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This Week in Kings (1/12/2015)

This Week in Games

(here’s all the games involving the Pacific Division from this past week. we’ll talk about the LA Kings’ games in great detail, while the rest will mostly just be scores, unless there’s something that really stood out about them. you’ll also get links to Eric’s awesome recaps which will expand on everything I’m saying in much greater detail if you missed any of them.)

Monday, January 5th

San Jose Sharks 3, Winnipeg Jets 2

Tuesday, January 6th

San Jose Sharks 4, Minnesota Wild 3 (OT)

-St. Louis Blues 6, Arizona Coyotes 0

-Detroit Red Wings 4, Edmonton Oilers 2

Vancouver Canucks 3, New York Islanders 2: This was the first time the Islanders and Canucks got together since, uh, some crazy stuff happened. So crazy, in fact, that I actually crowdsourced out my description of the game. That was pretty fun. So yeah. No craziness this time, although amazingly the Canucks started Eddie Lack, aka “the same guy who gave up 7 goals in one period to this team the last time they played”. Would think maybe you’d give Miller the start instead, but whatever, I guess it worked out for them.

Wednesday, January 7th

-Detroit Red Wings 3, Calgary Flames 2

-New York Rangers 4, Anaheim Ducks 1

Thursday, January 8th

-St. Louis Blues 7, San Jose Sharks 2: No, dear reader, you didn’t just accidentally click on last week’s edition of TWIK. The Sharks actually did manage to lose to the Blues by identical 7-2 scores in two games, within the span of six days. That’s something else.

Arizona Coyotes 4, Winnipeg Jets 1: The real Jets beat the fake Jets in the Battle of the Jets! Jets!

-Florida Panthers 3, Vancouver Canucks 1: Hey, winning games in Vancouver generally wasn’t Roberto’s problem, right?

-New York Rangers 4, Los Angeles Kings 3: I called this one on Monday’s Jewelcast. The Kings had four days off while the Rangers had played the previous night, so of course the Kings lost. It boggles my mind anyone would ever expect anything differently. Also, Jonathan Quick needs to remember how to goalie, and fast. Between his performance here (4 goals on 26 shots), the previous game against Nashville (3 goals on 9 shots), and one more bad game still to come, his save percentage has plummeted of late. After a very good start to the season, he’s somehow fallen all the way down to a .913 sv% for the year, which is of course below league-average. Yeah. I praised him when he was playing well, but he is doing the opposite of that right now, and all the circus highlight reel saves in the world won’t change that. (recap) (gamethread)

Friday, January 9th

-Florida Panthers 6, Calgary Flames 5: This game had lead changes galore, and neither team ever lead by more than 1 goal, but the Panthers finally won this battle of “last goal wins” when Tomas Fleischmann scored his fifth of the season with just over 3 minutes remaining in the game. Hey, so the Panthers are actually pretty good and might make the playoffs! That’s pretty neat! (If you look at their fancystats, this team is actually quite a bit better than the 11-12 team that won the sad-sack Southeast mostly on the strength of collecting like a zillion loser points.)

Edmonton Oilers 5, Chicago Blackhawks 2: Here’s another reason to hate the Blackhawks- they blew Project Only the Sharks Can Lose to the Oilers in Regulation. Jerks.

Saturday, January 10th

-Ottawa Senators 5, Arizona Coyotes 1

Calgary Flames 1, Vancouver Canucks 0

-Winnipeg Jets 5, Los Angeles Kings 4 (SO): Hey, speaking of Quick being bad, here he let in 4 goals on 25 shots! Way to go man! The backbreaker was giving up one to Zach Bogosian (his first of the season in fact!) just 1:39 after the Kings had scored to make it 4-3 late in the 3rd period. The Kings had gotten some luck for once off the flukiest bounce you can imagine to take that lead, so it would have been nice to see our star goaltender come up with a save on a wrist shot from the point to protect it. Yes, maybe it was deflected on the way in. Goalies should make tough saves, especially ones you’re paying exorbitant sums of money against your salary cap. And not just saves he makes look tougher than they should have been because he was fifty feet out of position and had to make a circus dive to get there in time. Anyway. (recap) (gamethread)

-New York Rangers 3, San Jose Sharks 1: Well, if the Rangers had to beat us, at least they had the courtesy to beat the other two California teams too. For Dan ‘they kicked me out of town even though I’m still a better defenseman than half their blue line’ Boyle this had to have been particularly satisfying.

