With so much focus on roster moves and trades and speculation, Thursday night was fun. It was a return to hockey for hockey’s sake. Not to improve trade stock or count the scouts in the press box. It was teams, with their rosters settled, looking to make the playoff push.

It was P.K. Subban returning to Montreal, getting the welcome he deserved without the result he wanted. It was Thomas Vanek nearly scoring a goal seconds into his first overtime shift ever as a member of the Florida Panthers, but then the Flyers persevering by winning in the shootout.

It was a perfect Sergei Bobrovsky against the Wild, and then a passionate Bruce Boudreau after the game, crushing the calls that led to the showdown loss between two of the best teams in hockey.

It was refreshing.

The night was all a reminder that this next stretch of hockey is nearly as fun as the playoffs. The doldrums of October and November are long gone. The dog days of January are, too.

This is pre-playoff hockey, and it showed on Thursday night.

When the dust settled, there were two New York teams in the Eastern Conference wild-card spots, with the Islanders climbing their way back into the playoffs. A huge save from Steve Mason in the final seconds of regulation robbed the Panthers of an extra point, leaving them and the Maple Leafs just outside a playoff spot. The Kings replaced the Blues in the Western wild card.

And it could all be shuffled around again tomorrow.

So with the race tightened, the rosters settled and the playoffs on the horizon, here’s a reset of what to expect in the stretch run:

Eastern Conference

Don’t give up on this non-playoff-slotted team: Tampa Bay Lightning

You know, it wasn’t all that long ago that the New York Islanders were near the bottom of the East. During a time when it’s so hard to leapfrog teams, they showed it can happen. The Lightning have 20 games left, including 16 against the East. That’s still enough time to close the four-point gap on the Islanders and set up the Capitals' nightmare first-round scenario. They’ve got the team to do it. The Lightning, despite their struggles, are still a top-10 possession team. Steven Stamkos is now being spotted skating with teammates and is at the point in his recovery where he’s working on getting conditioning back. That addition would more than make up for the trade deadline subtractions.

The best spot in the standings to occupy and who will get it: No. 2 in the Atlantic

The Ottawa Senators have occupied this space for long stretches this season, but the prediction here is that the Boston Bruins end up grabbing it. The Bruins are the league’s best possession team at 55.1 percent and have shown real life after a coaching change that we admittedly disagreed with. The Bruins have three games left against the Senators (March 6 and 21, and April 6), and the Senators have a road-heavy schedule to finish out the season, playing 12 of their final 20 away, compared to the Bruins, who are at home for 11 of 18 to end the season. It could set up nicely for the Bruins, who would then have a friendlier path to the Eastern Conference finals in the playoffs because of it.

Non-goalie who can make a real impact on playoff race: Aleksander Barkov, Florida Panthers

Take a moment to enjoy this shootout goal from Barkov on Thursday night:

Barkov undressed Mason pic.twitter.com/DjhLQLdzN7

— Broad Street Hockey (@BroadStHockey) March 3, 2017

That just captures how good he is in one clip. The Panthers are a different team when he’s in the lineup. He’s so good on both ends of the ice. In his 11 February games after returning to action, he put up 11 points, and coach Tom Rowe was leaning on him for more than 20 minutes per game. Last year, after the All-Star break, Barkov put up 28 points in 27 games. There might not be room in the playoffs for both Florida teams, but if the Panthers get in, it’ll likely be in large part because of a strong performance from this kid.

Western Conference

Don’t give up on this non-playoff-slotted team: Ummmm ...

Yeah, so the Western Conference standings on March 3 look a lot like what they’re going to be when the postseason starts. Maybe shuffle some of the order, but with the Kings slotting into the second wild card, it’s hard to imagine things looking all that much different. The Jets are a blast to watch, an exciting young team that is a consistent goalie away from making the playoffs. They just aren’t there yet. The Blues got a jump after Mike Yeo took over, and you’d like to see how they’ll look coming out of the bye, but it’s hard to imagine them being better without Kevin Shattenkirk. We may be looking at our eight Western Conference playoff teams right now.

The best spot in the standings to occupy and who will get it: No. 1 in the West

There is more of a gap between the haves and the have-nots in the Western Conference, so the advantage for winning the West is a relatively big one. The Los Angeles Kings are a strong candidate to be the second wild-card team, and as daunting as that sounds, this isn’t the 2012 Kings. They were active at the trade deadline, but their big additions were Ben Bishop, who may not see playoff ice, and Jarome Iginla, who is a depth forward at this point. The Wild have earned the right to be considered the favorite to win the West, and they have the schedule to do it. Just 12 of their final 20 games are against teams that currently have more points than games played. If the race comes down to the final week of the season, the Wild finish up with two games against the Avalanche, one against the Hurricanes and one against the Coyotes. The West is there for the taking by Minnesota.

Non-goalie who can make a real impact on playoff race: Anze Kopitar, Los Angeles Kings

If we’re going to take Los Angeles seriously as a playoff team, somebody besides Jeff Carter is going to have to do some of the heavy lifting offensively. Eight Kings have scored more goals than Kopitar this season, and I'm going to include Dwight King in this because I'm trying to make a point. Kopitar is a player who contributes to wins in other areas of the ice, so not all is lost when he’s not scoring, but he has to do better than the seven goals and 37 points he has this season. His shooting percentage is just 5.8 percent, so perhaps he’ll have some better luck down the stretch, and the addition of Iginla will give him more space on the ice. If Kopitar gets going, and he’s certainly capable of doing so, that would change things considerably for the Kings.