The Los Angeles Kings head into the post-holiday stretch of the season in third place in the Pacific Division, seven points behind first-place Vancouver and five behind defending Stanley Cup champion Vegas.
But Los Angeles’ spot in the division has a bit of an asterisk as the Kings head into Wednesday night’s home meeting with the last-place San Jose Sharks.
Los Angeles (19-7-4) has played five less games than both the Canucks (23-9-3) and Golden Knights (21-9-5). That’s a potential 10 points still left to be had for Todd McLellan’s squad, which has the second-best goal differential (plus-34) in the NHL behind only Vancouver (plus-46).
The Kings have won three of their past four contests heading into a tough stretch of three games in four days to finish out the calendar year. After Wednesday’s clash with San Jose, Los Angeles finishes a back-to-back by going to Las Vegas on Thursday before returning home to host Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers.
Los Angeles went into the holiday break after grinding out a 5-3 victory over visiting Calgary on Saturday. Quinton Byfield scored two goals, Drew Doughty and Anze Kopitar each had two assists and Trevor Moore scored his team-leading 16th marker of the season in the win.
“We were talking in the coaches’ room that (Saturday) was a good win for us,” McLellan said. “It was a tough, hard game. It didn’t necessarily go the way we wanted it to the whole night, but we won.”
McLellan said his team overcoming its share of hardship in the contest was a big plus moving forward.
“Early in the year, we were winning games where we didn’t have a lot of adversity in them,” McLellan said. “Wasn’t a lot of situations where you’re biting your nails and that type of stuff. Some of these games are good for us. It reminds us how hard it is to win.”
San Jose, tied with the Chicago Blackhawks for fewest points in the league (21), knows just how tough it is to win.
The Sharks, who began the season with an 11-game losing streak (0-10-1) that included back-to-back games in which their opponent scored 10 goals, bring a five-game skid into Wednesday’s meeting.
San Jose lost 7-4 to host Vancouver in its last game before the break. The Sharks’ Jacob MacDonald had made it 5-4 with 6:44 remaining in the third, but Pius Suter deflected a Quinn Hughes shot into the net with 4:17 to go to put the Canucks back up by two goals. Hughes then sealed the win with an empty-netter in the final seconds.
“There’s a lot of things I liked about our game,” San Jose coach David Quinn said. “This group never quits. We’re resilient, we’re mentally tough. Just too often the goals come too easy for our opponent.”
San Jose has allowed a league-high 140 goals, and its minus-67 goal differential is the worst in the NHL by 24 tallies.
Still, Quinn believes his team can turn things around after the break.
“I think we’ve got to realize how close we are to winning hockey games,” Quinn said. “That’s the thing that’s frustrating, and we’ve got to take that next step.”
–Field Level Media
