Kings-centric guide to what you want (FREE INSIDE! The real Western Conference standings)

Last night's results

• The Good: nothing.
  
• The Bad: PHX won, CGY won.
• The Doesn't Matter: COL lost, VAN lost.
  

Tonight's Games

• SJS @ NAS -- If the Preds lose, they drop to a tie with the Kings in points-blown; if the Sharks lose, the Kings widen the gap. I'm rooting for the Preds, IN REGULATION. But I'll be happy as long as there's no OT.
  
• VAN @ MIN -- Go Canucks! A Wild loss brings them even with the Kings in points-blown.
  
• DAL @ EDM -- Go Oil! The Stars are three official points and three points-blown ahead of the Kings. A Stars loss would bring them within one point-blown.

Q	OFF.		PTS	W%	PRJ	PB	+/-	to95	GR	R/OTW	R/OT/SO
1	1	VAN	81	0.7105	116.5	33	14	6-17-2	25	34	32-12/2-4/2-5
2	2	DET	74	0.6607	108.4	38	9	9-14-3	26	32	25-16/7-4/2-2
3	4	DAL	68	0.6071	99.6	44	3	12-11-3	26	26	22-19/4-2/5-4
4	6	NAS	67	0.5982	98.1	45	2	13-11-2	26	24	24-19/0-4/6-3
5	9	MIN	65	0.5909	96.9	45	2	14-11-2	27	28	24-20/4-1/2-4
6	5	ANA	68	0.5965	97.8	46	1	12-10-3	25	28	25-21/3-2/4-2
7	3	PHX	69	0.5948	97.6	47	0	12-10-2	24	27	26-19/1-6/3-3
8	10	LAK	65	0.5804	95.2	47	0	14-10-2	26	25	24-22/1-2/6-1
9	7	SJS	66	0.5789	94.9	48	-1	13-9-3	25	27	25-21/2-4/3-2
10	11	CHI	62	0.5536	90.8	50	-3	15-8-3	26	25	23-22/2-2/3-4
11	12	CBJ	61	0.5446	89.3	51	-4	16-8-2	26	24	20-23/4-3/4-2
12	13	STL	59	0.5364	88.0	51	-4	17-8-2	27	22	20-21/2-4/3-5
13	8	CGY	66	0.5593	91.7	52	-5	13-7-3	23	23	21-22/2-3/6-5
14	14	COL	56	0.4912	80.6	58	-11	18-4-3	25	22	17-26/5-6/3-0
15	15	EDM	40	0.3571	58.6	72	-25	n/a	26	15	13-32/2-1/1-7

KEY: Q is my standings, sorted by points-blown (explanation of points-blown here). OFF. is the official (ESPN) standings. PRJ is projected point total for 82 games. PB is points-blown. TO95 is the record needed to get to the presumed (by me) playoff-threshold. GR is games-remaining. R/OTW is wins plus OT wins (the first tie-breaker). R/OT/SO is the team's record broken down into wins-losses in regulation/overtime/shoot-out. So, for example, LAK is 24-22 in regulation, 1-2 in OT and 6-1 in the shoot-out.

Some observations:

• The Kings are 10th in the official (ESPN) standings, but 8th by W% and tied for 7th in points-blown. A loss by MIN tonight will nudge the Kings up to a three-way tie for 6th in points-blown, with PHX and MIN.
• Sorting by points-blown, SJS is worse than they appear in the official standings (down two seeds), and PHX and CGY are much worse off (down four and five seeds, respectively).
• MIN is four seeds higher in points-blown, and LAK and NAS are both two seeds higher.
• One reason CGY and PHX are artificially high in the official standings is that they've played more games than everyone else. CGY has 23 games left. PHX, 24.
• The Kings, meanwhile, have a game in hand on both SJS and ANA.
• Eight points-blown separate 3rd from 13th.
• Two points-blown separate 4th from 8th.
• Dallas rejoins the blue box, which contains the Kings' immediate rivals for the last FIVE SIX playoff spots.

And here's the season-series grid for the Kings:

	1	2	3	4	5	6	SS	W+/-	GD
STL	-2	-2	-2		-	-	-6	3	41
CGY	-2	2	1		-	-	1	2	28
NAS	2	2	-2		-	-	2	1	7
CBJ	-2	2			-	-	0	1	40
CHI	-2	-2	-2	-2	-	-	-8	0	5
DAL	2	2	-2				2	-1	23
PHX	-2	-2	-2	2			-4	-2	22
SJS	-2	2	-2	1			-1	-2	17
ANA	-2	2					0	-3	22
MIN	1	-1	-1		-	-	-1	-3	23

KEY: SS shows the Kings' season series advantage/disadvantage in points; W+/- shows the Kings' win/OTwin advantage/disadvantage in wins; GD shows the Kings' advantage/disadvantage in goal-differential (note that the number in the GD column is not that team's goal-differential; it is the difference between the Kings goal-differential and that team's goal-differential). In each case, the Kings are compared to the team in the left-most column. Only the ten blue-box teams are included. Columns marked 1-6 indicate the results of each game the Kings have played against the team in question. 2 points for a win, -2 points for a loss, 1 point for an OT/SOW, -1 point for an OT/SOL. The reason for the 1/-1 valuation is that the first tie-breaker is head-to-head points-earned. If LAK beats MIN in OT, they get 2 real points, but MIN gets 1, thus a net positive of +1 when the two teams are compared. A dash (-) in columns 5 or 6 indicates that the Kings only play that team 4 times. The chart is sorted in order of tie-breakers. Wins first, then season-series, then goal-differential.