April is just around the corner. With most teams in the final stretch of the regular season, the playoff picture is beginning to take shape.

While there’s still a lot of moving parts, some are beginning to pull away, and we already have one team securing a spot and another two officially being eliminated. There’s still plenty of teams left in the hunt for the final few spots though, so it’s far from over.

Hunter Crowther and I continue to navigate through the results so far this season with another week of our co-op power rankings. I have my same old system in which I aggregate six stats (points %, 5-on-5 goal differential, 5-on-5 xGF/60, 5-on-5 xGA/60, power play xGF/60, and shorthanded xGA/60, all coming courtesy of Natural Stat Trick) to come up with a list that eliminates my own biases, along with a rule that no team can be above a team that’s more than five points ahead of them in the standings or has clinched a playoff spot when they haven’t, regardless of where the aggregate places them.

On the other hand, Hunter goes off his own intellect and pure vibes, and together, we find a way to combine it and meet in the middle.

1. Washington Capitals

Record: 47-15-8, +76
Last Week: 2nd (+1)
Hunter’s Rank: 1st
Scott’s Rank: 1st

Scott: The Capitals are officially the first team in the season to clinch a playoff spot, and I don’t think there’s too many people at the start of the season that would have guessed that they would be the first team to do so. With a 12-point lead on the next closest threat in both the Metropolitan Division and Eastern Conference, they can basically hop on cruise control for the final 12 games and focus on getting Alex Ovechkin to Wayne Gretzky’s goal record (he got another goal last week) and resting for the playoffs. It’ll be interesting to see in the final few games which one of those takes priority for the Caps in the final stretch.