After last night's victory over the Anaheim Ducks the Kings assured themselves at least second place in the division. Thus, home ice advantage has been claimed.
Now the only thing left to decide for the Kings is their first round opponent.
The Kings have two options for a first round opponent: San Jose and Nashville.
How you ask? Well, only Anaheim can pass the Kings for the division lead, as the Kings have one game left, currently sitting on 101 points with a potential of 103 points. Anaheim has two games left and are currently sitting at 99 points with 103 points possible if they win out.
San Jose is secure in third with 96 points and only 98 maxed available. They are simply waiting on the Anaheim Ducks to either win or lose one of their remaining two games against Colorado and Washington on Saturday and Sunday to see who they play.
Nashville sits in the first wild card spot, far ahead of Minnesota and far behind the top three of the Central division.
So the Kings either play San Jose in a 2/3 match up or Nashville in a 1/4 match up.
This presents two opponents of pretty different styles and make up for Los Angeles.
On the surface, San Jose is a very top heavy team with a good 1-3 D group, a strong top six, but some tapered off quality further down in the lineup. Here is a look at the most recent lineup of the Sharks courtesy of Left Wing Lock.
With Nashville, it might be a team that lacks a real punch in their top six, but they can roll four pretty effective lines and have one of the best defensive corps in the NHL.
Here is Nashville's most recent game day lines:
(Mind you, Barret Jackman will likely figure into the defense as well.)
Let's take a quick look at Nashville.
From a possession stand point, Nashville currently is the better squad. They sit at 5th in the NHL in CF%, 5th in Shots For %, 12th in Goals For%, and a PDO at 99.6 (100 being a break even team). The scariest part about the Predators is their team defense. They are currently the stingiest team in the NHL in terms of Scoring Chances against per 60 minutes of 5v5 play and also first in the entire NHL in Fenwick against, which for a refresher on fancy stats are unblocked shot attempts. While some people talk about the goaltending of Pekka Rinne as being a plus, Nashville has received just a 92.34 save percentage at even strength, which is 20th in the NHL. This team does not win games based on their goaltending, they win games based on their defense.
Obviously the flipside to this, they sit in 17th in scoring chance generation and 21st in high danger scoring chances against. You thought the Kings played with a fine line of offense versus defense? The Predators do it even finer. They are an offense led by Filip Forsberg, who has 33 goals and 63 points this year. Other than Forsberg, there is James Neal, Mike Ribeiro and Ryan Johansen to deal with, not to mention the offensive tandem of Shea Weber and Roman Josi. Then there is Ryan Ellis and Mattias Ekholm who also hold their own. Further into the Preds roster are chip in guys like Mike Fisher, Viktor Arvidsson (Who was tremendous when the Kings played earlier in the season), Calle Jarnkrok, Colin Wilson, and Craig Smith. It is, again, a team not so dissimilar to the Kings. They rely on their headliners to produce and rely on the deeper talents for chip in offense, and essentially low risk hockey that keeps the puck deep in the opponents end using speed and neutral zone transition. They have few regular starters outside of Nystrom and Gaustad that are true detriments to their possession game. Every team has them.
In that vein of thinking, the Predators are like a faster but smaller version of the Los Angeles Kings. That may be a favorable matchup for Los Angeles considering they are widely considered the gold standard of a heavy possession game these days.
They have played the Kings tight this season, losing twice in overtime and winning once in regulation. They held a 9-8 advantage in scoring on the seasons series, five of those goals coming in the 5-2 blowout in Nashville on March 21st.
The two teams have never met in the postseason.
Then you get the exact opposite. The San Jose Sharks. The Kings and the Sharks are starting to gather quite a history in the playoffs. The last time the two teams met in the post-season was the infamous 3-0 series lead from San Jose that was ultimately coughed up to the Kings en route to their second Stanley Cup.
From an advanced stats standpoint, the Sharks rank well in many categories. This includes Fenwick For (5th), Goals for (8th), Scoring Chances Against (5th), and Scoring Chances For (7th). It's a team that thrives on the production from their highlight reel, world class caliber players. We are, of course, talking about (no Canadien) Mike Brown and Bryan Lerg.
Wait, sorry that's Joe Thornton, Joe Pavelski, and Brent Burns. The Sharks have some tremendous talents up front and some highly potent forwards. Patrick Marleau, Logan Couture and Tomas Hertl also make up a very strong group of forwards. If Marc Edouard Vlasic is healthy he is another feather in the cap to a strong defense that also includes veteran Paul Martin. However, when you get past the top six and top pair, the quality of San Jose severely drops off. From a neutral analysis standpoint, this could be the team's deathknell.
The FF% relative on this team drops very sharply from the Joe Thornton, Joe Pavelski, and Tomas Hertl range (8.6-4.5), down to the Zubrus, Marleau, Karlsson, and Tierney range.
Unlike Nashville, the San Jose Sharks depth forwards bleed chances like a stuck pig.
For sake of comparison, here is Nashville (Whose 4th line will definitely be a weakness.)
San Jose has also gotten equally as questionable goaltending from newly acquired and newly anointed No. 1 Martin Jones. Although most Kings fans will have warm and fuzzy thoughts when it comes to Jones, the reality is that he has backstopped the Sharks to the 22nd best save percentage in the NHL at even strength. He will be a massive question mark in the post-season.
Stylistically, the Sharks play a very heavy pressure game that is less reliant on speed, but instead runs through the middle like the Kings. Their centers matchup favorably with Los Angeles in the top six, and the games in the San Jose/Los Angeles series are often won by the outstanding performances of Carter/Kopitar or Thornton/Pavelski. In that regard, it is a true titan fight. The winner of the big players often takes the day. However, San Jose will have to overcome a very suspect bottom group of forwards if they are to have success.
They hold the season series against the Kings on a 3-1-0-1 record. They outscored the Kings 18-13 in the season series and three times scored FIVE goals on a usually stingy Los Angeles club. Low scoring has not been the name of the game when these two teams meet.
From a Los Angeles Kings standpoint, the match up is a pick your poison scenario.
On one hand you have a team with maybe one of the most formidable top sixes in hockey, but on the other side you have one of the more balanced forward groups coupled with one of the deepest blue lines in the NHL. This no easy match up either way. In both potential matchups the Kings will have to rely on their top two centers. In the Nashville series it will be about producing on the perhaps lesser quality top six, while against the Sharks it will be about matching or shutting down the high powered Pavelski/Thornton monster.
In the Nashville series the depth will be challenged on both sides of the puck, as Nashville can roll four lines. This suits the Kings style of play, but the question will remain: Can the Kings depth beat the Nashville depth? The Kings bottom six forwards have been hit and miss this season, but have also gone on spurts where they have looked incredibly competent. The addition of Lecavalier and Versteeg, a potential emergence of Andy Andreoff, and maybe the eventually offensive come around of Nick Shore, Trevor Lewis, and Dustin Brown could mean the difference. Against San Jose the Kings will need that bottom six to dominate the depth (or lack thereof) of the Sharks, and chip in while their top lines hopefully stalemate or trade goals and chances.
These two series have the potential of being vastly different. Nevertheless, both present extremely difficult matchups for the Kings but two that they should theoretically be able to take over the course of a seven game series.
If you had to pick and strayed away from the Sutter-esque "It doesn't matter who we play" answer, who you rather play?
The matchup of the Predators seems far less volatile, and one that the Kings might have an easier chance of winning. No disrespect intended to the Predators, they are a very good hockey club. The San Jose/Anaheim first round duke out could also work well for the Kings despite the lack of travel their potential second round opponents would have to endure.
Either way, it should make for an exciting first round of playoff hockey.
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