After clinching a playoff berth for a fourth consecutive season, the Los Angeles Kings will focus on nailing down home-ice advantage for the opening round of the Stanley Cup playoffs when they host the Seattle Kraken on Monday.
Los Angeles (44-23-9, 97 points), second in the Pacific Division, holds a four-point edge over the third-place Edmonton Oilers with six games remaining for both teams. Should the Kings hold on to second place, they would host the Oilers in the first round.
Los Angeles also has an outside change at catching the first-place Vegas Golden Knights, who stand at 100 points.
How important is garnering home ice for the Kings? Well, with a 3-0 win over the Oilers on Saturday afternoon, Los Angeles improved to 29-4-4 at Crypto.com Arena, the fewest home losses in the NHL. Only the Carolina Hurricanes (30-8-1) have won more games on their home ice this season.
“We’d certainly like to earn it,” Kings coach Jim Hiller said. “For some reason, this year in particular, we’ve played extremely well here at home, so you’d like to have that advantage. But there’s lots of hockey left to play. You can’t look past anybody.”
“There’s going to be a time in the playoffs when you’ve got to win on the road, too,” center Anze Kopitar said. “We have confidence in this team. Would it be nice to start at home? Of course. It’s something that’s there for the taking, but we’re going game by game and building our game. When the first game rolls around, we’ll be ready.”
Darcy Kuemper made 27 saves to record his fifth shutout of the season in Saturday’s win over Edmonton, which played without injured Connor McDavid and league goal-scoring leader Leon Draisaitl. Kuemper has allowed two or fewer goals in 13 consecutive starts (10-2-1), just the fifth goalie in the NHL’s expansion era to accomplish that feat.
“He’s been stellar for us all year,” Kopitar said. “Shutout or not, he gives us a chance every night.”
Seattle (33-38-6, 72 points), already eliminated from playoff contention, is seventh in the Pacific Division. The Kraken have won two in a row to start a five-game road trip, blanking the Vancouver Canucks 5-0 on Wednesday and following that up with a 5-1 win at San Jose on Saturday.
Forward Jared McCann, who has 13 points in his last nine games, hit the 20-goal mark against the Sharks, finishing with two goals and an assist. Joey Daccord, who picked up his second shutout of the season at Vancouver, made 23 saves at San Jose.
“I thought early (Daccord), first four minutes of the game, I think there were four Grade-A’s and he made some good saves there, and it allowed us to answer back quickly,” Kraken coach Dan Bylsma said Saturday.
“(Daccord) made some huge saves for us,” McCann said. “Give a lot of credit to him.”
This will be the third of four meetings between the teams. The Kings, behind goals by Adrian Kempe and Quinton Byfield, won the first one 2-1 on Nov. 23 in Los Angeles while the Kraken, behind a hat trick by Jaden Schwartz, won the second meeting 4-2 in Seattle on Jan. 18. They’ll also play on April 15 in Seattle.
–Field Level Media
