A Tale of 2 NHL Playoff Hopefuls: Kings and Jets Trending in Opposite Directions

Eighty-two games is a very long time. For teams on the playoff bubble in the final few games of an NHL campaign, it’s extremely easy to go back and spot any number of occasions where if things had gone just a little differently, they would be in a much more favourable position.

That’s all hindsight, however. For the teams on the bubble, the most important thing is finding some way to eke out as many points as possible in the few games remaining. The Winnipeg Jets had a brutal schedule to start this week and made the most of it. The Los Angeles Kings had a difficult schedule and cratered.

What makes the contrast between Winnipeg and Los Angeles more interesting is that they are in competition for the same playoff spot in the West.

Both the Kings and the Jets were looking at fighting through fatigue. Starting on Saturday, each team began a set of three games in four nights, a set that ended in back-to-back contests on Monday and Tuesday.

In each case, the latter two games were on the road. L.A. at least had a reasonable slate of opponents, taking on Colorado, Vancouver and then Edmonton. Winnipeg’s opponents were much tougher, starting with the playoff-bound Canucks and then moving on to Minnesota and St. Louis.

The Jets excelled in difficult circumstances. They squeaked out a 5-4 win in a wide-open affair against the Canucks on Saturday before heading on the road. They came out flying against the Wild, one of the NHL’s hottest teams, on Monday and hung on for a 2-0 victory. The next day, against a very good Blues team, a dominant second period resulted in a 1-0 lead, and that was enough for the Jets to record the win.

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Head coach Paul Maurice made an interesting gamble in net, going with starter Ondrej Pavelec in the back-to-back contests, and this after a tough outing against Vancouver. Pavelec responded brilliantly, making 62 saves in consecutive shutouts and earning first-star honors in both contests.  

Like the Jets, the Kings started well. They played their Saturday game against Colorado and held the Avalanche to just 10 shots. The only quibble with L.A.’s performance was the goal against, where starter Jonathan Quick bobbled a long-range shot and allowed the Avs to tie the game.

Fortunately for him and the team, it didn’t matter, as the Kings continued to dominate and finished the game on the right side of a 3-1 score.

Quick started L.A.’s next game and rebounded brilliantly, allowing just one goal on 38 shots against. Unfortunately for Quick, the Kings as a team ran into an equally hot Eddie Lack, who surrendered a single goal on the 37 shots he faced. The game went to the shootout, where Los Angeles failed to beat Lack even once and ended up taking a loss.

Kings coach Darryl Sutter now faced the same choice that Maurice did: Would he start Quick in back-to-back games?

One school of thought suggests that when a team desperately needs a win, the No. 1 goalie should be in net regardless of the circumstances. The other school of thought—based primarily on Eric Tulsky’s excellent work at Broad Street Hockey—is that because goaltender performance drops dramatically in the second half of a back-to-back, the same goalie should almost never play both games.

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Sutter decided to start his backup, Martin Jones, against the cellar-dwelling and injury-ravaged Edmonton Oilers in the second half. Jones was fine, but the Oilers ended up playing a very good game while the Kings were badly fatigued. Jones wasn’t good enough to make up the difference, and Los Angeles dropped the contest by a final score of 4-2.  

By rights, the Kings should have had the edge over the Jets. L.A. is the defending champion, it faced far easier opponents and its coach worked to mitigate fatigue by starting a fresh goalie in the final game.

Instead, the Kings collected only three of a possible six points, while the Jets picked up all six. The three-point gap between the two clubs, which was opened up over these three games, may ultimately prove to be decisive as to which of them ends up playing postseason hockey.

Two games from now, if the Jets do indeed make the playoffs, they will have the satisfaction of knowing that at the pivotal moment of the season they were able to transcend difficult circumstances. The Kings weren't able to do the same, and barring some help from other clubs, they could end up missing out on the playoffs as a result.

Statistics courtesy of NHL.com. 

Jonathan Willis covers the NHL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter for more of his work.