The Los Angeles Kings are likely to see some changes within their division next season. We got a glimpse at what a potential realignment could look like last week, courtesy of TSN’s Pierre LeBrun.
Not finalized yet, and still subject to change, but the 2020-21 four-division re-alignment currently looks like this according to sources:
I wasn’t going to write an article on how the division realignment would affect the Kings, based on their rebuild, but I’ve done one for every other team I cover and figured, why not?
If this is the division we see the Kings competing in this season, it affects the team in the sense that it just got quite a bit stronger, with the additions of the Colorado Avalanche, Dallas Stars and St. Louis Blues. Realistically, the Kings aren’t going to be overly competitive and will likely be at the bottom of the division, potentially along with the Anaheim Ducks, Arizona Coyotes and San Jose Sharks. Even in the Pacific Division, however, which would have included the Calgary Flames, Edmonton Oilers and Vancouver Canucks, it was highly unlikely that the Kings were going to be a playoff team.
So does the realignment really make any difference for the Kings? When it comes to playoff chances, probably not. But if the Kings want to be sellers at the trade deadline, there could be some potential benefit here. The divisions look fairly uneven right now in terms of competition level, with the division made up of mostly Metropolitan teams and the division made up of mostly Pacific teams (Los Angeles’ own division) looking quite a bit stronger than the Canadian division and the division made up of a mix of teams from three different divisions.
The (mostly) Metropolitan division and (mostly) Pacific division are filled with quite a few teams in win-now mode. Teams who are in win-now mode want to stay in win-now mode and if they’re competing in a strong division, perhaps there’d be more interest to bulk up at the deadline, in order to stay competitive. On the flip side, maybe a team like Carolina, who look to have gotten lucky with the realignment and will likely be the second-best team in their division, could see their record in a weak division and decide this is a chance to capitalize and load up for a playoff run. Essentially, there could possibly be more teams looking to upgrade at the deadline.
Again though, I’m just speculating here. Overall, I think there's a good chance the realignment won’t make much of a difference for the Kings, other than seeing a different group of teams on a more consistent basis.
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Here’s today’s poll question (results and discussion will be posted in a future article):
If this is the division the Kings compete in for the 2020-21 season, where will they finish?
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