The fact that the Isles went 15-9-5 in February and March was promising, but definitely a classic case of too little, too late. Now they’re sputtering to the finish line, having dropped both games in April with their final two games coming against the Penguins and Flyers this weekend. It’s quite conceivable the Isles will wrap up their schedule with a four-game losing skid.

On Wednesday night, they walked into Detroit – their closest competition for the Western Conference crown – and beat the Wings 2-1 to open up a virtually insurmountable 10-point lead atop the conference standings. Each team has eight games to play.

After getting dumped 4-1 in Boston on Tuesday, the Devils have now dropped three of their last four, thereby pretty much burning any chance they had of squeaking into the playoffs and pulling off one the most amazing comebacks in league history. Sitting nine points back of eighth place Buffalo (plus with three other teams to pass) with nine games to play, after their nightmare start to the season the Devils’ valiant run over the past couple of months looks like it will be in vain.

Hall has never been a fighter, so of course he got hurt last Thursday in his first NHL fight, a major burn for his Fantasy owners with playoffs either starting this week or next week.

He’s a bit of an enigma, as in each of the last two seasons, he’s seen an increase in ice time, yet his stats have slipped. What up with that? At least he had another minor penalty Saturday, running his season total to eight PMs after managing just 18 last season. Ward’s getting enough ice time to be useful, but at this point, we’d suggest waiting for him to string together some decent efforts before even considering him as a Fantasy option.