3T gets us to 42 points
5 W 6L 2T gets us to 41 points
Remaining schedule:
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Next week is again huge. If we lose Montreal's Projected Point lead over us is 11.22 Points. If we win that lead is only 1.22. If we lose Montreal could be out of reach and our path to the playoffs could be limited to having to overcome Orlando and New England both. If we win then we open that up to beating any 2 of NE, ORL, and MTL, and it's always nice to have options. After Montreal 9 of the next 10 games are against tougher opponents than Montreal, and 6 of those 9 are away.
Finally, after next week we do not have games against our playoff rivals again until the last two weeks of the season, although if we beat Columbus twice we
might pull them close enough.