Kukla's Korner Hockey
Caps And Kings On A Downward Spiral
by Paul on 02/23/12 at 02:05 PM ET
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from Guy Spurrier of the National Post,
With about a quarter of the National Hockey League season left, most teams are scrambling furiously to make the playoffs. Then there are the Washington Capitals and the Los Angeles Kings.
In preparation to debut our playoff projection report, we’ve been watching these two clubs’ seasons disintegrate in slow motion. The Capitals, last season’s No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs, have won just five of their last 17 games and are on their hands and knees unrolling a red carpet toward the No. 8 seed for Toronto and Winnipeg. Wednesday night’s 5-2 loss in Ottawa came a day after the club was blasted by owner Ted Leonsis in his blog. He called Monday’s 5-0 loss to Carolina “the worst game of the season” and said the Capitals “came up small when we needed to come up big.”
The Kings have won two of their last 10 games and suffered four soul-crushing losses in a row, including a pair of 1-0 home-ice defeats last week to Phoenix and Calgary, two of the teams they are are fighting with at the bottom of the Western Conference playoff picture. On Tuesday, the Kings blew a three-goal first-period lead in a 5-4 loss in Phoenix. Wednesday night in Denver, in a game that would have reversed L.A.’s fortunes and all but buried Colorado, the Avalanche scored three first-period goals and cruised to a 4-1 win.
Wednesday night’s losses by these two clubs further eroded their projected point totals. We now have Washington nearly two full points behind Toronto for the No. 8 seed and about 4.5 behind Florida for the Southeast Division title and the No. 3 seed. Los Angeles fell below Calgary in our projection with the latest loss.
Filed in: NHL Teams, Los Angeles Kings, Washington Capitals | KK Hockey | Permalink
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