There’s no subtle way to put it, the Los Angeles Kings laid an egg on Tuesday. The nightmare scenario, that no fan of the reigning Stanley Cup Champions ever saw coming, could be less than 24 hours away; the Kings could miss the playoffs.
As the Edmonton Oilers were exacting their revenge on the team that beat them 8-2 less than a week earlier, SportsClubStats.com was calculating the Kings’ chances of making the Stanley Cup Playoffs. After the Oilers shocked the Champs 4-2 in Tuesday’s catastrophe, those changes fell to approximately 21.6 percent. So you’re saying there’s a chance…
While hope for the Stanley Cup playoffs seems bleak, there are still multiple scenarios in which the Kings can clinch a playoff berth. There are three teams battling for the final two spots in the Western Conference. Among the three teams, the Winnipeg Jets lead with 96 points, followed by the Calgary Flames (95 points) and the Kings are in the back seat with 93 points.
The Jets more than likely will finish with the conference’s second wild card birth, while the Flames can finish as the No. 2 or 3 team in the Pacific Division or claim either wild card birth. At this point, the Kings can only make the playoffs as either the No. 3 seed in the Pacific or as the second wild card term.
In this case, it’s safe to say that the Jets and Flames control their own destiny, win and you’re in. Unfortunately for the defending Stanley Cup Champions, it’s win and get help, lot’s of help.
But don’t tell that to Kings defenseman Drew Doughty.
“It hasn't been the greatest season,” Doughty said, “but we still have a chance. We win the next game against Calgary, and the next one against San Jose, some other things have to work out for us but we still have a chance."
Sports
Get today's sports news out of Los Angeles. Here's the latest on the Dodgers, Lakers, Angels, Kings, Galaxy, LAFC, USC, UCLA and more LA teams.
Sure, the Kings still have a chance – but only if they beat the Flames in regulation on Thursday. A team that has beat them 3-out-of-4 times this season. Yet even if they beat the Flames and tie them at 95 points a piece for the final playoff spot, the Kings would be out by virtue of the tiebreaker.
In addition to beating the Flames at the Saddledome on Thursday, they also have to hope, pray and root for the Colorado Avalanche to beat the Jets as well. That outcome would set up an ideal situation where both Canadian rivals clash on Saturday and the Kings could clinch a playoff berth with a win over the San Jose Sharks.
"We know what's at hand and a lot of us have been through similar situations before," said defenseman Alec Martinez. "We have that experience of having gone through it. Every season has its own story and this one is a little unique, because it's really, really down to crunch time. But we're pretty confident in the group that we have here and we all know we can do it."
The Avs are at the bottom of the Central Division with a 37-31-12 record (86 points) making that scenario unlikely. And while 86 points and a better win-loss record may not be terrible– compared to say, the Arizona Coyotes (56 points) –it’s still hard to bank your fate on a team that has struggled mightily all season.
The Kings have the tiebreaker advantage over the Jets but not the Flames. To get the advantage over the Flames in the playoff chase, the Kings will have to beat them at Calgary on Thursday and have them lose to the Jets while they take care of business against the Sharks on Saturday. However they wont have to worry about Saturday if the Kings win and Colorado comes through on Thursday.
This all may be confusing for you, or sound a lot like a bad episode of NCAA college basketball bracketology, but at the end of the day. The Kings simply need to win on Thursday and go from there, because if the Oilers victory on Tuesday taught us anything, it’s that miracles can happen.
