Two big games and one not-as-big-as-it-could-have-been game tonight. CHI@CBJ, CGY@STL, COL@PHX. Go Avs and Jackets.
| Q | NHL | PTS | W% | PRJ | MAX | LSF | PB | +/- | TO 97 | GR | W! | SS | SSGR | GD | Qcl | |
| 1 | 1 | VAN | 113 | 0.7244 | 119 | 121 | 103 | 43 | 19 | n/a | 4 | 48 | -1 | VAN | 76 | 110 |
| 2 | 3 | SJS | 99 | 0.6429 | 105 | 109 | 113 | 55 | 7 | n/a | 5 | 40 | 0 | 1 | 31 | 100 |
| 3 | 2 | DET | 98 | 0.6364 | 104 | 108 | 102 | 56 | 6 | n/a | 5 | 40 | 3 | LAK | 21 | 100 |
| 4 | 5 | LAK | 94 | 0.6104 | 100 | 104 | 101 | 60 | 2 | 1-3-1 | 5 | 35 | n/a | n/a | 26 | 95 |
| 5 | 4 | PHX | 95 | 0.6090 | 100 | 103 | 107 | 61 | 1 | 1-3-0 | 4 | 37 | -2 | 1 | 8 | 95 |
| 6 | 7 | ANA | 93 | 0.6039 | 99 | 103 | 89 | 61 | 1 | 2-3-0 | 5 | 40 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 95 |
| 7 | 6 | NAS | 94 | 0.6026 | 99 | 102 | 100 | 62 | 0 | 1-2-1 | 4 | 36 | 4 | LAK | 22 | 95 |
| 8 | 8 | CHI | 90 | 0.5921 | 97 | 102 | 112 | 62 | 0 | 3-2-1 | 6 | 36 | -8 | CHI | 33 | 90 |
| 9 | 9 | DAL | 87 | 0.5724 | 94 | 99 | 88 | 65 | -3 | 5-1-0 | 6 | 33 | 3 | LAK | -9 | 90 |
| 10 | 10 | CGY | 87 | 0.5577 | 91 | 95 | 90 | 69 | -7 | n/a | 4 | 30 | 2 | LAK | 7 | 85 |
| 11 | 11 | MIN | 82 | 0.5325 | 87 | 92 | 84 | 72 | -10 | n/a | 5 | 34 | 1 | LAK | -22 | 80 |
| 12 | 13 | CBJ | 81 | 0.5260 | 86 | 91 | 79 | 73 | -11 | n/a | 5 | 30 | 3 | LAK | -30 | 80 |
| 13 | 12 | STL | 80 | 0.5195 | 85 | 90 | 90 | 74 | -12 | n/a | 5 | 31 | -8 | STL | -1 | 80 |
| 14 | 14 | COL | 64 | 0.4211 | 69 | 76 | 95 | 88 | -26 | n/a | 6 | 23 | 8 | LAK | -57 | 65 |
| 15 | 15 | EDM | 57 | 0.3701 | 61 | 67 | 62 | 97 | -35 | n/a | 5 | 21 | 7 | LAK | -73 | 55 |
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. TO 97 is the record needed to get to the presumed (by me) playoff-threshold. GR is games-remaining. GRb is games-remaining against the six “blue” teams. W! is wins plus OT wins (the first tie-breaker). SS and SSGR are 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:
- 2 points-blown separate 4th from 8th.
- The Kings and Ducks both have 5 games left.
- The Hawks and Stars have 6.
- Coyotes and Preds have 4.
- That discrepancy in games-played is as big a deal as total points right now. It’s why the Stars are still alive.
- A loss by CHI tonight and a win by LAK tomorrow would bring the Kings into a tie with the Hawks in tie-breaker wins.
- The Kings need more wins than the Hawks, because they will lose the season-series tie-breaker.
- I keep reading that the Kings and Canucks split the season series. This is false. Vancouver earned one more point than the Kings did. Thank you, Gary Bettman. /