Kings Clinch: The Good, The Bad, The Real Standings

by Quisp on Apr 7, 2011 1:45 AM PDT in Standings

Tonight's results

The Good: KINGS WON, PHX half-lost.

The Bad: CHI won, ANA won, Kings' shoot-out win doesn't count in tie-breaker column, Kings lose season series with Phoenix because of the Bettman point.

Tomorrow's Games

COL @ DAL -- no longer quite as important to the Kings as it might have been an hour ago. Nevertheless, a Stars loss here clinches playoff berths for PHX, NAS and ANA, but not yet CHI. See "observations" after the jump for more detail on how this breaks down and why Chicago has slightly more to worry about than the others.

Now, the updated standings:

Q	NHL		PTS	W%	PRJ	MAX	LSF	PB	+/-	>9th	GR	W!	SS	SSGR	GD	Qcl
1	1	VAN	113	0.7063	115.8	117	103	47	18	n/a	2	48	-1	VAN	71	115
2	2	SJS	103	0.6438	105.6	107	113	57	8	n/a	2	42	-2	SJS	34	105
3	3	DET	102	0.6375	104.6	106	102	58	7	n/a	2	42	3	LAK	21	100
4	4	LAK	98	0.6125	100.5	102	101	62	3	n/a	2	36	n/a	n/a	24	100
5	6	PHX	97	0.6063	99.4	101	107	63	2	0-1-1	2	37	-1	PHX	6	95
6	5	NAS	97	0.6063	99.4	101	100	63	2	0-1-1	2	37	4	LAK	24	95
7	7	ANA	95	0.5938	97.4	99	89	65	0	1-1-0	2	41	1	2	1	95
8	8	CHI	95	0.5938	97.4	99	112	65	0	1-0-1	2	37	-8	CHI	32	95
9	10	DAL	91	0.5759	94.5	97	88	67	-2	3-0-0	3	35	5	LAK	-7	90
10	9	CGY	93	0.5741	94.1	95	90	69	-4	n/a	1	32	2	LAK	14	90
11	11	STL	85	0.5247	86.0	87	90	77	-12	n/a	1	33	-8	STL	4	85
12	12	MIN	82	0.5190	85.1	88	84	76	-11	n/a	3	34	1	LAK	-26	85
13	13	CBJ	81	0.5063	83.0	85	79	79	-14	n/a	2	29	3	LAK	-39	80
14	14	COL	66	0.4177	68.5	72	95	92	-27	n/a	3	23	8	LAK	-59	65
15	15	EDM	61	0.3813	62.5	65	62	99	-34	n/a	2	23	7	LAK	-73	60

Click on the headers to sort.

KEY:

Q is my standings, default sorted by points-blown (explanation of points-blown here).
NHL is the official standings, via NHL.COM (ESPN has the tie-breakers wrong).
PRJ is projected point total for 82 games.
LSF is last season's final point total.
MAX is maximum points possible for that team.
PB is points-blown.
+/- is the distance in points-blown above or below the 8th seed.
>9th is the record needed to stay ahead of Dallas.
GR is games-remaining.
W! is wins plus OT wins (the first tie-breaker).
SS and SSGR is season series against the Kings (Kings’ points-earned vs. that team’s points-earned) and games remaining (team name in the SSGR column means that team has won the season series). 2 points for a Kings win, 1 for an OT or SO win, -1 for an OT or SO loss, -2 for a loss.
GD is goal-differential.
Qcl is clustered points, which corrects for variance in games-played and then rounds point totals to the nearest multiple of 5. The idea is to emphasize which teams are bunched together, or, to put it another way, are "more or less tied." It may be useless or annoying. Feel free to ignore.

