Updated: May 16, 2012, 11:19 AM ET

Power Rankings: West remains the best

Week:

By Pierre LeBrun (Posted April 9, 2012)

Our final Power Rankings of the season see the San Jose Sharks jump up the chart and the Vancouver Canucks staying atop the heap after clinching the Presidents' Trophy as NHL regular-season champions. The only rankings that matter will be decided in June, of course, when a Stanley Cup champion is declared.

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2011-2012 Power Rankings: Week 28
RANK	TEAM / RECORD	TRENDING	COMMENTS
1	Vancouver 51-22-9	-- Last Week: 1	An impressive finish to the season sees the Canucks capture a second straight Presidents' Trophy as regular-season champs. But it's a different trophy, the most famous in sports, that they have their sights set on. For that, they'll need Daniel Sedin along for the ride.
2	Pittsburgh 51-25-6	3 Last Week: 5	Evgeni Malkin will win the Hart Trophy. Can Sidney Crosby cap that with a Conn Smythe? The Pens are locked and loaded but they've got a brutally tough first-round series with Philadelphia that's honestly a flip of a coin.
3	New York 51-24-7	1 Last Week: 2	Kudos to the Blueshirts for holding off Pittsburgh and claiming the Atlantic Division and Eastern Conference titles. A first-round matchup with surprising Ottawa sure beats playing Philly, that's for sure. But now is their time of reckoning over the next two months: Are the Rangers for real?
4	St. Louis 49-22-11	1 Last Week: 3	An incredible regular season nets them ... the dangerous San Jose Sharks in the first round. It's true what they say: You can't hide in the Western Conference. Oh, and if Ken Hitchcock doesn't win the Jack Adams Award as NHL Coach of the Year, there's something massively wrong.
5	Nashville 48-26-8	6 Last Week: 11	Not a good time to be a catfish in Nashville. Hide, hide! Or else you'll find yourself splattered on the ice at Bridgestone Arena. ... Well, here we are. Shea Weber and Ryan Suter want to let the playoffs help determine their futures. Never in the history of the Predators has there been a more promising spring, yet with so much on the line for the franchise.
6	Philadelphia 47-26-9	2 Last Week: 4	Most teams in the East would want to avoid a first-round matchup with the high-flying Penguins. Not the Flyers, who have had their state rival's number this season by winning four of six games. Bring it on, Claude Giroux and the boys say in Philly. Sidney Crosby might be the best player on the planet, but Ilya Bryzgalov has the universe behind him.
7	Detroit 48-28-6	5 Last Week: 12	What to make of the perennial powerhouse? The Wings won only six of their 18 road games in March/April and lost home-ice advantage to the Predators in the process. Still, this is a veteran core that knows how to get it done. It's going to be quite a compelling series with the Preds.
8	Boston 49-29-4	1 Last Week: 7	Interesting how quietly under the national radar the defending Cup champs enter the playoffs. Which, given the Tim Thomas-White House fiasco earlier this season, is just fine with them. Without much fanfare outside of New England, the Bruins have got their A-game together for the playoffs, and it wouldn't surprise me one bit if they got all the way back to the dance.
9	San Jose 43-29-10	7 Last Week: 16	Staring at two massive home-and-home series with Pacific Division rivals Dallas and Los Angeles to end the season, with the possibility of missing the playoffs very much a reality, the Sharks went out and swept all four games. Hello, hockey world; the back-to-back conference finalists are back. And just in time for the playoffs.
10	Chicago 45-26-11	4 Last Week: 6	I can't figure it out, was Detroit scoring late on Saturday afternoon a good thing or not? If the Wings hadn't, the Hawks would play Nashville in the first round. Because Detroit did, the Hawks play Phoenix. On the surface, a good exchange for the Hawks. But be careful what you wish for ...
11	Phoenix 42-27-13	2 Last Week: 13	While the focus was on the Sharks and Kings, the nobody-loves-us Coyotes sneaked through the side door to grab the Pacific themselves. The plucky Desert Dogs are on fire, entering the playoffs with five straight wins, Mike Smith channeling Dominik Hasek and the ownerless bunch from Glendale hoping they've got one more surprise left up their sleeves.
12	New Jersey 48-28-6	4 Last Week: 8	You wonder had the Devils not played in the evil Atlantic just how more padded their season stats might have been. This is a very good hockey team lost in the shadow of the Rangers-Penguins-Flyers superiority. On the positive side, they drew the first-round team most clubs in the East would have wanted in Florida.
