The standings would suggest that the battle for fourth place in the Western Conference is over, with the San Jose Sharks sitting seven points head of the Kings with 11 games remaining (the Kings have one game in hand). Although, given the free fall that the Sharks have been in, who knows, right? The Kings, right now, are in an intense battle for fifth place, but I asked Murray today whether, if fourth place is out of range, it really mattered to him if the Kings finished fifth, sixth, seventh or eighth.
MURRAY: “Well, you still want to keep pushing. You want to keep pushing for home ice. That’s an important part of the playoff structure, I think. You get down to a seventh game, that last change, that matchup, the defensive posture of your team is very important. So I’m not going to concede anything here. I want to keep going. I want to keep pushing this team up and keep going after the wins to get ourselves moved up in the standings.”
That’s the attitude.
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Bob Bobson Reply:
March 23rd, 2010 at 2:45 pm
@Minnesota Kings Fan, Yup, you have to keep pushing b/c we cannot schlep our way into the playoffs and expect to succeed.
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Yes, that’s the attitude. Even though that 4th place is gone…. sorry.
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Yeah, long gone. I just wold rather play the Sharks right now.
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Still “want to keep pushing”? You mean “still have to keep pushing”. This race is not over and don’t see any teams in the west rolling over.
The West is do good this year that, as things currently stand all but two match ups (Caps v #16 #8 v #9) would East V West.
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Some off topic FYi
http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=522445
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jpurkiss Reply:
March 23rd, 2010 at 3:10 pm
@pr0cess, I didn’t think there would be any suspensions from that. Greene just went down kind of awkward
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mrbrett7 Reply:
March 23rd, 2010 at 3:57 pm
@pr0cess, Hmmm…not so sure I agree with that. Watching the replay at home, Greene was already on his way down, although Tucker definately should have held up.
The refs missed a ton of calls last night.
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pr0cess Reply:
March 23rd, 2010 at 4:44 pm
@mrbrett7, I think this is just all part of the knee jerk feeling about anything that is close to hurting someone right now cause of the headshots and what not.
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To me it’s as important, if not more, to be playing well at playoff time. If you are then you can very quickly steal home-ice advantage. If you’re not home-ice won’t mean a thing!!!
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Don’t see how you can say 4th place is long gone with 11 games and 2 and a half weeks to go.
If you had come on here two and a half weeks ago and said the Yotes would be leading the Pacific, most people would have laughed. Here we are, though. It is a wacky season and anything can happen. The biggest problem is that we don’t play the Sharks again so we can’t rely on the automatic two way swing. We are dependent on them to lose to other teams. I just don’t think you can say it is “long gone”.
The odds are getting slim, but there is still hope. The Sharks just look like they don’t care. Anything is still possible.
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David Reply:
March 23rd, 2010 at 4:25 pm
@KingsFan in OC,
agreed
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i don’t care if we are 1st, 4th or 8th, as long as we are in the playoff, we should be happy. Calgary is 9 games above .500, and they may out of playoff.
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Sure, there is hope but realistically the chances of getting that 4th spot are very, very, very slim.
Let’s focus on winning one game at a time, not that stupid 4th place. Given the Kings’ on-the-road record this year, I’m happy to go to Staples Center for game 3&4……
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KingsFan in OC Reply:
March 23rd, 2010 at 4:00 pm
@Dom, completely agree. One game at a time. As long as we have playoff hockey back again, I will be happy as can be.
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It’s times like these that I really hate that extra point for overtime losses. SJ only has one more win than the Kings, who have a game in hand. But they have 10 OTL points compared to 5 for the Kings.
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Doughty99 Reply:
March 23rd, 2010 at 5:55 pm
@Danielle,
the olympic system looks confusing but really makes a lot more sense (3pts for W, 2 for OTW, 1 for OTL, 0 for L). I’d love to see the NHL adopt that point structure (have a simple W-L-T standings for the casual fan, and an expanded standings that go into more detail for us insiders!).
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jgsmall Reply:
March 23rd, 2010 at 6:56 pm
@Danielle, I think the Kings have had about the same number of OT games, they have just picked up more wins (7 SO for Quick) rather than OTL.
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Old Codger Reply:
March 24th, 2010 at 10:42 am
@Danielle, I agree with you. An OT loss is still not a win and counts for nothing in the playoffs. When looking at the playoff chances, I only look at the win column. Most teams getting in are pretty close in that column. This is why even the 8th seed has a chance to lift the cup.
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With only 11 games left I don’t know if the Kings can catch the Sharks, but the Sharks will continue to choke all the way through their 1st round playoff exit (again). I’d much rather play the Sharks in the playoffs then Nashville, Vancouver, Chicago, or Phoenix. Limit the damage the Heatley line does and you can beat the Sharks pretty easily. Nabokov doesn’t worry me like just like Rinne, Bryzgalov, or Luongo. And Chicago’s skaters can beat the Kings even if their goaltending isn’t great.
I still firmly believe that if the Kings play “Kings hockey” in the playoffs they’ll go to the Cup Finals. I don’t see any team in the West that REALLY scares me if the Kings play their game.
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I’d assume you’d want as many point as possible. A few years ago, all the bottom seeds in the west won and 5th ended up with home ice in the second round. Not to mention, if they did get to the scf, you want to have more points than the east opponent to get home ice then as well.
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it’s possible i flew through these comments too quickly, but did anyone mention that TM didn’t actually answer Rich’s (very good) question? Rich asked if he cares about spots 5-8 and TM responded w/ “home ice… game 7…”. There ain’t no home ice for the 5 seed, silly TM, you know that. I wonder if that indirect answer means he doesn’t care who we play…
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If the Kings are gonna be a good team in the coming years, they have to look to the Coyotes for example. They were pretty much “eliminated” from the division lead, but fought so hard (and got a couple lucky bounces) and now are fighting for 1st in the West.
You never know what’s gonna happen. Nobody predicted the Sharks would drop 6 straight. You have to play EVERY game with 200% the intensity you can. Maybe they won’t get 4th in the West and home ice in the first round, but you have to play as if you have a chance to get it. If you don’t play like that, it won’t matter how you finish, you’ll lose in the postseason.
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