Olympic Break Edition: Standings in Points-Blown [w/ Sunday Update!]

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:

1. San Jose Sharks 35 (1) +9
2. Chicago Blackhawks 35 (2) +9
3. Los Angeles Kings 44 (5) --
4. Vancouver Canucks 46 (3) -2
   
5. Colorado Avalanche 46 (6) -2
   
6. Phoenix Coyotes 47 (4) -3
   
7. Nashville Predators 51 (7) -7
8. Dallas Stars 54 (9) -10
9. Detroit Red Wings 54 (10) -10
10. Calgary Flames 55 (8) -11
11. Anaheim Ducks 57 (11) -13
12. Minnesota Wild 58 (13) -14
13. St. Louis Blues 59 (12) -15
14. Columbus Blue Jackets 65 (14) -21
15. 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.