The Good: Kings win, Avs lose, Sharks lose, Coyotes lose, Ducks lose; (Sunday) Nucks lose.
The Bad: Wings win, Flames win, Stars win, Hawks win, Blues win; (Sunday) Preds win, Wild wins, Hawls win, Ducks win.
So?
The Kings sit in 5th in the official standings, but in terms of losses and OTL/SOLs (i.e. points-blown) they are actually in 3rd, a game ahead of the Avs and Canucks and a game and a half ahead of Phoenix. (Yes, I know the Kings can’t really be in 3rd in the official standings without overtaking the Sharks; we’re going purely on a comparison of records here.) At the Olympic break, we still have four fairly distinct clusters of teams:
- San Jose and Chicago, duking it out for the 1 and 2 seeds.
- The Kings, Canucks, Avs and Yotes, negotiating 3-6.
- (Nashville, trying to decide if it’s in the above group, or the one below…)
- The Stars, Wings, Flames, Ducks, Wild and Blues, six teams looking at the 8th and final spot.
- Columbus and Edmonton, in the Taylor Hall Derby./
Here are the standings:
- San Jose Sharks 35 (1) +9
- Chicago Blackhawks 35 (2) +9
- Los Angeles Kings 44 (5) —
- Vancouver Canucks 46 (3) -2
- Colorado Avalanche 46 (6) -2
- Phoenix Coyotes 47 (4) -3
- Nashville Predators 51 (7) -7
- Dallas Stars 54 (9) -10
- Detroit Red Wings 54 (10) -10
- Calgary Flames 55 (8) -11
- Anaheim Ducks 57 (11) -13
- Minnesota Wild 58 (13) -14
- St. Louis Blues 59 (12) -15
- Columbus Blue Jackets 65 (14) -21
- Edmonton Oilers 76 (15) -32
These are standings in points-blown.
Two points “awarded” for every loss, one point for every OTL/SOL. Lowest point total is best. Number in parentheses is the official standings (via ESPN). Last number (+/-) is number of points (in my system) ahead or behind Los Angeles. Because it’s a Kings-centric universe.
Tie breaker is games-played, except that the winner of the tie breaker is the team who has played more games. If this seems counter-intuitive, consider this: A team with a 10-2 record is better than a team with a 2-2 record, who is, in turn better than a team that’s 0-2.