from Dom Luszczyszyn of The Athletic,

The Eastern Conference playoff race is a hot mess; a middling sludge containing seven teams that wish they were anywhere else.

Not one team is where it wants to be right now and it’s made for a completely chaotic slide to the finish. The clubs that want to lose for the hope of a brighter future are finding ways to keep winning, and the teams that want to win keep falling all over themselves trying. The eighth seed is currently on pace for just 90 points and that number seems to get lower each week.

Does anyone in the East actually want to make the playoffs?

The Islanders were hoping to return to conference final form and currently have the inside track on a wild-card spot at 47 percent. But it sure doesn’t feel like it now that the team has dropped five straight games, four of which have been by three or more goals. They have just one more win than the Senators and have a .426 win percentage. That’s a 35-win pace. The lowest full-season win total in the cap era for a playoff team is 38, set by the 2011-12 Panthers and the 2015-16 Wild.

The Red Wings were hoping this season could be their big leap, and while it looked like it would be at some point, they’ve had a disastrous drop-off over the last few weeks that’s blown this race wide open. Detroit has lost eight of its last 10 games and seen its playoff odds drop from a peak of 76 percent, all the way down to 36 percent.

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