The Good: Kings win, Coyotes lose, Avs lose, Hawks lose, Stars lose, Sharks lose.
The Bad: Wings win, Canucks win, Preds win.
And that means what exactly?
For one thing, the Kings are 7 points from the top of the conference, and 11 points from being out of the playoffs. We still have four fairly distinct clusters of teams:
- San Jose and Chicago, duking it out for the 1 and 2 seeds, but now only 7 points ahead of the Kings.
- The Kings, Canucks, Avs and Yotes, negotiating 3-6, separated by 5 points.
- (Nashville, trying to decide if it’s in the above group, or the one below…)
- The Wings, Flames, Stars, Wild, Ducks and Blues, six teams looking at the 8th and final spot, all separated by 5 points (and each team one point from the next).
- Columbus and Edmonton, in the Taylor Hall Derby.
Here are the standings:
- San Jose Sharks 37 (1) +7
- Chicago Blackhawks 37 (2) +7
- Los Angeles Kings 44 (4) —
- Vancouver Canucks 46 (3) -2
- Colorado Avalanche 48 (6) -4
- Phoenix Coyotes 49 (5) -5
- Nashville Predators 51 (7) -7
- Detroit Red Wings 54 (8) -10
- Calgary Flames 55 (9) -11
- Dallas Stars 56 (10) -12
- Anaheim Ducks 57 (11) -13
- Minnesota Wild 58 (13) -14
- St. Louis Blues 59 (12) -15
- Columbus Blue Jackets 66 (14) -22
- Edmonton Oilers 78 (15) -34
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.