When the NHL season first started, one thing was clear: The Pacific Division was garbage. And that’s why the Calgary Flames seemed so successful at first. They were top of the division because, quite frankly, the rest of the division was bad. That’s also the reason the Vancouver Canucks were in it for a few weeks (before falling out).
At that point as well in early November, analysts and the guys over at Sportsnet had already deemed that there would only be three teams from the Pacific Division making the playoffs. They said that they couldn’t see this division deep enough to have any teams making the wildcard spot and it looked like this season, it would be three Pacific teams and five Central teams.