The NHL regular season finishes in one month on April 16th, and right now, only two teams look locked into their playoff positions.

Carolina leads the Metropolitan Division by nine points; however, they are in a race for the #1 seed in the Eastern Conference with Buffalo sitting two points back. The Minnesota Wild are in third place in the Central Division, six points back of Dallas and 14 points ahead of Utah. Dallas has two games in hand, and it looks highly unlikely Minnesota will catch them. The Wild will either start the playoffs in Dallas or in Colorado, who are three points ahead of the surging Stars.

But the rest of the playoff picture is wide open with races for home ice and the final Wildcard spots in both conferences are hotly contested.

Let’s start in the West.

The Dallas Stars are 14-0-1 in their last 15 games and have gained 11 points on Colorado during that span. They are still three back and the Avalanche have a game in hand, but first place in the Central, and Western Conference, suddenly has some competition. Colorado hosts Pittsburgh tonight and Dallas hosts Utah. The Stars and Avs will battle each other Wednesday night in Colorado. The outcome of that game will determine if we have a legit race for the final four weeks.

The Pacific Division is wide open with Anaheim, Vegas and Edmonton separated by two points and battling for home ice advantage, while the final Wildcard slot has Seattle, San Jose and Los Angeles also separated by only two points. Utah looks decently comfortable in the first Wildcard spot with a three-point lead on Seattle, but nine of the Mammoth’s next 12 games are against playoff teams, or teams like San Jose and LA, who are in the hunt.

Here’s a look at the remaining schedule for the seven teams battling for the final five playoff spots in the West.

Here’s a quick breakdown.

ANA: 77 points with eight home games and seven road games. They have six games v. teams in the playoff hunt.

VGK: 76 points with 8H-7R and eight versus........

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