Los Angeles Kings Start Road Trip Against New York Islanders
By Ian Smith
The Los Angeles Kings are embarking on a stretch in which they’ll play 9 out of their next 10 games on the road, including 5 straight away from home. Their first test of the road trip will be today against the New York Islanders at 4:00 PM Pacific Time.
The past home stand didn’t go quite as planned. The Kings went 3-4-0 over the 7 game stretch, and 2 of those 3 wins came in overtime.
Not like overtime wins should be valued as less legitimate than regulation victories, but it’s illustrative of how the Kings rarely dominated a game during their recent Staples Center run.
The Kings are now out of the playoff picture in the Western Conference, and risk falling further out if they can’t start stringing together more wins.
Coming into today’s action, the Nashville Predators and Calgary Flames are in the two wildcard spots with 51 points. The Kings are at 48 points, and also trail the Vancouver Canucks, who sit at 50 points.
The good news is that the Kings have played 45 games, while the Predators have played 46 games, the Flames have played 48 games, and the Canucks have played 47.
Essentially the Kings are still in good shape because they’ve played less games than the teams ahead of them. A couple wins will jostle the standings once again.
More from Kings News
- LA Kings goaltending could be better than expected in 2023-24
- LA Kings should consider taking a chance on these 2 free agents
- 2 forwards listed as “movable pieces” by the Los Angeles Kings
- Checking in on the LA Kings players in the IIHF World Championship
- Los Angeles Kings: List of 2023 Restricted Free Agents Part. 1
The bad news is that the Kings have so many road games ahead of them, and they haven’t been a great road team this season, going just 8-11-3 away from home.
The Islanders are in the midst of a disappointing season, and currently have the least amount of points in the Eastern Conference, and the 3rd least points among all NHL teams.
The Islanders advanced to the second round of the playoffs last year, but they’ll need a rapid turnaround if they want to get back in this season.
There is some reason for optimism with the Islanders, though. They’ve won 3 out of their last 4 games, and are in just their 2nd game in a stretch of 8 out of 9 games at home.
They fired head coach Jack Capuano just days ago, and tagged Doug Weight as the interim head coach. They’ll look for a jolt after that major change.
John Tavares leads the team with 34 points in 43 games. Thomas Greiss and Jaroslav Halak have split time in net, but Greiss has the superior numbers.
Next: Los Angeles Kings Keep Traditional Gameday Morning Skates
In 22 games, Greiss is 12-7-2 with a 2.29 GAA and a .927 save percentage. Amongst qualifying goaltenders, he ranks 6th in save percentage and 11th in GAA.