As noted in yesterday’s item about the Western Conference standings, the Kings are in an interesting spot. In seventh place, it’s not out of the question that they could still take a run at San Jose for the Pacific Division title. On the other hand, there are five teams below the Kings that are within six points, and if a couple of them get on a hot streak, look out. This is certainly nothing new. In recent years, the conference race has been a down-to-the-wire affair. The Kings’ first priority should be to put some distance between themselves and ninth place. Worrying about San Jose is secondary. At the start of the season, that certainly wasn’t the Kings’ thought or plan, but this is the situation they have put themselves in. The question, to Darryl Sutter, was, “Is the glass half full or half empty?” Meaning, does the team look ahead, to teams it can catch, or look behind to see which teams are catching up?
SUTTER: “I’m the `full’ guy. It can get frustrating when you look at it. (Against Calgary last week), we outchanced the other team 20-12, and you lose in the friggin shootout and you have three empty nets in overtime.
Continue reading ‘Third place, ninth place both still highly possible’ »
As usual, the Western Conference playoff race is tight, and figures to remain so for the rest of the season. The Kings come out of the All-Star break in seventh place, six points behind sixth-place Chicago and six points ahead of 12th-place Phoenix. For sake of argument, we’ll say Detroit, Vancouver, San Jose, St. Louis and Chicago are all playoff teams, and Nashville is in a strong position as well. That leaves two spots for the Kings, Minnesota, Colorado, Dallas, Calgary and Phoenix to fight for, and then there’s Anaheim, which would have to maintain its current torrid pace in order to get back in the picture.
The up-and-down nature of the season continues for the Manchester Monarchs, the Kings’ American Hockey League affiliate. After a slow start, the Monarchs moved into first place in their division in late December, and had goalie Jeff Zatkoff and defenseman Thomas Hickey named to the AHL All-Star Game. Then the Monarchs fell off the table, with a franchise-worst seven-game losing streak. That ended last week, and now the Monarchs have won three consecutive games. Manchester hosts St. John’s on Friday and Worcester on Saturday before a five-day All-Star break. The All-Star Game will be played Monday.
The Kings better get their rest now, because after the end of the All-Star break — and one home game against Columbus — they hit the road for what is, by any measure, their most difficult North American road trip of the season (nobody will forget those home games in Europe). The Kings face six games in 10 days. That’s tighter than normal for a road trip, but the scheduling makes it even more daunting.
Jonathan Quick was scheduled to be on his way to Ottawa this morning, and will be in town for today’s All-Star “draft,” which will be shown on the NBC Sports Network (previously known as Versus) at 5 p.m. Pacific time. That’s when the All-Star Game rosters will be chosen, as captains Daniel Alfredsson and Zdeno Chara will alternate picks. Quick is one of six goalies, but Henrik Lundqvist has already been assigned to Alfredsson’s team as an alternate captain. That leaves Quick, Brian Elliott, Jimmy Howard, Carey Price and Tim Thomas.
The Kings’ offensive struggles have been well-documented. Not only are they averaging the fewest number of goals per game in the NHL this season (2.14) but they’re on pace to finish this season with 182 goals, down from last season’s total of 219. The startling thing is that the offensive drop, almost entirely, has been across the board. The numbers indicate that almost every Kings player will be down in scoring from last season. The player-by-player numbers are below. To be perfectly clear, this isn’t intended as science. There are numerous factors that can influence/skew these numbers, and of course they don’t take into account any defense play. But, if you’re curious, here they are. The full-season projections assume that every player will play in the remaining 32 games (which isn’t possible, numbers-wise), but that’s probably the fairest way to do it. I also eliminated the injured players and Davis Drewiske, whose sample size (seven games) is just too small. So, here you go. The 2011-12 full-season projections are followed by last season’s totals…
An earlier post discussed the nagging injuries that the Kings will (potentially) be able to heal during the eight-day break. What about the injuries that are keeping players out of the lineup? The news isn’t as good there, as there’s really no change in the status of Simon Gagne or Scott Parse.
My LAKings.com feature for this week takes a look at Jonathan Quick as he starts his journey to the NHL All-Star Game for the first time. Thanks for reading…
Do you have your questions ready for Jim Fox? Good, but don’t post them here. Jim won’t see them. Instead, go to the link below from noon-1 p.m. and ask away…
Here’s a question that, for me, had a surprising answer. In the transition from Terry Murray to Darryl Sutter, have the Kings improved more on offense or on defense? The answer: defense. In Sutter’s 17 games, compared to Murray’s 29, the Kings are scoring almost exactly the same number of goals per game, but the goals-against average has dropped by more than a half-goal per game. Here’s some statistical breakdown, in seven major categories, in terms of how the Kings fared under Murray compared to how they’re faring under Sutter. Also, since the Kings have reached the 50-game mark, I’ll revisit the comparison of where they stand now in certain categories, compared to the full-season totals from 2010-11. First, here is the Kings comparison under Murray and Sutter.
Somewhere, at some point during the extended All-Star break, it’s likely that Kyle Clifford will be enjoying a large steak courtesy of Kevin Westgarth. Clifford recorded a “Gordie Howe Hat Trick’’ last night, as he got on the stat sheet with a first-period fight, a first-period assist and a second-period goal. Not a bad trifecta, especially considering that, in 125 previous NHL games, Clifford totaled nine goals, 12 assists and 24 fighting majors.
As noted in a previous post, Jonathan Quick will fly to Ottawa on Thursday morning for the start of All-Star Game festivities. Later that day, Quick will participate in the “draft,’’ with All-Star captains Daniel Alfredsson and Zdeno Chara picking the rosters. The skills competition will take place Saturday and the game will take place Sunday. Given that six goalies are on the roster, Quick is likely to only play one period. Since being named to the team, Quick had deflected any extended talk about it, as he preferred to focus on upcoming regular-season games, but after last night’s victory over Ottawa, Quick talked about the honor of being an All-Star for the first time in his career.
Some notes from last night’s game…
The Ottawa Senators were upset — and, according to video review, rightfully so — that defenseman Chris Phillips was called for covering the puck in the crease, with led to Trevor Lewis’ penalty-shot goal late in the second period. Fair enough, but by that point the Kings already led 3-0 and were well in control of the game. It’s tough to get a handle on a team such as the Senators, who are usually only seen in person once a season, but you’d have to think that the Senators have had far better games than the one they played against the Kings. The Senators are one of the surprise teams in the NHL this season, but they rarely put consistent pressure on Jonathan Quick — a nod to the Kings’ defense for their part in that, and to Quick for making the needed saves — and coach Paul MacLean’s decision to replace goalie Craig Anderson at the start of the third period seemed to be a clear indiciation that his team, in general, was not putting forth the desired effort. On the other hand, credit the Kings for the second period, one of their strongest all-around periods of the season. Here’s how the Ottawa Citizen and Ottawa Sun covered last night’s game, followed by some additional postgame quotes from the Senators’ locker room…
