Mon. picks: Kings extend streak, Pacific lead
Welcome to the NHL Daily Picks where hockey writers Adam Gretz and Chris Peters make their selections for all of the day’s games.
Los Angeles Kings vs. Colorado Avalanche, 9 p.m. ET
For the most part, the NHL’s Pacific Division stinks. There really isn’t anyway to sugarcoat it. It just simply stinks.
It stinks so much that the Anaheim Ducks entered play on Sunday night two points out of last place in the entire Western Conference. But after they defeated the Winnipeg Jets they still found themselves in a playoff spot in third place in the division by jumping over Calgary, San Jose and Vancouver. They were ablet to do that because six of the seven teams in the division are separated by just five points, have lost more games than they have won, and any of them seem just as likely to finish with the worst record in the West as they are to make the playoffs.
The only exception in the division is the Los Angeles Kings.
The Kings enter Monday’s game in Colorado with a massive 12-point lead in the division, the largest lead for any of the NHL’s division leaders. They are simply running away with this thing, and it doesn’t seem likely that anybody is going to catch them anytime soon.
Even more important than their place in the standings is the fact the Kings are back to looking like a Stanley Cup contender after a down year in 2014-15 that saw them stunningly fall short of the playoffs just one year after winning their second Stanley Cup in three years.
They enter play on Monday first in the NHL in goals against, and in the top-10 in shots against, the penalty kill and 5-on-5 shot differentia. That is the look of a Stanley Cup team. They could probably use another scorer at some point, but they are still in the top half of the league in goals scored, and that’s with their two best offensive players, Anze Kopitar and Marian Gaborik, having slow starts to the season. They are simply one of the best teams in the league and proving that the 2014-15 season was nothing more than a giant fluke.
On Monday they visit an Avalanche team that had been playing better hockey in December before losing four of its past five games. The Avalanche can score a little bit, but the combination of a bad defense and a matchup against a team that shuts down every opponent it faces is not a good sign for them breaking out of their recent slump on Monday.
The Kings have not only won five games in a row, but they have also outscored their opponents 20-7 during that streak.
That streak is going to continue on Monday. Pick: Los Angeles Kings 4, Colorado Avalanche 1
The rest of Monday’s scores
Detroit Red Wings 3, New Jersey Devils 2
Ottawa Senators 4, St. Louis Blues 3
Edmonton Oilers 5, Carolina Hurricanes 2
Arizona Coyotes 3, Vancouver Canucks 2
The Los Angeles Kings have a commanding lead in the NHL’s Pacific Division. (USATSI)
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