Kings’ Mini Season: 20 Games Till the Olympic Break

7 against the East: WAS, BUF, TOR, BOS x2, NJD, NYR

13 against the West: SJS x3, DET x3, ANA x3, STL, CBJ, EDM, COL

against teams ahead of the Kings league-wide: 7

against the 7 teams in the 3rd to 10th log-jam: (4) DET x3, COL

back-to-back: (1) NJD, 1/31 after BOS 1/30

two days off: 5

one day off: 14

home/away: 13/7

Kings are 23-15-3, 49 points. That’s a 98 point pace, which will be good enough for the playoffs. To keep that pace, we need 24 of the 40 points possible in the next twenty games. That’s, 12-8-0, or somewhere in the neighborhood of 11-7-2, if you assume the Kings will have one or two OTSOLs over twenty games. They would then be 34-22-5, 73 points, 21 games left.

Three game series against DET is kinda important. But it’s all important.

State of play – 11-05-09 – Empty Netters – post-gazette.com

[Pittsburgh] has only won two games [in California], both at Anaheim, since 1999.

via State of play – 11-05-09 – Empty Netters – post-gazette.com.

Rob Scuderi, Kings have royal opportunity against Penguins – Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Rob Scuderi knows what his upstart Los Angeles Kings can gain tonight against the Penguins at Staples Center.

“Every team in the NHL is trying to be the Penguins; ultimately, you look at them and see what you can become,” the Kings’ defenseman said Wednesday of a showdown between his club – third in the Western Conference (9-4-2, 20 points) – and the Penguins, who are 7-0-0 on the road and own the NHL’s best overall mark (12-3-0, 24 points).

“I’m looking forward to seeing how we respond.”

So are many hockey observers that have compared these Kings to the 2006-07 Penguins that went from talked-about youngsters to playoff-bound Cup contenders.

Scuderi, nicknamed “The Piece” by Penguins teammates last season for his contributions to their Stanley Cup win, will surely alert his young Kings teammates – fueled by top-scoring center Anze Kopitar (11 goals, 24 points) – that one game against the champs does not make a successful season.

“But it’s going to be our toughest test,” he said. “I know those guys, and they don’t make anything easy on opponents.”

Under coach Dan Bylsma, who is 30-6-4 since replacing Michel Therrien last season, the Penguins have prided themselves this season on seizing the moment. They are 4-1-0 against teams that started yesterday at .500 or better and 7-1-0 against clubs that qualified for the playoffs last season.

“It just comes down to consistency and getting to your game,” Penguins captain and center Sidney Crosby said yesterday after a practice that he and several teammates skipped in favor of off-ice workouts — with Bylsma’s blessing.

“Since Dan came, probably about a month in, we found our identity and were confident how we were going to win games. You need to have that. There are going to be times where you’re going to have stints that are tough and you’re not going to be playing good hockey – but you need to know where you need to be in order to be successful. We have that.”

via Rob Scuderi, Kings have royal opportunity against Penguins – Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Kinder Care

Whether the Kings can beat the Sharks tonight will not depend on whether the second line wakes up, Kopitar can hit the net, Quick/Doughty/Simmonds return to pre-nightmare form, or anything else so rational. My theory is: they will win tonight if they don’t freak out.

I think the big problem with game #1 — which I basically refuse even to acknowledge as a real game — was nerves, and nerves can really only affect the outcome of a game if you’re already in a psychologically fragile place, which the Kings are — due mostly to the fact that they have been asserting all summer that they are on the verge of not-sucking and they suddenly realized on Saturday that this was the time to prove they don’t suck, so naturally they thought about it and proceeded to suck worse than they ever sucked when they really did suck.

There has always been a tendency with the Kings — going back years — to think that when they’re not scoring they will NEVER SCORE AGAIN and when they are scoring they are going to just keep going that way all the way to the Hall of Fame or the Cup or Nirvana or pick your own metaphor. I guess all teams feel this way to one degree or another, but the Kings seem especially prone to it. It’s basically narcissism  combined with extreme psychological fragility. They have fits of daring to think they’re possibly great, all the while unconsciously scouring for evidence that they’re fooling themselves, leading of course to a total meltdown unless they can first be talked out of it by a coach or savvy old veteran.

In other words, the Kings are a toddler.

Anything bad that happens just ruins everything and nothing will ever be good or fun ever again. And while we’re freaking out about this, a second bad thing happens, and we just wish we could go back to the happy time when there was only the first bad thing (“I can’t believe we’re down 2-0, oh CRAP 3-0!??!!). At which point the one or two or three bad things don’t even matter anymore because it’s all about the melt-down.

Which is why the Helene Elliott article from yesterday was so annoying. It was like the parent (I guess she’s more like the teacher with the ruler and the pointer, but whatever) of the toddler turning every isolated event into a symptom of a larger problem. When the solution is to be able to recognize which events are just things that happened (Martinez was nervous) and which ones are things to work on (“no turn backs” — see below). It’s rarely helpful in parenting to tell the toddler, “you’ve got some serious (or even MYRIAD) problems here, kid.” I guess this is why Terry Murray is the coach; because he’s nothing if not calm, and he’s all about patiently addressing only the things that are addressable and only then in very specific corrections. This is also why Terry Murray usually bores me to tears, even though I like him as a coach and am completely in favor of him sticking with the Kings. He’s got the demeanor of your laid-back uncle you talk to before you tell your parents what you did to the car. If he were a 30 year old woman, he’d be a great kindergarten teacher.

I don’t have a cute ending for this post. It’s just something I’m thinking about.

Pavelski out at least a couple weeks with a lower body injury after blocking puck with left leg | Working the Corners

Sharks Coach Todd McLellan said this morning that Joe Pavelski has undergone a minor procedure for a lower body injury and is expected to be out a couple weeks.

The injury occurred at 2:30 of the first period when Pavelski blocked a power play shot from the blue line by Ducks center Ryan Getzlaf, but the Sharks forward did not leave the game, skating 28 shifts for a total of 19:21 in ice time.

END UPDATE

It’s been more than two hours since I asked the Sharks about reports that Joe Pavelski was injured in Saturday night’s game and I’m still waiting for an answer.

And at this pointing I’m waiting in the media room at Sharks Ice where the team is practicing — and Pavelski is NOT on the ice.

Here’s how the initial lines shaped up:

Heatley-Thornton-Setoguchi

Clowe-Marleau-Ferriero

McLaren-Malhotra-Ortmeyer

Shelley-Nichol-Staubitz

And a non-team source reports that Torrey Mitchell, who was placed on long-term injured reserve and cannot play until Oct. 24 at the earliest, was skating this morning before his teammates took the ice.

via Pavelski out at least a couple weeks with a lower body injury after blocking puck with left leg | Working the Corners.