The Real Western Conference Standings

really interesting how the Kings/ Coyotes are screwed/ helped by the Bettman point. the Kings have only 1 OT point in that column, compared to 29th and 28th New York (Rangers) and New Jersey who have 3.

winning = gooooooooood.

I agree that it looks like the Kings are getting screwed by the Bettman point, but it depends on what you consider the Bettman Point. I would say that the real Bettman point is the point gained in a SO/OT win by the winning team, not the point that the losing team gets by virtue of making it to overtime. If you figure it this way, I would say that the Kings seem to be doing rather well with the Bettman point.

while it annoys me that some teams collect these extras points like Kids trick or treating pick up candy it should be pointed out positively that the Kings have been the beneficiary of the extra point provided by the SO 5×. Had the SO been dumped and both teams awarded a single point after OT I would assume the Kings would be in worse shape than they currently are.
Going to OT is a good thing for LA in that they’ve picked up 2 all but once, the problem is theyve lost a lot of 1 goal games and not managed to do so in OT. Phoenix has been the masters of that. It not fair to compare current scoring with that of the days of ties, current OT is 4 on 4 and then you have the SO. Both teams are guaranteed a point regardless so why not go for it in OT. If we had the 5 on 5 with a pt each for ties, every team, Kings included would have fewer points.
Does anyone want to settle 2 pts worth on a SO? Winner take all? Hey in the Kings case Id say yes, but that’s a slippery slope.
Rules are the same for everyone, Kings just need to keep winning and if they lose try to do it more often in OT!

bq.It not fair to compare current scoring with that of the days of ties, current OT is 4 on 4 and then you have the SO. Both teams are guaranteed a point regardless so why not go for it in OT. If we had the 5 on 5 with a pt each for ties, every team, Kings included would have fewer points.

You can compare because an OT win is the same as a SO win so you can just compare to it would have been a tie before for OT and SO wins. You say why not go for it in OT, but the point is in the old system there was no OT. And yes, the Kings would have fewer points with ties, but so would all the other teams.

www.sportsclubstats.com is a site that uses various algorithms and “weighted coin tosses” to try to predict which teams have what chance of making the playoffs. It simulates the remainder of the season millions of times and sees what percentage of the time a team makes the playoffs, if they lose a certain percent of the games they play against teams with better records than they have, and win a certain number vs the teams with lower records, etc. Obviously the trick here with accurate predictions is figuring out how much to weight each team, or each “coin toss.” There isn’t a mathematically certain way to do that or we could predict everything right now, but what this does tell is which teams have the more difficult schedules.

What’s really interesting is that, even though the Kings are 1 point behind the Sharks in the standings with equal games played, the Kings have been projected to have a 60.8% chance of making the playoffs, while the Sharks have been projected to have a 42.8% chance of making the playoffs. I’m not saying those percentages are accurate, but what it does tell us is that the Sharks have a much more difficult schedule than the Kings do for the remainder of the season. This takes into account mostly quality of opposition, with a little weight added based on whether a game is home or away. And it’s true if you look at their schedule. February, for the Sharks, they have a lot of road games, yes, but in terms of quality of opposition, they have some games against good teams, but also some against New Jersey, Florida, Columbus, etc. It’s March, however, where the Kings could conceivably gain ground. The Sharks play Colorado, Detroit, then Dallas, Nashville, Vancouver, NYR, Chicago, Dallas, (Minnesota, St Louis, Calgary – could be three big gift games for the Sharks, but even these easier games, with the exception of St Louis if they’re still injured, aren’t necessarily guaranteed wins the same way most games vs Edmonton or Jersey are), Kings, Coyotes, Stars.

So with the exception of the three games I highlighted, and maybe the Coyotes who the Sharks have owned recently, and maybe Nashville, these are all games against upper echelon, or close to upper echelon, teams. If the Kings can at minimum keep pace with the Sharks through February, they’ll definitely have a chance to make ground in March. The five games in April are a little worrisome, because other than the one against the Kings, all four are against the Ducks and Coyotes, and the Sharks could easily win all four of those games if Phoenix continues to play like they have been against the Sharks, and if the Ducks aren’t able to keep their play up, and keep the puck out of their net. However even those games, especially the ones vs the Ducks, aren’t gimmes either. The thing about the Sharks is they got all four of their gimmes against the Oilers in basically by midway through the season, as well as their games vs the Islanders, Senators, and Maple Leafs. They’re very lucky in that they have a 2nd game against New Jersey coming up, and they haven’t played Florida yet, but for most the part, they’ve gotten a lot of their easy games already, which is an advantage for the teams who haven’t gotten their easy games in yet. San Jose has also played three games against the Blues already, same with the Wild. Really San Jose has had maybe the easiest schedule in the NHL to date. To open the season they got to play Columbus, Columbus, Atlanta, Carolina, Colorado, Edmonton, Calgary, New Jersey, Anaheim, Minnesota, St Louis, Tampa Bay, Anaheim, NYI, Calgary… That was their first month and a half of the season, and they only won about half the games. Which means they have to pay the piper down the road. If you only win half of those, then you need to win more than half against the good teams. And they have done some of that, getting very lucky against Detroit and Philadelphia in comeback wins, beating Chicago 3 out of 3 times so far. But they’ve also lost both their games to the Sabres, gone 1-2 vs the Wild, etc I could go on. The point is that although they’ve made up a little bit for losing against below average teams to start the year, they’re still going to have to make up a bit more of that in Februrary and March if they want to finish ahead of the Kings and make the playoffs.