It’s time to stop saying it – the "real Stanley Cup final" will not be held when the Kings play the Blackhawks, or whatever two teams meet in the Western Conference finals.

That was last season’s argument based on a dramatic quality imbalance between the two conferences. The West was Murderers’ Row. The east was Candyland.

But the West’s total dominance wasn’t going to last as this is the NHL in 2015, which is to say a league of salary cap produced parity. The quality spectrum is compact. The ceiling is close to the floor. Carcillo is employed by the Hawks. Rinaldo is playing in Philly. There is a general balance.

Still, the widely-peddled assessment remains that the West is far better than the East, but one would be hard pressed to find any player excited to face, for example, the team bringing up the rear in the Eastern Conference playoff race. (As of this writing, it’s the Bruins, who have lost in regulation only four times in their last 20 games.)

Head to head is the obvious place to start, and the West is 148-142 against the East, hardly spelling dominance.

Eight of the top 15 possession teams and seven of the luckiest 15 teams (in terms of PDO) are from the East. Nashville is lucky. So is Montreal. Detroit isn’t particularly lucky. San Jose’s bounces are mostly bad. Nothing in the underlying stats really says "superior" or "dumb luck" one way or another.

The goal differential is also close, especially when considering that just about any measure will be skewed by the exceptionally horrible Sabres, who, by the way, still managed to beat up on the "elite" Sharks twice this season.

On the other hand, if you base your decisions on arbitrary clickbait, even ESPN's Power Rankings have Eastern teams in nine of the twelve top twelve slots.

Part of the lingering perception that "The Big, Bad Western Conference Owns Little Brother East", as Bleacher Report put it, comes from accepting the changed storyline. Teams that were supposed to stink are exceeding expectations. Teams supposedly among the elite are underachieving. The West has won more games than the East every season this millennium, especially last year, so the power shift takes some getting used.

Many picked the Islanders, for example, to land in the postseason, but no one pegged them near the top of the conference in February. The Red Wings, after so many preseason obits, appear to be back from the grave, pushing for the East’s top spot. Naturally, it takes some convincing that either team is for real.

Conversely, the Sharks are, in theory, a great team, but they continually flub along for protracted stretches or do things like lose to Carolina and Buffalo. San Jose could simply be a mediocre team this season, which is easier to accept if one takes away past achievements and expectations. Similarly, this might be the year the Kings find themselves in tenth place in April. At that point, L.A. would be a tenth place team, not a borderline dynasty like they are still considered.

As the homestretch approaches and the pendulum swings, it’s a good time to assess the conferences. In the East, the playoff picture is pretty clear and there isn’t much room for debate on who's good and who isn’t. As of this writing, eight points separate the one seed from the eight seed, unlike the West, where 14 points separate the Ducks and Flames. That’s part of why the West is a little murkier.

The West

There are basically three groups in the West. Bad. Good. And still a mystery.

Bad

The Bad is the easiest group to identify, and the places to start with bad in the West are Edmonton and Arizona, which is all that really needs to be said there. Minnesota isn’t much more intimidating, though allegedly only needed something resembling an NHL goaltender to right the ship. Since arriving, Devan Dubnyk is 7-1 with a .938 save percentage and four shutouts. Still, it feels like a day late and a dollar short.

Dallas and Colorado are just behind the Wild in the standings and even more doomed. Yes, even Dallas. The Stars became a fashionable pick this fall mostly on the prospect of a Tyler Seguin-Jamie Benn-Jason Spezza superline tearing it up. And those three playing together is like candy. But quality teams need more than one amazing line, zero really good defensive pairings and zero good goalies. Kari Lehtonen’s save percentage is at .905. And people thought this team would be decent? Ay yi yi.

Calgary, or Colorado redux, is also bad, and the Cliff’s Notes on how the Flames’ story concludes is available in their advanced stats – 27th in possession, 6th in PDO. In other words, they have been lucky and can’t hold onto the puck. The winning ways won’t last, and for supporting evidence look no further than the postseason of the 2103-14 Avs, which similarly finished 27th in possession and third in PDO. And the Avs’ 2014-2015 story, of course, is an extension of last season’s playoffs, which saw the Wild knock them out first round.

Vancouver ranks among the best of the bad, but they are still bad. There doesn’t seem to be anything glaringly horrible about the team, but there’s nothing glaringly great, either. The top line is excellent, but does anyone beyond it score? Not much. Ryan Miller and Eddie Lack are solid. But prepared to carry the team? No. That defense? Well, it’s okay. Okay ….

Still a mystery

Winnipeg, San Jose, and L.A. are the NHL's hardest to figure out, but there's no more of a mystery than this season’s Sharks. The team’s current point total isn’t good enough to make the playoffs in the East, but it’s essentially the same roster that finished with 111 points last season in a far stronger Western Conference. They rank pretty low in luck, but rank pretty high in possession, so that means a late-season tear should start anytime now. But it didn’t start this weekend, when they fell in another cringer to Carolina.

