[for whatever reason, this chart refuses to format properly on the main page; but it's fine if you click through to the full post. Sorry.]

This is the chart (or a piece of the chart anyway -- the whole thing doesn't fit on the page) I will be referencing when I do the individual "player ruminations" over the next week or so. Other people call these types of things "evaluations," but that's pretty presumptuous, even for me. 

All stats are from behindthenet.

• G/60 and P/60 are goals and points per 60 minutes of ice-time. 
• Any column with the header "last" shows the 2009-10 numbers for the stat shown in the column at the left. For example, P/60 is followed by "last", which, if I had room, I would have typed "P/60 last year." 
• The header "change" refers to the difference between the two columns to the immediate left of it. 
• GF/60 and GA/60 are abbreviated from behindthenet's GFON/60 and GAON/60, which indicate the number of goals-for (or against, respectively) that player was on the ice for, per 60 minutes of ice-time. 
• +-/60 is a player's plus/minus per 60 minutes of ice-time (GF/60 minus GA/60).
• QC is QUALCOMP, which measures quality of competition the player faces.
• QT is QUALTEAM, which measures quality of teammates the player is on the ice with.
• OZ% is Offensive zone starts, which indicates how often player x starts play (after a stoppage) in the offensive zone. This is taken to be a measure of coach's confidence in a player's defensive play (lower % = more confidence). 

(Some quick oberservations after the jump)

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Let's take a walk back in time. The Kings have allowed more than 10 goals in 2 consecutive playoff games 21 times (note: I did not count any one game in more than one pair -- for example, if they allowed 5, 8, 3 in three consecutive games, I did not count it as a 13 and an 11, just as 13):

• 2011 -- 12
• 2010 -- 13
• 2000 -- 10
• 1998 -- 10
• 1993 -- 14, 11, 11
• 1990 -- 13, 11, 11
• 1989 -- 13
• 1988 -- 15, 13
• 1987 -- 19, 11
• 1982 -- 11, 10
• 1981 -- 16
• 1977 -- 14, 11
• 1968 -- 13

Game One

1st 

• a bad period; Kings nervous, Sharks dominant. 

2nd

• Kings wake up, outplay Sharks. 

3rd

• Sharks rebound, I would give the edge to San Jose in this period, but not by much. 

OT

• Even. Could have gone either way, as Brad Richardson will tell you. 

Game Two

1st

• Kings scored twice here, but shot location suggests that San Jose was not being crushed. 

2nd

• Kings get the only goal, but again, San Jose is getting more shots from the middle of the ice. This has been true for the entire series, more or less.

3rd

• The Kings get the only goal, but otherwise shot location suggests the period was pretty even defensively.

Game Three

1st

• I previously said the Kings were lucky to be up by 3-0 after one period. That's true, but they must have been doing a lot of things right, because San Jose's shot quality is terrible.

2nd 

• Otherwise known as the worst period of Kings hockey in anyone's memory. 
• Pattern looks most similar to Game One - Period One. 
• The dot for Ryan Smyth's goal is way off. 

3rd

• Kings are out-shot, but location goes back to that of a tight, defensive game. 

OT

• Two shots from the slot for San Jose. No shots for the Kings. 

Thoughts

• Shot quality doesn't tell the whole story, and these charts are made by humans and therefore are flawed (e.g. the wandering Ryan Smyth dot). 
• The Kings' best periods, in terms of shot quality for/against, were the 2nd period of Game One and the 1st period of Game Three. 
• The Kings' worst periods were (duh) the 2nd period of Game Three and the 1st period of Game One.
• The rest were more or less even. 
• Despite the "blow out" nature of Game Two, these charts suggest a closer game. 
• The first periods I selected as "best" were always immediately followed by a "worst" in the second periods, and vice versa. This applies (as it would have to) to both teams. 
• In the third periods of all three games, high quality scoring chances have been hard to come by.
• Only one goal has been scored in the third period. Kings, in game two. 
• Strangely, the pattern for both OT games was terrible period - great period - even (or great period - terrible period - even, depending on your point-of-view); whereas the pattern for the "blow-out" game (game two) was even - even - even. 

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• Numbers refer to jersey numbers. 
• Sets of numbers in parentheses mean one or more of the players in the set.

