Who dares, wins – the race for ice hockey’s play-offs

The permutations are, however, much more complicated to assess.

The run-in to the 219-20 EIHL season will see the pressure ramped up game by game all the way to the wire.

Fife Flyers’ recovery after equalling their worst ever losing streak of 14 games, has re-aligned the race completely.

They remain bottom of the table and have played more games than their challengers, but the very fact the gap between tenth and seventh is now down to five points means the quartet go from here without a safety net.

A three-way race has also expanded to fully embrace Glasgow Clan – a team which ought to have been safely home long before now.

In mid-November, Clan were sitting pretty at the top of the table, but they’re now engulfed in a dog fight just to make the play-offs, with two wins in 12 outings underlining their worrying lack of form at the most crucial point of the campaign.

Perhaps the teams which prevail will be the ones which best handle the pressure.

Flyers have found some confidence and self-belief at the right time, but they have a horrendous run-in with five of their seven closing games on the road – three of them in Belfast.

But the margin for error is just as thin at Manchester, Dundee and Glasgow who know their games in hand come with a ’must win’ caveat, and the fact all four challengers go head to head across the next few weeks simply racks up the magnitude of the results.

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Storm coach, Ryan Finnerty, will be hoping his rant about Scottish refs wasn’t ill-timed when he brings his side back north of the border this weekend.

His plea to “put the right guys in charge” may well backfire if he finds the same officials in charge for his visits to Dundee and Glasgow.

Storm also face two tough games against title chasing Steelers and a midweek trip to Nottingham to navigate, but they will draw confidence from moving up into seventh place at the expense of a Glasgow Clan side which is looking more vulnerable than ever.

Zack Fitzgerald’s side is mired in a losing streak which includes three straight losses on home ice.

It faces a taxing triple header this weekend too - two games against Storm either side of a road trip to Coventry.

Stars remain the great unpredictables. Two wins and an OT victory in their last five underline the capability of a team which has remained pretty much near the foot of the table for most of the campaign.

That mini streak included an eye-catching 5-2 win in Sheffield - further evidence that you cannot dismiss Omar Pacha’s team lightly.

Their run in is a decent mix in terms of home and away, but includes two games against Cardiff, two against Sheffield … and two against Clan.

The challenge facing coaches Dutiaume, Finnerty, Pacha and Fitzgerald is to hide their teams, step by step through a fraught few weekends.

Flyers have successfully navigated such moments by going period by period - looking no further forward than the next 20 minutes as they plot a route map to a top eight placing.

All four may well adopt that strategy from now until the end of March.

And it may well come down to who dares, wins