Sunday’s Results
The Good: PHX lost, CBJ lost, MIN lost, CGY half-lost.
The Bad: ANA won (3pt game, boo!), CHI won.
Last Night’s Results
The Good: LAK won, CGY half-lost.
The Bad: CGY half-won.
Tonight’s Games
EDM @ NAS — Go Oil.
STL @ PHX — Go Blues.
Tomorrow’s Games
FLA @ CHI — Go Fla.
ANA @ DAL — Ooh. If only both teams could lose. Well, solely because I want the most possible distance between us and the Ducks by the time we get to that home-and-home to end the season: Go Stars.
CGY @ SJS — Go Sharks, in regulation.
Now, the updated standings:
| Q | NHL | PTS | W% | PRJ | LSF | PB | +/- | TO 96 | GR | W! | SS | SSGR | GD | |
| 1 | 1 | VAN | 103 | 0.7055 | 115.7 | 103 | 43 | 16 | n/a | 9 | 43 | 1 | 1 | 66 |
| 2 | 2 | DET | 95 | 0.6507 | 106.7 | 102 | 51 | 8 | 0-8-1 | 9 | 39 | 3 | LAK | 28 |
| 3 | 3 | SJS | 92 | 0.6301 | 103.3 | 113 | 54 | 5 | 2-7-0 | 9 | 37 | -1 | 2 | 20 |
| 4 | 5 | LAK | 88 | 0.6027 | 98.8 | 101 | 58 | 1 | 4-5-0 | 9 | 33 | n/a | n/a | 22 |
| 5 | 6 | CHI | 86 | 0.5972 | 97.9 | 112 | 58 | 1 | 5-5-0 | 10 | 34 | -8 | CHI | 32 |
| 6 | 4 | PHX | 89 | 0.6014 | 98.6 | 107 | 59 | 0 | 3-4-1 | 8 | 35 | -2 | 1 | 6 |
| 7 | 8 | ANA | 85 | 0.5903 | 96.8 | 89 | 59 | 0 | 5-4-1 | 10 | 36 | 1 | 2 | -4 |
| 8 | 9 | DAL | 85 | 0.5903 | 96.8 | 88 | 59 | 0 | 5-4-1 | 10 | 33 | 3 | LAK | 1 |
| 9 | 7 | NAS | 86 | 0.5890 | 96.6 | 100 | 60 | -1 | 5-4-0 | 9 | 32 | 4 | LAK | 18 |
| 10 | 10 | CGY | 85 | 0.5667 | 92.9 | 90 | 65 | -6 | 5-1-1 | 7 | 30 | 2 | LAK | 11 |
| 11 | 11 | MIN | 78 | 0.5342 | 87.6 | 84 | 68 | -9 | 9-0-0 | 9 | 33 | 1 | LAK | -19 |
| 12 | 12 | CBJ | 76 | 0.5278 | 86.6 | 79 | 68 | -9 | 10-0-0 | 10 | 29 | 3 | LAK | -23 |
| 13 | 13 | STL | 73 | 0.5069 | 83.1 | 90 | 71 | -12 | n/a | 10 | 28 | -8 | STL | -13 |
| 14 | 14 | COL | 62 | 0.4366 | 71.6 | 95 | 80 | -21 | n/a | 11 | 23 | 6 | LAK | -52 |
| 15 | 15 | EDM | 56 | 0.3889 | 63.8 | 62 | 88 | -29 | n/a | 10 | 21 | 5 | LAK | -62 |
Click on the headers to sort.
KEY: Q is my standings, default sorted by points-blown (explanation of points-blown here). NHL is the official standings, via NHL.COM (ESPN has the tie-breakers wrong). PRJ is projected point total for 82 games. LSF is last season’s final point total. PB is points-blown. +/- is the distance in points-blown above or below the 8th seed. TO 96 is the record needed to get to the presumed (by me) playoff-threshold. GR is games-remaining. W! is wins plus OT wins (the first tie-breaker). SS and SSGR are season series against the Kings (Kings’ points-earned vs. that team’s points-earned) and games remaining (team name in the SSGR column means that team has won the season series). 2 points for a Kings win, 1 for an OT or SO win, -1 for an OT or SO loss, -2 for a loss. GD is goal–differential.
Observations:
- Calgary is on the cusp of elimination. Not mathematical elimination, since they can still win out and end up with 99 points. But even the 5-1-1 needed to get to 96 points is unlikely.
- That leaves, really, six teams fighting for five spots.
- Those six — LAK, CHI, PHX, ANA, DAL, NAS — are separated by two points-blown and four official points (Phoenix’s extra game played is what’s throwing the official numbers off).
- Five of those teams (everyone but Nashville) are separated by a single point-blown.
- The Kings have won their season series against DAL, NAS and CGY, lost to CHI, with ANA and PHX still up for grabs. Yay.
- This might not matter, since the wins tie-breaker (W!) comes first, and the Kings are three behind ANA, two behind PHX and one behind CHI in W!.
- In W!, the Kings are even with DAL, one ahead of NAS and three ahead of CGY.
- These last two bullets make winning in regulation and/or OT kind of important.