NHL Thursday: Again, Maple Leafs fail to clinch

The San Jose Sharks and Los Angeles Kings continued their fierce battle for the fourth spot in the West, both winning their respective games and staying deadlocked with 55 points apiece.

The Kings just edged out the surging Columbus Blue Jackets, putting an end to the Jackets’ five-game winning streak and throwing a major wrench into the team’s playoff hopes. Columbus has a tenuous hold on the eighth seed, but the teams chasing them all have games in hand.

Oh, and he was wearing a horse mask at the time.

Amazing.

Backstrom left the game in the 3rd period with an upper-body injury, missing several shifts in the final minutes of the game while his team trailed. Backstrom, the second-leading scorer for the Capitals behind Alexander Ovechkin, would normally have been seeing significant play time as the game wound down as his team looked for the tying goal. Instead he was out of commission.

The team didn’t say what Backstrom’s injury was, only that it was an upper-body issue and that he wouldn’t return to the game. Twitter speculation, though, may have identified the problem:

Tampa Bay is out of playoff contention in the East.

• Bruins fans sing emotional national anthem

When a goal this beautiful happens, you’ve got to love it. Even if you’re a fan of the team getting scored on, you should just sit back and bask in the pure joy of hockey being played at its highest level. Really, who could possibly be angry with such an elegant and perfect goal?

Oh, right. Blue shirt guy. He’s pretty angry about it.

Unable to endure the shame and misery any longer, New Jersey fans watching the Devils play in Philadelphia took to wearing bags over their heads, Unknown Comic-style. They looked on in paper-faced solemnity as the Devils warmed up, bleak brown reminders of how far the Devils have fallen this year.

New Jersey leads the game by a score of 1-0 midway through the contest. It remains to be seen if an ultimately-meaningless victory is enough to banish the bags.

Here’s a look at the playoff picture entering competition on Thursday:

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