Sunday, January 11th

-Florida Panthers 4, Edmonton Oilers 2

Anaheim Ducks 5, Winnipeg Jets 4 (SO): I hear they were honoring some guy who won a Stanley Cup there once. “That’s cute.” says Jordan Nolan as he gently caresses his two Cup rings.

This Week in Standings

(5v5 SAC% = score-adjusted Corsi percentage at even strength)

Team GP W L OTL Points ROW GF GA Diff Home Away Last Week 5v5 SAC%
1. Anaheim 43 27 10 6 60 21 121 118 +3 15-5-3 12-5-3 1-1-0 51.5%
2. Vancouver 40 23 14 3 49 21 113 104 +9 11-8-1 12-6-2 1-2-0 50.7%
3. San Jose 43 22 16 5 49 20 116 118 -2 10-7-2 12-9-3 2-2-0 51.8%
4. Los Angeles 42 19 13 10 48 18 119 112 +7 14-5-4 5-8-6 0-1-1 55.1%
5. Calgary 43 22 18 3 47 19 123 114 +9 11-9-2 11-9-1 1-2-0 44.0%
6. Arizona 41 16 21 4 36 13 97 136 -39 9-10-3 7-11-1 1-2-0 48.9%
7. Edmonton 43 10 24 9 29 9 97 145 -48 8-14-2 2-10-7 1-2-0 48.8%

The Sharks played a lot more games than the Kings and managed to pick up a couple wins, moving them ahead of the Kings for that all-important 3rd spot in the Pacific standings (and sending LA tumbling down into the Wild Card mix, as we’ll see in a moment). But the Kings do remain just a point behind them with a game-in-hand, so all is not lost. They’re also a point behind Vancouver (who hasn’t been playing well either as of late), but the Canucks retain 2 games-in-hand on the Kings. Meanwhile, Calgary remains at LA’s heel, 1 point back, though LA has a game-in-hand on them as well.

Let’s look at the Wild Card standings now. As always, only the top 2 teams get in.

Team GP W L OTL Points ROW GF GA Diff Home Away Last Week 5v5 SAC%
1. Winnipeg (C) 43 21 14 8 50 18 113 109 +4 9-9-3 12-5-5 1-2-1 53.1%
2. Los Angeles (P) 42 19 13 10 48 18 119 112 +7 14-5-4 5-8-6 0-1-1 55.1%
3. Calgary (P) 43 22 18 3 47 19 123 114 +9 11-9-2 11-9-1 1-2-0 44.0%
4. Colorado (C) 42 18 16 8 44 13 112 122 -10 11-9-3 7-7-5 3-0-0 44.3%
5. Dallas (C) 41 18 16 7 43 16 126 135 -9 9-8-5 9-8-2 0-2-1 51.4%
6. Minnesota (C) 41 18 18 5 41 16 111 121 -10 10-6-5 8-12-0 0-3-1 53.0%
7. Arizona (P) 41 16 21 4 36 13 97 136 -39 9-10-3 7-11-1 1-2-0 48.9%
8. Edmonton (P) 43 10 24 9 29 9 97 145 -48 8-14-2 2-10-7 1-2-0 48.8%

