What a difference the shootout can make.
Minus the extra point against the Calgary Flames tonight, the Kings’ deficiencies are glaring: Another 0-for on the power play; another goal allowed on the shift after they score; another point lost in the standings.
With the extra point, the glass is half full. Jonathan Quick is masterful and makes one of his best saves of the season count; Jarret Stoll is the most clutch shootout man in the game; the penalty kill looks invincible, having killed 34 straight.
All of these things are true of course, except for the lost point, and such is life for Kings fans at the moment: You must take the good with the bad.
The Kings don’t score much, but there might not be another goalie/blue line unit you’d rather have killing a 4-on-3 penalty in the final minute of overtime. There isn’t another player you’d rather have with the puck on his stick in a shootout than Stoll, and there isn’t another goalie you’d rather have in the shootout than Quick (though we can debate the merits of Johan Hedberg, whose .750 winning percentage is slightly better than Quick’s .741 as the highest among active goalies with at least 10 shootout decisions).
What all that means for the playoffs — which is where all of this has been pointing since Day 1 — remains to be seen.
Some more notes and observations:
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