Look, I’m just gonna be straight with y’all: I am sick as hell. And I mean that in the traditional sense of the word (although if you want to take it other ways, that’s fine too); that time of year, I guess. So this week’s, uh, This Week will be a bit shorter than usual. No long introduction and I’ll try to keep the text down to a minimum throughout, so I can get through this as fast as possible and get back under my blanket. Alright? Alright.
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, December 1st
–Arizona Coyotes 5, Edmonton Oilers 2
–Anaheim Ducks 3, Boston Bruins 2
Tuesday, December 2nd
–Vancouver Canucks 4, Washington Capitals 3
–Calgary Flames 5, Arizona Coyotes 2
–San Jose Sharks 2, Philadelphia Flyers 1: It would be remiss of me not to at least mention the Sharks scoring the game-winner with just 12 seconds left in regulation here. That’s the kind of thing you expect to happen to the Sharks, not in their favor, right? Well, uh, it basically has happened to them already this year, in fact, so correct!
–Los Angeles Kings 2, Boston Bruins 0: Quick stopped all 31 shots he faced as the Kings turned aside the Bruins here. Tanner Pearson scored his tenth (remember when it looked like he would do that in like early November? oh crazy shooting luck) not long after the Bruins had killed off nearly 90 seconds of 5-on-3 power play for the Kings, which is kind of funny. Yep. (recap) (gamethread)
Wednesday, December 3rd
-Winnipeg Jets 3, Edmonton Oilers 2 (OT): Poor Oilers. Just never gonna beat a Western Conference team this season, are you? I mean, if you can’t even beat friggin’ Winnipeg who CAN you beat?!
–Anaheim Ducks 5, Philadelphia Flyers 4 (SO)
Thursday, December 4th
–Vancouver Canucks 3, Pittsburgh Penguins 0
–Calgary Flames 4, Colorado Avalanche 3 (OT)
–Los Angeles Kings 4, Arizona Coyotes 0: After a 1st period that was pretty even (in Corsi events anyway, as the Kings had already taken a 1-0 lead), the Coyotes were utterly destroyed in the 2nd, giving up 2 more goals while the Kings more than doubled them up in shot attempts. This would thus become the Yotes’ sixth straight loss at home, their worst home losing streak since the days of Gretzky behind the bench. He was not a very good coach, if you don’t recall. (recap) (gamethread)
–San Jose Sharks 7, Boston Bruins 4: Sometimes (okay actually often in my case), someone else puts it into words far better than you can.
Friday, December 5th
–Anaheim Ducks 5, Minnesota Wild 4
Saturday, December 6th
-Philadelphia Flyers 2, Los Angeles Kings 1: Ah yes, it was one of those games. You know, the ‘Kings outplay the other team and outshoot them by like a million yet somehow get stoned repeatedly by a crappy goalie’ game. We haven’t had very many of them this year but I swear to god I still felt like that’s how this was gonna go roughly 2 minutes into the game or so. I can just smell them by now (which in this case was really impressive given how clogged my nose was at this point but uh anyway). Anyway, whatever, the Kings played well against a bad team and lost, no one is shocked. (recap) (gamethread)
-Toronto Maple Leafs 5, Vancouver Canucks 2
-Boston Bruins 5, Arizona Coyotes 2
–San Jose Sharks 3, Calgary Flames 2
Sunday, December 7th
–Anaheim Ducks 4, Winnipeg Jets 3 (OT)
-Ottawa Senators 4, Vancouver Canucks 3 (OT): This seems like a weird way to reward your coach for a victory, Ottawa.
–Edmonton Oilers 2, San Jose Sharks 1: Hahahaha. Okay, so sure, we all knew this was happening. The Sharks were so obviously going to be the first Western Conference team to lose to the Oilers (and the first team of any kind to lose to them since the first week of November; the Oilers had lost 11 straight going into this one) that basically every Sharks fan in the world called it. Hell, Fear the Fin called it on like Thursday. But it was still funny to actually watch happen in front of your very eyes like that. Let no one ever say the Sharks don’t live up to expectations!
This Week in Standings
| Team | GP | W | L | OTL | Points | ROW | GF | GA | Diff | Home | Away | Last Week | 5v5 CF% |
| 1. Anaheim | 29 | 18 | 6 | 5 | 41 | 14 | 85 | 79 | +6 | 9-3-3 | 9-3-2 | 4-0-0 | 50.20% |
| 2. Vancouver | 28 | 18 | 8 | 2 | 38 | 16 | 87 | 78 | +9 | 7-3-1 | 11-5-1 | 2-1-1 | 50.98% |
| 3. Calgary | 28 | 17 | 9 | 2 | 36 | 14 | 89 | 72 | +17 | 8-4-2 | 9-5-0 | 2-1-0 | 44.02% |
| 4. Los Angeles | 27 | 14 | 8 | 5 | 33 | 13 | 72 | 59 | +13 | 11-4-1 | 3-4-4 | 2-1-0 | 51.91% |
| 5. San Jose | 29 | 14 | 11 | 4 | 32 | 12 | 81 | 79 | +2 | 5-4-2 | 9-7-2 | 3-1-0 | 52.12% |
| 6. Arizona | 28 | 10 | 15 | 3 | 23 | 8 | 66 | 90 | -24 | 4-7-2 | 6-8-1 | 1-3-0 | 48.30% |
| 7. Edmonton | 27 | 7 | 15 | 5 | 19 | 7 | 60 | 91 | -31 | 5-9-1 | 2-6-4 | 1-1-1 | 50.62% |
Vancouver’s reign atop the Pacific table was short-lived, as the Ducks’ perfect 4-0-0 week catapulted them back to the top after just a single week away. Below those two, not much changed. The Flames seemingly go 2-1-0 just about every single damn week I do this, and the Kings matched that record to at least stay within spitting distance of them. The Sharks had a good 3-1-0 week to move within a point of the Kings, but the Kings do still hold onto two games-in-hand on them. And below the Sharks are some bad hockey teams.
