The points are coming for the Los Angeles Kings, but the pace isn’t helping their playoff cause enough.
After yet another defeat after regulation to open a three-game road trip, the Kings visit the Calgary Flames on Tuesday knowing the value of a victory.
Thanks to a 4-3 overtime loss to the Utah Mammoth on Sunday, Los Angeles (28-25-17, 73 points) sits two points back of the Nashville Predators for the Western Conference’s second wild-card position with 12 games remaining in the regular season.
The Kings, with only one victory in the last five, have lost 17 extra-time games this season, most in the NHL.
“It just seems like we can’t get over that hump of getting the next one,” forward Scott Laughton said of his team’s effort in Salt Lake City with words that reflect their campaign. “We get a big point, obviously need two … but we’ve got to come out strong the rest of the trip, pick up four points and keep going.”
Los Angeles erased a trio of deficits against the Mammoth, including a late third-period goal by Artemi Panarin, but that did not lead to a victory for a team that remains winless in its last three games (0-1-2).
“It’s probably our best second period of the year,” interim coach D.J. Smith said. “We’ve had games where it’s gone the other way for us and then we get a bit of a bounce and tie it. … It’s unfortunate to lose that point, but we pick up a big point as well and we’re still in the fight.”
Panarin has scored in three straight games and is on a six-game point streak, with four goals and five assists.
The Flames will need many miracles to reach the playoffs, sitting 10 points outside of a playoff spot with 12 games remaining.
However, Calgary (29-34-7, 65 points) is riding a three-game winning streak after Sunday’s 4-3 overtime victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning.
“There’s nothing better than winning,” coach Ryan Huska said. “At the end of the day, even the nights that your team doesn’t play well and you win, everybody goes home feeling much better about themselves, so winning is the elixir to most things.”
To Flames fans, though, this winning streak has divided their loyalties. The franchise has never had the first-overall pick in the draft and missed the playoffs the past three seasons, so hopes are high among the faithful to draft a franchise player.
The players are doing all they can to ensure thoughts of tanking are quashed, even after a trio of key players in Rasmus Andersson, MacKenzie Weegar and Nazem Kadri were dealt away this season.
“I’ve been through this before, and it’s really, really hard to snap your fingers and just become a winning hockey team,” said forward Ryan Strome, who scored the winning goal against the Lightning. “If you throw these games away, you don’t compete, you don’t play hard, those habits leak into next year. Then all of a sudden you have a group that’s like, ‘OK, we’ve got to start winning,’ and you don’t have the characteristics, you don’t have those qualities and the leadership and all those things that it takes.”
The Flames have won 54 consecutive games when scoring four or more goals, the fifth-longest streak in NHL history.