Observations:

Woo. Kings clinch at least 8th.
Dallas can still sneak into 8th, provided they win out and either
(a) Anaheim only manages one more point, or
(b) Chicago only manages two more points, or
(c) either Nashville or Phoenix lose their last two games.
If Dallas goes 2-1 and ends up at 95, they can only get in if Chicago loses out.
If Chicago ends up in any ties, here's their tie-breaker outlook: they will lose to Anaheim on wins; they will tie Dallas in wins but lose head-to-head.
The main thing for Chicago is, they can't end up tied with Dallas, since in order for that to happen, Dallas would (likely -- see next bullet) pick up enough wins along the way to tie Chicago in wins; and Dallas won the season series.
The exception is, if Dallas wins any of its remaining games in shoot-outs, then Chicago's prospects get much better. Chicago is currently two wins ahead of Dallas and need to stay ahead.
Anaheim, meanwhile, will win any tie-breaker because of its insurmountable wins lead, so they can afford to let Dallas tie them.
Nashville and Phoenix are currently tied at 97 points, and also tied with 37 wins, and also tied in the season series. Nashville prevails on goal-differential.
Calgary is mathematically eliminated. The best they can do is tie CHI and ANA, and they lose the wins tie-breaker to both.

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Comments

Go Avs

Do us all a favor and knock the Stars out… Nobody wants them in the playoffs…

"A wedding is a funeral where you smell your own flowers" -Eddie Cantor

by angelofdeath on Apr 7, 2011 6:29 AM PDT reply actions

We're GREEN!

Sig-na...ture

by OneTimer. on Apr 7, 2011 7:59 AM PDT reply actions

Green at last! Green at last! Great lord o’mighty we are Green at last!

Never expected the Kings to wrap it us this early ;-)

Are Teemu Selanne and Melanie Griffith Twins?

by USHA#17 on Apr 7, 2011 4:42 PM PDT up reply actions

So....

How’s everyone feeling about our prospects of sweeping the Ducks and vying for home ice?

No Bolgna has a first name, it's O*S*C*A*R

by Sparman on Apr 7, 2011 8:17 AM PDT reply actions

Re: Home Ice Advantage

Not sure it’s really necessary for the Kings, given the way they’ve played on the road in the past few months. I would be happy with 1 win (or two overtime losses) against Anaheim, which gets the Kings to 100 – which I think would likely get them 5th – maybe 4th if Nashville messes up one of their two games left (Columbus, St. Louis) and fails to get to 101. Personally, I’m really hoping for Nashville-LA first round series, which I think favors the Kings.

by Hoolie on Apr 7, 2011 8:45 AM PDT reply actions

nashville or phoenix would be a great first round for the kings. can’t wait!!!

by jmsalsa_ on Apr 7, 2011 9:03 AM PDT up reply actions

Yeah, this team is reverting to last season's form

They’re just as good on the road as at home, so I don’t see much difference for them between 5th seed and 4th seed.

I just want to win the next two games because I can’t bear losing to the Ducks under any circumstances.

"Prepare your bladder for imminent release!" — Invader Zim

by DougX on Apr 7, 2011 10:24 AM PDT up reply actions 1 recs

You can bet everyone is clammering for the Kings...

I’m hoping Nashville…Phoenix had a lot of scary wide open looks that didn’t bounce last night…I’ll be just as happy to have Phoenix disappear.

Are Teemu Selanne and Melanie Griffith Twins?

by USHA#17 on Apr 7, 2011 4:46 PM PDT up reply actions

thoughts on Penner last night?

the boy was HITTING people. actually making contact and using his size. if TM can get him into this defense first system and show him how to use his size on both ends of the ice, he may actually work out after all. it still bugs the crap out of me when i see him standing there watching the game go by – but i thought there was some improvement last night.

thoughts?

by jmsalsa_ on Apr 7, 2011 9:16 AM PDT reply actions

Penner did play better but...