A lot more movement in the Wild Card standings this week. First of all, and most importantly to us, is the Kings dropping down and taking the 2nd Wild Card spot (yes, basically the 8th seed- DUN DUN DUN) that was previously occupied by the Sharks. They’ve still got the Flames nipping at their heels here too, but after that there’s a bit of a gap as the Avalanche are 4 points back (and have played the same number of games). Speaking of the Avs, they rocketed up the standings thanks to a 3-0-0 week, getting above .500 for the first time in a while and rising from 6th to 4th. The Dallas Stars went 0-2-1 to fall from 4th to 5th, and the Minnesota Wild fared even worse, going 0-3-1 to fall from 5th to 6th. Both are rapidly becoming also-rans in this race, which can’t sit well with management as they were expected to be solid playoff teams. Meanwhile, the Jets, who were supposed to be also-rans, sit rather comfortably atop the Wild Card standings despite their own recent struggles (3rd in the Central is fast becoming a pipe dream for them though; they’re 5 points back of St. Louis).

Also since I called the Avs trash here last week and they responded by going 3-0-0, I would like to publicly declare that the Kings are trash. Such trash. Horrific trash. The worst trash.

This Week in #fancystats

(all stats are total attempts, not percentages. thanks to extra skater war-on-ice.)

Rangers 4, Kings 3
Corsi: Kings 60-Rangers 51 (overall), Kings 45-Rangers 40 (5v5), Kings 3-Rangers 3 (5v5 tied)
Fenwick: Kings 45-Rangers 40 (overall), Kings 36-Rangers 29 (5v5), Kings 2-Rangers 2 (5v5 tied)
LA Indv. Player Corsi 5v5– Best: Pearson/Toffoli/Carter (tied, +7). Worst: King (-7), Gaborik (-6), Greene (-4)
NYR Indv. Player Corsi 5v5– Best: J. Moore (+11), Stepan (+7), Kreider/Klein (+6). Worst: Girardi (-11), Staal (-9), McDonagh (-7)

Jets 5, Kings 4 (SO)
Corsi: Kings 59-Jets 41 (overall), Kings 39-Jets 26 (5v5), Kings 13-Jets 8 (5v5 tied)
Fenwick: Kings 47-Jets 33 (overall), Kings 31-Jets 23 (5v5), Kings 11-Jets 6 (5v5 tied)
LA Indv. Player Corsi 5v5– Best: Muzzin (+12), Lewis (+11), King/Greene (tied, +10). Worst: Gaborik (-3), Schultz (-2), Kopitar/Williams (tied, even)
WPG Indv. Player Corsi 5v5– Best: Kane (+4), Halischuk/Bogosian/Enstrom (tied, +3). Worst: Chiarot (-11), Scheifele/Byfuglien (tied, -9)

Next Week in the Pacific

(this is exactly what it sounds like: the next week’s schedule for all 7 Pacific Division teams. all times are pacific because, um, duh.)

Team 1/12 1/13 1/14 1/15 1/16 1/17 1/18
LA vs.TOR (7:30) vs.NJ (7:30) vs.ANA (7:00)
ANA vs.TOR (7:00) vs.NJ (7:00) @LA (7:00)
VAN @NSH (5:00) @PHI (4:00) @CAR (4:00)
SJ @ARI (6:00) vs.TOR (7:30) vs.CGY (7:00)
CGY @ARI (6:00) @SJ (7:00)
ARI vs.SJ (6:00) vs.CGY (6:00) @MIN (6:00) @WPG (4:00)
EDM @STL (5:00) @TB (4:30) @FLA (4:00)

The Kings keep chugging along on this homestand, still looking for their first win. They’ll get the Now With 100% Less Carlyle edition of the Maple Leafs tonight, followed by the other 2012 Stanley Cup Finalist (which, frankly, looks amazing now) on Wednesday, and then finally the Ducks on Saturday. Anaheim will be playing on the second-half of a back-to-back and their third game in four nights, so expect them to destroy the Kings by like seven goals, because apparently that’s how this works.

Meanwhile, the Ducks play all the same teams as the Kings, the Canucks and Oilers are both on Eastern road trips other than 1 quick stop in the Central (and boy, our second Oilers-Panthers meeting in six days?! how’d we all ever get so lucky!!!), the Sharks will play some awful teams, the Flames only have two games, and the Coyotes suck.

See you next week!

Talking Points