Video: Jonathan Quick may, in fact, control pucks with his mind - Puck Daddy - NHL Blog - Yahoo! Sports
No, really, there's only one good explanation, which is that Jonathan Quick is a telepath who can control things with his mind. Please, give this man the Vezina Trophy before he makes your brain pop like in "Scanners."

Follow the Puck Daddy link for the video, my response to which is this:

Loktionov back to Manchester « LA Kings Insider
Andrei Loktionov has been assigned back to the AHL’s Manchester Monarchs. Loktionov had three goals and two assists during his most recent stint with the Kings, but given Terry Murray’s recent comments, the writing seemed to be on the wall for Loktionov. The move also potentially opens a roster spot for Marco Sturm.

I am unhappy but will reserve judgment for seven days and 21 hours. Ironically, today's post was to be (and now is) an updated version of the Winning Percentage by Player chart. I have added several columns. They are:

• g/60 -- goals per 60 minutes of icetime (from behindthenet.com). 
• GAON/60 -- goals-against which the player is on the ice for, per 60 minutes of icetime (from behindthenet.com). 
• SH% -- shooting percentage (goals per shot) (from NHL.com). 
• Gv -- giveaways per game played (NHL.com). 
• Tk-Gv -- Takeaways minus giveaways, per game (NHL.com). 
• PDO -- the sum of the team's shooting% and save% when a given player is on the ice (behindthenet). 
• avg. -- the player's average rank in the previous seven columns. 

Take this whole exercise as food for thought, a leaping-off point, written in pencil -- whatever cliche you want to use for take it with a grain of salt. How about just "take it with a grain of salt." The meaning of any given stat changes with context; some -- like PDO -- are controversial and/or flawed. The caveat for every stat is "all things being equal" and we know that "all things" never are.

The fact that Andrei Loktionov kicks ass in these numbers does not mean he should immediately replace Kopitar or that Sturm sucks. It just means, hey maybe this has something to do with why I'm sorry to see him go, why I've felt better about the team over the last 3+ weeks. Or, they might (they being the numbers) add something to the conversation about Loktionov's perceived deficits (missed assignments, turnovers, etc.). Some other observations after the charty goodness [UPDATE: a glitch appears to have eaten the post-chart comments; I am looking for a cached version of the page to reinstate them].

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Well, some of them you can. But most of these, you have to have a special kind of OCD to bother. In the chart that follows, numbers refer to jersey numbers (e.g. "when 11 scores" means "when Kopitar scores"), and numbers in parentheses separated by commas means "one or more of" the players in question (e.g. "When (11,23) scores" means "when at least one of Kopitar or Brown scores"). Oh, and "and" means "and" (i.e. "when x and y happens" means both have to happen). 

Some observations:

• Jarret Stoll, Ryan Smyth or Justin Williams score in 25 of the Kings' 31 wins. 
• When Stoll, Smyth, Williams, Anze Kopitar or Dustin Brown don't score, the Kings are very likely to lose. 
• When the Kings' powerplay outscores their opponent's powerplay, the Kings win nearly all the time. 
• When the Kings' powerplay is not outscored by their opponents' (i.e. even or better), the Kings are 29-12-3. When the PP is outscored, 2-10-0. 
• The Kings do not do much better than .500 when they get more than 30 shots and their opponent gets less than 30. But, they win nearly all the time when both teams get 30 shots or more. They are dead even when both teams get fewer than 30 shots. And they do extremely well when they get fewer than 30 and their opponent gets more than 30. This surprised me. Shot-fest, good. Out-shot, good. Even, a wash. nobody shooting, a wash. 
• This suggests that the Kings benefit from a more wide-open game, doesn't it? Maybe not, but it sure looks that way. 
• The Kings almost certainly will lose if they score two goals or less (4-16-3).
• The Kings almost certainly will win if they score three goals or more (27-6-0). 
• I was surprised to see that the Kings are 2-6-2 when scoring 2 goals. Since they are an excellent defensive team, I expected two goals-for to net a better outcome. 
•  When a defenseman scores, the Kings almost certainly will win (14-2-0). 
• They also do very well if a forward that's not one of the big seven (Kopitar, Brown, Smyth, Stoll, Williams, Handzus, Simmonds) scores, 14-5-0.