Winnipeg is maybe, actually, sort of getting good. Michael Hutchinson has a strong 5v5 save percentage of .938 and the Jets’ possessions stats indicate something more sustainable is afoot than in Calgary, for example. But Winnipeg? The perennial snooze that held down the third spot in the Smythe Division for the better part of a decade? (Yes – different franchise. Both are boring.) The city may finally have a team drifting toward respectability, but it’ll take more than one sound season to remove it from its role as the poster child for mediocrity.

The last of the headscratchers are the Kings, who appear to be discovering that blasting through February and March and into the playoffs may not work this time around. The task is made even more difficult without guys like Willie Mitchell, Slava Vonyov or some reinforcements at the trade deadline. Still, they’re the best possession teams in the league, but are 3-5-2 in their last ten.

Good

The West’s top four – Chicago, St. Louis, Nashville, and Anaheim - is what makes it still look better than the East, because those four teams are arguably the best in the NHL. Moreover, Chicago and St. Louis appear to be the most complete teams from top to bottom and aren’t newcomers to elite status. Defensive depth, center depth, four lines, goalies, bench bosses, veterans, youth. The mixes are there. It’s seriously difficult to look at either teams’ roster and find a clear hint of what might spell postseason doom.

The common thought on Anaheim is that the team is incredibly lucky to be undefeated in one-goal games (in which they're 20-0-6) and the Ducks will wane when that luck runs out. But it's February, and they keep wining, and the only real question mark is what to do about the team being saddled with the postseason hex put on Bruce Boudreau.

Conventional wisdom forecasts a somewhat similar minor decline in Nashville based on the team having the league’s highest PDO, but, for now, life remains just fine for the Preds. Forward depth could be an issue, but the team is third overall in goals scored. And if Pekka Rinne continues to be 2014-2015 Pekka Rinne, the Predators could be hard to stop.

The East

The East, unlike the West, is split into only two camps: Good and Bad.

Bad

With maybe 26 rosters full of NHL-caliber players, the garbage is going to flow somewhere. It seems to have gathered in Buffalo.

Carolina, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Columbus, Ottawa and Toronto are also undeniably horrible, and there’s no point in exploring their situations much further, though Toronto’s annual collapse is even more gruesome than usual and worth a quick chuckle.

Florida is also fairly lousy, though not a raging dumpster fire like Toronto or Carolina., mostly because of Roberto Luongo and its youth. But the Panthers managed only three wins in their last ten, and appear to be slowly sinking the level everyone expected.

Good

All the playoff teams in the East are good.

Pittsburgh and the Islanders swapped spots atop the Metropolitan all season, but once again the Penguins are struggling due to being fourth overall in man games lost. There's no doubt penciling in Brandon Sutter as your first line center is bad news, but the Pens will be the Pens when the infirmary empties out.

The Islanders, unlike Nashville, aren’t finding success with more puck luck than every other team in the league. Instead, the additions of Nick Leddy and Johnny Boychuck made the Isles D jump from okay to respectable, and the team puts out four young lines that score.

Like the Islanders, the Red Wings are a huge surprise. They rank among the top teams in puck possession categories, have the best power play in the NHL, are fifth in goals against, and have a strong penalty kill. Even Mike Babcock says he’s surprised by the team’s success, but there’s nothing in the details suggesting Detroit is destined for a Colorado-style flame out. Babcock for Jack Adams? That’s crazy talk.

Tampa shares the lead in the East, surprising no one. Like Chicago and St. Louis, the holes in the Bolts’ lineup are few. Montreal, on the other hand, is luckier than most (second in the league in PDO, behind Nashville), and riding on Carey Price’s superhuman performances. But he continues to play that way and there’s a supporting cast in front of him potting enough pucks to make it work. For now.

The only team that was any sort of mystery in the east was Boston, who won just 11 of their first 25 games but pulled out of the tailspin to go 9-3-3 so far in 2015. Their return to form will likely to last and although this isn't last year's Bruins, it's still a heavyweight.

The last of the East’s playoff teams, the Rangers and Capitals, have similar trajectories – they started slow, caught fire, then slowed down a bit. The Rangers are allowing the third fewest goals per game. Holtby is all the sudden solid for the Caps, and both are scoring in bunches in recent months. Overtaking the Islanders and/or Pittsburgh isn’t out of the question for either.

And that’s the big difference between the two conferences. There are eight teams in the East one can look at and fear. Four in the West. But the jury is still out on many in the Pacific Division. Who is elite? Who isn’t? Is Dean Lombardi not really a genius? Is Detroit better than on-and-done? Answers will come this spring, but the full picture won't present itself until the Stanley Cup final.