This Week in #fancystats
(all stats are total attempts, not percentages. thanks to extra skater war-on-ice. note that they decided to remove the “close” situation as stat nerds everywhere have decided it actually isn’t all that important, but will be adding score-adjusted stats soon, which will be great and I’ll work them into this feature when they do. anyway….)
Kings 2, Bruins 0
Corsi: Kings 63-Bruins 57 (overall), Bruins 55-Kings 47 (5v5), Kings 13-Bruins 11 (5v5 tied)
Fenwick: Kings 49-Bruins 48 (overall), Bruins 46-Kings 36 (5v5), Bruins 10-Kings 8 (5v5 tied)
LA Indv. Player Corsi 5v5– Best: Greene (+10), McNabb (+7), Clifford (+1). Worst: Doughty (-16), Muzzin (-14), Stoll (-5)
BOS Indv. Player Corsi 5v5– Best: Pastrnak/Svedberg/Krug (tied, +8). Worst: Miller/Gagne (tied, -5), Pallie (-4)
Kings 4, Coyotes 0
Corsi: Kings 73-Coyotes 51 (overall), Kings 64-Coyotes 43 (5v5), Coyotes 7-Kings 4 (5v5 tied)
Fenwick: Kings 56-Coyotes 40 (overall), Kings 48-Coyotes 34 (5v5), Coyotes 5-Kings 4 (5v5 tied)
LA Indv. Player Corsi 5v5– Best: McNabb/Richards (tied, +13), Toffoli/King/Greene (tied, +12). Worst: Nolan (-2), Lewis (-1), Muzzin/Clifford/Doughty (tied, even)
ARI Indv. Player Corsi 5v5– Best: Rieder/Vermette/Erat (tied, +2). Worst: Korpikoski (-21), Gagner (-20), Doan (-16)
Flyers 2, Kings 1
Corsi: Kings 69-Flyers 29 (overall), Kings 43-Flyers 20 (5v5), Kings 3-Flyers 2 (5v5 tied)
Fenwick: Kings 47-Flyers 26 (overall), Kings 32-Flyers 18 (5v5), Flyers 2-Kings 1 (5v5 tied)
LA Indv. Player Corsi 5v5– Best: Doughty (+13), Kopitar (+10), Muzzin (+9). Worst: Nolan/Martinez (tied, +2), Clifford/Lewis (tied, +4)
PHI Indv. Player Corsi 5v5– Best: Read (-1), Umberger (-2), Laughton/Couturier (tied, -4). Worst: Rinaldo (-10), Grossman (-9), Bellemare/Vandevelde/Streit/Coburn (tied, -8)
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 | 12/8 | 12/9 | 12/10 | 12/11 | 12/12 | 12/13 | 12/14 |
| LA | – | @BUF (4:30) | – | @OTT (4:30) | @MTL (4:30) | – | @TOR (2:00) |
| ANA | – | – | vs.EDM (7:00) | – | @EDM (6:30) | @WPG (4:00) | – |
| VAN | – | @MTL (4:30) | – | – | – | vs.NYR (7:00) | – |
| CGY | @TOR (4:30) | – | @BUF (4:00) | @PIT (4:00) | – | @CHI (5:00) | |
| SJ | – | vs.EDM (7:30) | – | vs.MIN (7:30) | – | vs.NSH (7:30) | – |
| ARI | – | – | – | vs.NSH (6:00) | – | vs.MIN (5:00) | – |
| EDM | – | @SJ (7:30) | @ANA (7:00) | – | vs.ANA (6:30) | – | vs.NYR (6:30) |
The Kings are on their annual Eastern Canada + Buffalo trip this week, which if you’ll recall saw them tear through the region with a path of destruction last year, so here’s hoping for more of the same. Somehow the Oilers end up playing the Sharks and then the Ducks twice in the span of four days, which is kind of hilarious. Anyway, wrapping this up before I pass out now…
Illness or no illness, there will still be an edition of the Jewelcast tonight, and it will be our 25th episode at that! Check back at the Jewels homepage around 7 pacific/10 eastern to help us celebrate this important milestone with as many JFTC bloggers as we can stuff into one episode!