We’ve known for a while now that the Albany Devils are locked into second place in the American Hockey League’s North Division. That means home-ice advantage at least for the first round of the Calder Cup playoffs, but the opponent is anything but settled.

Five teams — four of them from the Atlantic Division — are potential matchups for the first-round best-of-five series. The AHL is following a divisional format this year, but it instituted the rule that if the fifth-place squad in the eight-team Atlantic Division has a better record than the fourth-place squad in the seven-team North Division, than the Atlantic team would replace the fourth-place North team.

That already is assured of happening. Syracuse, saddled in fourth place in the North, has only 78 points, fewer than all except last-place Springfield from the Atlantic.

Where things become more complex is that the crossover team from the Atlantic isn’t automatically seeded fourth in the North. If that fifth-place team has more points than third-place Utica, then the Atlantic team will be the North Division’s No. 3 seed, and Utica would fall to fourth.

Utica, which has clinched a playoff spot, currently trails Bridgeport, the Atlantic’s No. 5 team, by one point, so if the playoffs started today, the Devils would face Bridgeport, and Utica would take on North Division winner Toronto.

That easily could change in the last weekend of the regular season.

Any of five teams could fill the slot of the No. 3 seed in the North Division: Utica, Bridgeport, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, Portland and Hartford.

In its simplest form, Albany will face the team that finishes third among those five teams:

GR W L OTL SOL Pts Friday Saturday Sunday W-B/Scranton 3 42 26 4 1 89 at LV vs. PRO at HER Portland 3 40 26 5 2 87 vs. BRI at SPR at SPR Bridgeport 3 39 27 4 3 85 at POR at ALB vs. PRO Utica 3 36 25 8 4 84 vs. SYR at SYR vs. BNG Hartford 2 40 31 3 0 83 at STJ at STJ

The exception is that Utica, even it if finishes ahead of Wilkes-Barre/Scranton or Portland in points, can’t finish higher than third in this group. If the Comets finish third or higher in this group, they will play the Devils in the first round.

There would seem to be a good chance of that, since Utica has three non-playoff games its remaining schedule. Bridgeport has three likely playoff teams remaining, two of them on the road.

Depending on the opponent, the Devils’ first playoff game will be Thursday or Friday, and Game 2 on Saturday. The exception would be if Wilkes-Barre/Scranton is the opponent, in which case, because of a building conflict, the series would start with two games in Pennsylvania and finish with three games in Albany.