As Nick and Daryl mentioned in the postgame radio show, management feels like it’s more a conditioning issue for him. That’s a little disheartening considering we are about to play the last two games of the season, lol. However, I think the style of play in Edmonton wasn’t nearly as difficult as what they are demanding from him here. And with the games being so intense and meaningful each and every night, the impact is magnified. Nevertheless, I liked his game last night, especially the little nifty give and go with Moller.

by sstephen17 on Apr 7, 2011 9:35 AM PDT reply actions

Figures

They did a feature on him during an intermission when the Kings visited Edmonton a couple of weeks ago and it was apparent that his fitness was not up to Lombardi-expectation levels. It’ll be interesting to see whether or not he joins J. Johnson in the gym over the summer.

by Lars H on Apr 7, 2011 6:10 PM PDT up reply actions

Dashing

He played a good game last night, but watching it at Staples, I got to watch him a little more “away from the puck” and still saw moments where he looked a little lost. And a little lost for a guy his size can look like a lot of lost.

Mind you, both teams seemed to be missing their passes and fumbling around at times last night (especiallyin the 1st), so there was quite a bit of back and forth which may have exposed some of the “TM system” learning curve he has to deal with.

He had very good moments when he had the puck though. Good zone entry, taking some good shots. He still needs to hit a little more, or find ways to use his size and skill to come out of the corners and boards with puck possession. I still think Stoll might be a better fit with Scarmo and Dashing. However, we need to keep the odd triplets together (13-15-17), so that would mean a Smyth/Zus/Brown line, I don’t know if it’s fair to ask Brownie to provide speed for his whole line.

If we end up playing Nashville, I don’t know if we need Westgarth every night, and I wouldn’t mind having a more balanced 4th line (Feel bad for Trevor, guy needs more ice time). I’m not sure if they’d even consider calling anybody up… prolly not.

by Passemoilapuck on Apr 7, 2011 10:27 AM PDT reply actions

That lost look came across on TV, too. I also noticed problems with his line rotating back when the defense went in.

A change in teams and system followed by the one-two loss of line mates forcing adaptation to yet another system it has to be pretty confusing to get the coverage right.

The pairing with Smyth is perfect…both get on and off the ice in seconds.

Are Teemu Selanne and Melanie Griffith Twins?

by USHA#17 on Apr 7, 2011 5:11 PM PDT up reply actions

Home ice....

If I’m selfish for a second, home ice would be nice because I’ve got tix. However, I’ll take whatever we get. And I just hope the team schedules its games around my business trip schedules.

On a side note, our neighbor knocked on our door last night at 10:45PM as we got back from the game because UPS had delivered the playoff tickets and he signed for it, and he wanted to make sure we got them. When I opened the envelope, I laid out all those tickets on the table, from Round 1 Game 1 all the way to Round 4 Game 4. Madame LaPuck almost fainted when she saw the price of the individual tix for the Stanley Cup finals (aka Round 4) – $288 each. I told her things like “don’t worry, if we sweep, we’ll only have to use Games 1 and 2”, and “You know, I can certainly resell them for a profit”. She was not duped… she knows there’s no way I’m NOT attending those games. :-)

I’ve slowly converted her from hockey widow to fan-fiancee to fan over the last 18 months. Now I just need to get her comfortable with the economics of it all.

by Passemoilapuck on Apr 7, 2011 10:37 AM PDT reply actions

Almost Fainted?

I sh!t and fell back in it when I saw that.

by Lars H on Apr 7, 2011 6:12 PM PDT up reply actions

I sure hope the beer stays at $11. If they raise beer prices by the same margin, we’ll be paying almost $32 for a glass of Sam.

by Passemoilapuck on Apr 7, 2011 9:48 PM PDT via mobile up reply actions

Another unbelievably bad call by the War Room in last nights Hawks game. I hope an pray we don;t face theHawks in first round, all other teams I’m OK with, although if the Kings can avoid the Canucks and Sharks I wouldn’t mind.

by Throwdeuce5150 on Apr 7, 2011 11:30 AM PDT reply actions

Yeah, I saw that one too. Hossa kicked the crap outta the puck. Not even close.

It’s such a traveshamockery at this point. The replay rule should read, “in the event of a replay, the ruling on the ice will be upheld 100% of the time. Exceptions can occur only when a disallowed goal was potted by Gregory Campell.”

by Doughty99 on Apr 8, 2011 12:28 PM PDT via mobile up reply actions