There are some fantastic plot lines forming, to be sure, giving the standings a sort of upside-down look.

AROUND THE PACIFIC

Marc Crawford isn’t working miracles in Dallas, but he’s got the Stars looking like a playoff team well ahead of schedule. Anaheim coolly shook off a horrid start, and an even scarier injury to captain Ryan Getzlaf, to become a potential playoff spoiler. The Coyotes have the league’s highest-scoring defenseman and are on pace for a 95-point season. The bottom-dwelling Sharks and Kings have weathered unexpected offensive droughts, but both are on pace for 90-point seasons.

Therein lies the intrigue: The Pacific Division has a realistic chance of putting all five teams in the playoffs, something that has never happened since the NHL adopted the six-division format in 1998-99. The teams are separated by 10 points, and they’re only going to be seeing more of each other down the stretch.

Will it happen? Probably not. But have fun guessing which team(s) won’t make it. Here’s a look at the pros and cons for each:

Pros: The Stars have built up a large enough gap on the rest of the division – and no team has played fewer games – that it would take a sizeable collapse for them to drop out now. Their top six forwards are as good as any, while a lunch-pail defense and plus netminding don’t allow many goals. This team has no glaring personnel weaknesses.

Cons: The Stars rank 27th in the league in penalty minutes and 22nd in the league on the penalty kill. That’s not necessarily a recipe for disaster, since any team with Steve Ott, Adam Burish and Krys Barch won’t inherently be killing off heaps of minor penalties – they’ll take five for fighting, thank you. But teams heavy on bullies rarely go on deep playoff runs. That’s why we remember the few that have.

Pros: The Ducks are 10-3 without their best player (Getzlaf), who is expected to return next week, and are getting goals in the meantime from both young (Bobby Ryan) and old (Teemu Selanne). Fresh-faced defensemen Cam Fowler and Luca Sbisa have matured rapidly to make the blue line respectable. Jonas Hiller is having a Vezina-worthy season.

Cons: In spite of Anaheim’s improvements on defense, Hiller has faced more shots than any NHL goalie. He can’t be expected to keep up his current pace. Nor can Selanne, a surprise point-per-game player at age 40.

Pros: Dave Tippett’s discipline- and defense-first formula is still working with an anonymous cast. The Coyotes survived without captain Shane Doan, and continue to get All-Star caliber goaltending from Ilya Bryzgalov – who no team wants to face down the stretch and beyond.

Cons: Their leading scorers are a defenseman (Keith Yandle) and a 38-year-old journeyman (Ray Whitney). No group of forwards has emerged as a dangerous number one line – or number two line, for that matter. Offensively challenged teams can only lean on their depth for so long.

Pros: The offensive firepower is still there with Logan Couture, Ryane Clowe and Joe Pavelski offering a second wave behind the always-dangerous Thornton/Heatley/Marleau trio. Players like Douglas Murray and recent acquisition Ben Eager give the Sharks more muscle than they’ve had recently – maybe ever.

Cons: The blue line has shown itself to be thin behind Murray and Dan Boyle. An injury to either player could spell doom, as goalies Antti Niemi and Antero Niittymaki don’t steal games. The Sharks might not be able to survive another slump by their gold-medal winning line.

Pros: This is still basically the same team as last season, a young and hungry group that fought to the finish. Drew Doughty and Jack Johnson are a dangerous duo on the back end. Goalie Jonathan Quick looks ready to take the next step.

Cons: The questions about whether the young Kings can handle the pressure of expectations are legitimate. Their lack of scoring depth was exposed during a 2-10 January slump, and Terry Murray has exhausted the possibilities of forward combinations without a cogent solution.

Dallas’ Loui Eriksson, fresh off his two-goal performance at the All-Star Game, was voted the most underrated player in the league by his fellow players. … NHL commissioner Gary Bettman told reporters in Raleigh that the league isn’t funding the Dallas Stars. … Yandle (3 goals, 17 points in 14 games) was named the NHL’s second star of the month for January. … The Ducks finished last month with an 8-3-0 record for a franchise-record .727 win percentage in January. Maybe not coincidentally, the Ducks also led the league in power-play efficiency in January at 38.2 percent (13-for-34). … With his 684th assist on Jan. 25 at Columbus, Selanne surpassed Brad Park for sole possession of 54th place in all-time NHL assists. Selanne is currently only four assists shy of tying Henri Richard for 53rd place and also one shy of 100 career game-winning goals. He would become the sixth player to do so (Howe, Esposito, Jagr, Brett Hull, Shanahan). … Former Ducks prospect Jason Bailey sued the team that drafted him in 2005, claiming he was the target of anti-Semitic discrimination. … The Kings play their first 10 games in February away from Staples Center and will also play on consecutive nights four times this month. … Read a touching chronicle of the mental problems that led to the recent suicide of Sharks prospect Tom Cavanagh. … According to the San Jose Mercury News, Sharks GM Doug Wilson would neither confirm nor deny putting in a waiver claim for goalie Evgeni Nabokov, who was eventually claimed on waivers by the New York Islanders.

Photos by Getty Images

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