Coyotes playoff tracker: Jets take NHL Western Conference Wild Card lead

Tight playoff races in both the Western Conference Wild Card and Pacific Division have the Arizona Coyotes playing critical games late in the season.

As the Coyotes try to get into the playoffs for the first time since the 2011-12 season, we’re keeping track of the complicated race for you.

The top three teams in the Pacific Division automatically get into the playoffs, as do the top three teams in the Central Division. Among all the rest of the Western Conference teams that are not in their division’s top three spots, the top two will get in the playoffs as Wild Card teams.

The standings are organized by points (two points for a win and one point for an overtime/shootout loss), but keep in mind that teams with more games remaining have a greater number of chances to pick up points. Therefore, games played is the first tiebreaker in organizing teams in the standings.

The next tiebreaker is regulation wins (RW), which excludes overtime or shootout victories, and the second tiebreaker is regulation and overtime wins (ROW), which excludes only shootout victories. The next tiebreaker is total wins, and there are even more tiebreakers beyond that.

Here’s an updated look at the playoff race as it relates to the Coyotes, who play many of these playoff-hopeful teams in their remaining games of the season:

NHL Pacific Division standings

Place	Team	Points	Games Left	RW	ROW
1	Vegas	86	11	30	36
2	Edmonton	83	11	31	35
3	Calgary	79	12	25	30

NHL Western Conference Wild Card standings

Place	Team	Points	Games Left	RW	ROW
1	Winnipeg	80	11	30	34
2	Nashville	78	13	28	32
3	Vancouver	78	13	27	32
4	Minnesota	77	13	30	33
5	Arizona	74	12	26	28
6	Chicago	72	12	23	28

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