As of right now, 2:31 p.m. on Friday afternoon, the Thrashers can clinch a playoff berth against Boston on Saturday. Now, doing math makes me break out into a cold sweat, that’s why I got into journalism in the first place. But thankfully, the fine folks in the media relations department with the Thrashers, broke it down for me today. Here’s the scenario that needs to happen for them to get in with a win against Boston — and by all means check the math, that’s the beauty of the blogosphere - instant analysis.

So here you go, the playoff scenario, cut and pasted directly from my e-mail (thanks Potter):

e-mail from the Thrashers:
“We can clinch a playoff spot if:
If we win tomorrow (BOS)
and
The NY Islanders lose tonight (vs. BUF) and Saturday night (vs. OTT)
and
If Carolina loses tonight to TB
and
Toronto loses Saturday night (PIT)

If we win tomorrow, we have 93 points and if all of the above losses occur, the most points the other teams can possibly have is:

Toronto - 93
NY Islanders - 92
Carolina - 92

We own the tie breaker with Toronto based on head-to-head series, because a win tomorrow would give us 41 wins and if Toronto wins out, that would give them 41.

We can’t clinch the division tomorrow.”

Now, I haven’t had a chance to go behind Potter and check this scenario over, but I will here shortly. But I wanted to throw it out there, because if there’s an error, I’m confident you number crunchers out there will spot it.

Practice report: Today was an optional practice, and I exercised my option - arriving in Duluth about the same time that the players were getting off the ice. But Hartley confirmed that there would be no lineup changes for the Boston game except Kari Lehtonen is returning to goal in place of Johan Hedberg.

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