Written by Jibblescribbits | 03 February 2009

Last night's win against Calgary was great, but don't let Gary Bettman's illusion of parity confuse you; with the 3-point games the Avs are still facing an extremely daunting task to make the playoffs. In fact, one of my favorite sites around has them sitting with a measly 15.9% chance of making the playoffs. Those percentages don't even take into the account that the Avs aren't a very good team and they play most of their remaining games on the road. If you factor those into the equation the Avs chances of making the playoffs falls to 7.9% Make no mistake things are a lot more dire than they appear. If the Avs can pull either above 35% We'll start talking playoffs, until then no dice.

So now that we've established that, let's take a look at the Avs immediate future. There will be plenty of time for trade talk over the next month or so, and we will get to that in due time, but it's time to start talking draft. Most specifically the 2009 draft is supposedly one of the deepest drafts in years with the top eight picks being considered can't miss. The top two picks (Tavares and Hedman) are going to be something special. The Hockey News had their first of many premature ejaculations mock drafst. And currently the Avs sit at 7th in the draft.

So the question becomes, as a fan can you cheer for your team to lose for a better draft pick? Personally I believe that no real fan can actually sit down and cheer against their favorite team. It just feels like betrayal. However I see no harm in cheering for teams ahead of the Avs in the draft order, unless they are actually playing the Avs.

So from here on out us Avs fans should cheer for Toronto, St. Louis, Ottawa, Tampa, Atlanta and the Isles, while also keeping an eye on the Preds, Kings and even the Canucks. Ok I can't cheer for the Canucks to win either, but the other eight teams I have no problem wishing success upon. When these teams play, especially cheer for the 3-point game.

So first up tonight:
Tampa vs Isles (Let's go OT clap clap clap-clap-clap)! (I'll actually cheer for Tampa in OT because there's no way the Avs are catching the Isles.)
St. Louis vs Blue Jackets
Kings vs Ottawa (Ottawa in OT!)
Florida vs Toronto
Atlanta vs NYR
Phoenix vs Nashville

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