The last month of the regular season is underway in High School Hockey, and things are heating up in the race for playoff spots. The top teams in both Class A and B West are all within a very close margin, and things are sure to get interesting over the next few weeks as the teams really begin to battle it out for the top seeds heading into the post-season.

Defending State Champs Thornton Academy are currently sitting at the top of Class A West, but with the heal points system, and with things as close as they are, coach Jamie Gagnon admits that this can change very quickly.

“The tough thing about heal points is they are so reliant upon what other teams do, which is completely out of our control. Most teams still have a third or more of their seasons left so there are bound to be changes throughout the standings over the course of the next few weeks.”

“I think this season there are a bunch of teams that will plan to make a run at it. All of them pose very different challenges and it should make for interesting post-season matchups.”

Right now, Scarborough (10-2-1), Falmouth (7-3-1), and Marshwood/Traip (9-2) round out the top four in Class A West. With a couple of their games postponed and waiting to be made up, Kennebunk (currently sixth with an 8-3 record) and Cheverus (seventh, 7-3) stand to move up in the rankings too.

No.3 ranked Falmouth is the only team that Thornton Academy hasn’t been able to beat this season, losing 5-3 in their first meeting and tying 3-3 in their second match up.

“Falmouth is a solid team with tremendous team speed and depth and their goaltender has played well all year,” said Gagnon. “They have played extremely hard in our two meetings this season. That being said, we have a number of challenging games still left on our schedule that will require all of our focus before we can start trying to keep track of any other teams.”

One of these games will be the rematch against Scarborough in Thornton’s second to last game of the regular season. The Golden Trojans handed the Red Storm a 7-1 beating earlier in the season, but the second meeting of the two teams comes on Scarborough’s home ice with the Red Storm looking to avenge their earlier loss, as well as pick up some valuable heal points late in the season.

“I would expect both teams to play hard,” said Gagnon. “There will undoubtedly be playoff implications, given the time of the year and the amount of heal points up for grabs. Both teams will be starting to prepare for the post-season and will want to be playing their best hockey. We’ll have to play a disciplined, opportunistic, and mistake free game in order to have a chance to be successful.”

Biddeford’s 2-1 upset over Scarborough last Saturday has boosted them to the No. 5 spot, despite a 5-5-2 record, testament to how much Scarborough is worth in heal points.

Gorham (5-6), Bonny Eagle (5-8), and Fryeburg/Lake Region (5-6) round out the top ten at the 8, 9, and 10 spots, respectively.

For Thornton Academy, trying to stay on top, they will follow the same approach they have all season: taking things one game at a time and one shift at a time.

“If you look at the season thus far it has been almost impossible to predict who will win any given night,” said Gagnon. “So the focus becomes on controlling what we can control and to keep things simple.”

“As the number of games, periods, and shifts start to be numbered it is easier to stress not taking any of them for granted. We’re going to maintain the mentality of ‘The-most-important-shift-is-the-next one’ the rest of the way out and hopefully it leads to us playing our best hockey going into the post-season regardless of what seed we wind up with.”

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While the standings are really close in Class A West, its insanely close in Class B West. Of the seven teams in Class B West, six of them are pretty much neck and neck right now. With a 3-2 win over defending Class B State Champions York High School on Thursday, Greely (8-3-1) has moved to the top of the point standings, with the competition close on their heels.

Cape Elizabeth (7-3-2) was sitting at the top, but after Greely’s win Thursday, now find themselves at the number two spot. Camden Hills is right behind them at number three with a 7-5 record.

Following their State Championship run last season, York has been plagued with injuries and just plain bad luck this year, but are still sitting respectively at the fourth spot with a 6-5-2 record.

“We have yet to get a bounce all year long,” said York coach Michael Vessey. “Nothing’s gone our way. We lost one game when a kid throwing the puck in, bounces off one of my players and goes in. We’ve had a lot of that this year—it’s fine during the regular season, I’m hoping it turns around for the playoffs.”

“I learned what I needed to know (Thursday night against Greely) and we’ll be coaching for the playoffs.”

Gardiner is holding down the number five spot with an even 6-6 record. Yarmouth (7-3-1) sits right behind them at number six, but still have to make up a game against Kennebunk that was postponed earlier in the season, which could give them a boost in the heal points too.

With things so close in the playoff race for Class B West, February is shaping up to be an interesting month. Any one of the teams could wind up on top when all is said and done, but the team that emerges at number one will likely be the team that can win the close games and is comfortable playing in tight situations.

Impossible to say right now who that team will be, but one thing can be said for certain: we are in for some exciting High School Hockey in the upcoming weeks.