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The Real Western Conference Standings

Posted on by Daws Butler

But first, the good and the bad from the last two nights:

The Good: Kings win, Avs lose, Preds lose, Blues lose, Sharks half-lose, Jackets lose, Coyotes lose, Hawks lose.

The Bad: Flames win, Coyotes win, Ducks win, Wild win.

That’s a great pair of days for LA. The Kings win, plus 6.5 good vs 4 bad outcomes.

The real Western Conference standings:

Q OFF. PTS W% PRJ PB to94 GP W W%* Q*
1 1 VAN 71 0.710 116 29 10-19-3 50 29 0.620 1
2 2 DET 66 0.673 110 32 13-17-3 49 28 0.612 2
3 3 DAL 65 0.650 107 35 13-16-3 50 26 0.600 3
4 4 NAS 60 0.600 98 40 16-13-3 50 21 0.540 5
5 6 PHX 59 0.578 95 43 16-12-3 51 23 0.490 11
6 5 ANA 60 0.577 95 44 16-11-3 52 24 0.538 6
7 9 MIN 55 0.561 92 43 18-12-3 49 25 0.510 8
8 7 CHI 56 0.560 92 44 18-11-3 50 23 0.520 7
9 9 COL 56 0.560 92 44 18-11-3 50 22 0.500 9
10 8 SJS 56 0.560 92 44 18-11-3 50 22 0.500 10
11 11 LAK 55 0.550 90 45 18-11-3 50 22 0.540 4
12 12 CGY 54 0.529 87 48 19-9-3 51 19 0.471 12
13 14 STL 51 0.520 85 47 20-10-3 49 19 0.449 14
14 13 CBJ 51 0.520 85 47 20-10-3 49 19 0.469 13
15 15 EDM 38 0.388 64 60 27-3-3 49 14 0.306 15

How to decode the standings:

Q is my rank, sorted by win percentage. Off. is the official standings (as rendered by ESPN). PRJ is projected final points. PB is points-blown (two points for a loss, one point for an OTSOL; lower score is better). TO94 is the record needed to get to 94 points (the presumed — by me — playoff threshold). GP is games played. W is wins.

I added two new columns (actually they’re old columns I deleted for awhile and are now back in a new form). W%* is the team’s win percentage if there was no Bettman point, no point for losing in OT/SO. Q* is the rank a team would have with that W%*.

I include it because I noticed last night that the Kings, eliminating the Bettman point, leap from 11th to 4th. The Coyotes suffer a huge drop. Everyone else stays in the same neighborhood.

Some other observations:

  • Since Calgary continues to win and Nashville continues to lose, I had to add them to the “blue box,” which is my way of indicating the teams fighting it out for the last (now) 5 playoff spots. We were looking only at 5-8, but 4th is now in play.
  • Seven of those eleven teams are within one (budgeted, future) loss of each other.
  • 4th and 14th are separated by 9 points, 7 points-blown, and 4 (budgeted, future) losses.
  • The Kings are, no matter how you slice it, no more than a point out of 8th place.
  • By one of my previous yardsticks (the one which determines whether or not the Kings should be sellers at the deadline), the Kings now need a record of 6-5-1. But better is better, since 6-5-1 before the deadline would require 13-7 to close out the season. I would love for the Kings to put together an 8-3-1 stretch going up to the deadline, lessening the post-deadline burden to 11-9. But that’s just me. The Kings have put themselves in an exponentially better place by winning these last three.

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