While the Alaska Aces and Utah Grizzlies get a rare weekend off, the other six teams in the ECHL's National Conference play multiple games, and the results will give us a better idea where the Aces stand with a month left in the 72-game regular season.

Entering tonight, the Aces sit in fourth place in the eight-team conference -- seven teams make the playoffs, which the last-place team packing its gear until fall. But the Aces have also played more games than any team in the conference -- as many as four more games than last-place Las Vegas, for instance -- so playoff positioning is a bit tough to gauge. After this weekend, though, Victoria will have played 60 games; the Aces and Ontario 59; Stockton, Utah and Las Vegas 58; and Idaho and Bakersfield 57.

The Aces, coming off a two-game sweep of visiting Utah, have seven home games and six road games remaining.

Here's how the standings look by place, team, points earned and games left (in parentheses) entering tonight:

1) Idaho 79 points (17)
2) Bakersfield 67 (17)
3) Victoria 66 (14)
4) Aces 61 (13)
5) Stockton 60 (16)
6) Utah 59 (14)
7) Ontario 56 (16)
8) Las Vegas 55 (17)