Spring is one of those cool times of the year in sports. Football is out of season, but pretty much everything else is happening all at once. The NBA and NHL regular seasons are winding down and heading into the playoffs, and the MLB season is in full swing. Overall, it's a good time to be a sports fan. The real question though, is how good of a time is it to be a Chicago sports fan right now? Neither the Bulls or Blackhawks are mathematically eliminated from the playoff picture yet, but how good are their chances? It may be early, but the Cubs have a losing record. How good will they be? Let's dive into it.
The NHL regular season is almost over. Usually this time of year, we would already be watching the playoffs, but because of COVID, the regular season started late and is only 56 games, as opposed to the usual 82 games. After 47 games, the Blackhawks sit at sixth place in the central division with 49 points, which is three points behind the Nashville Predators for the final playoff spot in the central. The Hawks came back down 4-1 to Nashville tonight and won the game 5-4, earning two huge points for them. However, since the game went to overtime, Nashville still gained a point in the standings, keeping the Hawks three points behind. The Hawks next game is against Nashville as well, and if they win in regulation then they will only be 1 point behind Nashville and have an extra game on hand over them. Realistically, the fourth playoff spot in the central division is the only one the Blackhawks can climb into. It looks like Carolina, Florida, and Tampa Bay all have the top three spots on lock considering they're all 10 or more points ahead of the current fourth place team, the Nashville Predators. So just how good of a chance do the Blackhawks have to make the Playoffs this year? I'd say they still have a good shot, but they need to string together wins and they specifically need to win their remaining games against Nashville and Dallas. The Hawks have nine games left, with one of those games being against Nashville and two being against Dallas. Considering Dallas is only one point ahead of the Hawks, but have two games on hand over them, the Blackhawks must win their final two games of the season against Dallas to make sure they stay ahead of them in the standings. I already went over why the next game against Nashville is a must win as well. It's the easiest to jump a team in the standings when you can earn points while stopping them from getting points at the same time. The rest of the Blackhawks games this season are against Tampa, Florida and Carolina, who are the best three teams in the division. It will be an uphill battle but after tonight's win, I would say the Hawks are trending in a good direction. Their playoff fate falls directly into their hands, and that's all a team can ask for. The Blackhawks are in much better shape to make the postseason than their United Center roommates, the Bulls.
This NBA season is also shorter than the usual 82 games. It's a 72 game season this year in the NBA, and the Bulls have currently played 58 of those 72 games. They are in 12th place in the Eastern conference with a record of 24-34. They are 4.5 games out of the last playoff spot, which belongs to the Charlotte Hornets. It's kind of hard to believe that at one point in the season, the Bulls were in 6th place and seemed destined for a breakout season with a low playoff seed. The Bulls made huge splashes at the trade deadline and seemed prime to make a run at the postseason for the first time since 2017. Since their trade deadline acquisitions, the Bulls have gone 5-10 and dropped in the standings. The Bulls suffered multiple five game losing streaks, and their longest win streak since has been only three games. They got smoked by Cleveland earlier tonight, ending their two game win streak they were on. (If you even want to call that a win streak.) I've mentioned it in multiple blogs, but the Bulls have been inconsistent all season long. I personally think that it would take a miracle for them to make the playoffs, but anything can happen. Looking at their remaining 14 games, I can see them going maybe 6-8, at best. And that would probably take an upset win or two somewhere against either Milwaukee, Brooklyn, Philadelphia or Boston. If they went 6-8, that would have them finishing the season at 30-42, which probably wouldn't be good enough to make the playoffs. It's unfortunate and I hate to say it, but they might be better off just taking the higher odds for a good draft pick. The team is clearly still missing a few pieces before they can be a contender, and even if they did make the playoffs somehow, I'm not sure how well they'd fare against Brooklyn or Philadelphia in the first round. It sucks being pessimistic, but I don't think we'll be seeing the Bulls in the postseason this year.
The Hawks are trending up and the Bulls are trending down. But what about the Cubs? Honestly, I don't know where they're trending. If they were a line on a graph, they'd look like mountains. I know it's still early and baseball is weird, but they literally make no sense. They're 8-9 and they either score 15 runs a game or get shut out it feels like. I don't want to try and dig too in-depth on the Cubs just yet. I will say that I'm very pleased with their series against the Mets so far and I'll leave it at that. Positive note to end the blog! Look at me go!
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