Hershey: 93 points, 41 regulation/OT wins (ROWs), two games remaining, magic number 4.
Bridgeport: 92 points, 39 ROW, two games remaining, magic number 6.
EastWatch may conceivably help you visualize.
Remember that, at least for the moment, we need to figure on four different kinds of results: Regulation or OT win; shootout win; overtime/shootout loss; and regulation loss.
Here’s roughly how Friday shakes out:
—Hershey clinches Friday with a win of any kind and a Bridgeport loss of any kind, or with an overtime loss and a Bridgeport regulation loss.
—“But that’s three points”: Because the tiebreaker is technically undetermined, both teams’ magic numbers give you what you’d need to finish with more points than the other team. In the end, if the teams are tied, there’s a set system of tiebreakers: regulation/OT wins first, and if those are tied, points in season series. So, if you clinch a tiebreaker, you can drop one from your magic number.
There’s only one scenario where Bridgeport can win a tiebreaker, but it can’t clinch it until Saturday: It would have to win both games in regulation/OT, and the Bears’ two games would have to include one shootout win and one overtime/shootout loss. Then it’d be 96 points for both, 41 ROWs for both, and a Bridgeport win in the season series. In every other case where the teams wind up tied in the end, the Bears will have secured the ROW tiebreaker.
In short, if the teams end up tied after Saturday, it’s Hershey spot unless Bridgeport wins both games in regulation or overtime and Hershey wins neither in regulation or overtime.
—Twins: Because of all that, in every case where Bridgeport and Hershey do exactly the same thing on Friday, the Bears will only need one point Saturday to clinch. Same thing if Bridgeport gets a shootout win and the Bears win in regulation.
—The longshot will be a little clearer, if it’s even still available, after Wednesday, when Lehigh Valley visits Wilkes-Barre and Providence visits Springfield. To give the Sound Tigers an opening, Lehigh Valley would have to lose all three in regulation; or Providence would have to lose all three (one OTL allowed as long as Bridgeport won both in regulation/OT), which in doing so would give both Hershey and Lehigh two points and make that route difficult to impossible.
The simplest fact, which we know for sure right now: If Bridgeport wins on Friday, Saturday’s games will be meaningful.