13	Los Angeles 40-27-15	3 Last Week: 10	Two games ago, the Kings were sitting first in the Pacific, on the verge of only their second division title in franchise history. Then Big Brother San Jose came along and swept a home-and-home series to drop the Kings all the way down to eighth in the West and a first-round date with Presidents' Trophy-winning Vancouver. Gulp.
14	Washington 42-32-8	1 Last Week: 15	I love the way these guys are playing. I had written them off after they lost at home to Buffalo two weeks ago. I was wrong. There's more heart on this team than I believed. Can they upset the mighty Bruins?
15	Florida 38-26-18	1 Last Week: 14	Well, let's face it, the Cats didn't set the world on fire in the last few weeks, making the playoffs and winning the Southeast Division despite their best attempts at blowing it. Yet there's a resilience about this underdog team that I truly appreciate. They love proving people wrong. Up next, New Jersey.
16	Ottawa 41-31-10	7 Last Week: 9	Every season there's a team that exceeds everyone's regular-season expectations, and the playoffs come as a nice bonus. That's Ottawa this year; there were few better stories in the NHL. Now the Senators need to prove they're not just happy to be here. That they're still hungry to prove more.
17	Dallas 42-35-5	1 Last Week: 18	Two seasons in a row, the Stars fall just short in the final week. Man, that hurts. A five-game losing streak to end the season? That hurts even more. Jamie Benn is a rock star, and Kari Lehtonen is for real, but GM Joe Nieuwendyk has seen enough evidence over the past two seasons that he needs to change the supporting cast. And he will.
18	Buffalo 39-32-11	1 Last Week: 17	The real Buffalo Sabres showed up too late in the second half. I see red flags in this core: not enough character for my liking. If I'm GM Darcy Regier, I'm a busy man this summer.
19	Colorado 41-35-6	-- Last Week: 19	I know Avs fans are bummed at how it all played out in the end, but there are few teams I'm more excited about moving forward than the young-and-gun Avs. I've got a man-crush on the underrated, underappreciated Ryan O'Reilly, and if Gabriel Landeskog doesn't win the Calder Trophy, I'm going to cover the draft in my underwear. OK, I just said a lot of uncomfortable things.
20	Tampa Bay 38-36-8	2 Last Week: 22	Hats off to 60-goal man Steven Stamkos. That is an unreal accomplishment in a year in which goal-scoring around the league dipped.
21	Winnipeg 37-35-10	-- Last Week: 21	To the 15,000-plus who rocked the MTS Centre all season long: I bow to you. You were the best fans in the NHL this season, and it wasn't even close. You proved beyond argument that the NHL should have never left Winnipeg. Can't wait for the party to begin all over again next fall in the Peg.
22	Carolina 33-33-16	1 Last Week: 23	Kirk Muller was an excellent hire as head coach. Eric Staal had a massive second half. Justin Faulk deserves a Calder Trophy nomination. But the Canes need to splurge a little this summer and add some parts, notably a first-line winger for Staal.
23	Calgary 37-29-16	3 Last Week: 20	Honestly, will ownership in Calgary finally understand that the current core won't ever win in this league? Time for change!
24	Anaheim 34-36-12	1 Last Week: 25	That 41-year-old Teemu Selanne led the Ducks in scoring this season pretty much sums up the frustration. Will the real Ryan Getzlaf please stand up? The Ducks turned it around in the second half but it was too little, too late. GM Bob Murray has some fascinating decisions to make this summer.
25	Minnesota 35-36-11	1 Last Week: 24	There are young pieces in the system that are on the rise but the Wild still need to trade this summer for more offensive help.
26	Montreal 31-35-16	2 Last Week: 28	With Carey Price, P.K. Subban and Max Pacioretty as the young building blocks, this team isn't nearly as far away from rebounding as most people think. Depending on what the new GM does this summer, I'll say it right now: It would not surprise me if they're back in the playoffs next season.
27	New York 34-37-11	1 Last Week: 26	After all these years of the same on Long Island, I run out of things to say. Yes, led by John Tavares there's an exciting young cast to build around. But I think Isles fans are tired of hearing about promise. They want action.
28	Toronto 35-37-10	1 Last Week: 29	Well, that was an interesting final two months, eh? Mercy. Going to be a wacky offseason in the center of the hockey universe. There's massive pressure on GM Brian Burke to fix this mess.
29	Edmonton 32-40-10	3 Last Week: NR	Enough rebuilding. Time to win games next season.
30	Columbus 29-46-7	-- Last Week: 30	Back to our regularly scheduled programming, the Rick Nash Trade Watch.
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Power Rankings: West remains the best

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