More than halfway through the season and it’s still hard to figure out exactly who the Kings are. We knew going into the season that they were going to probably give up some of their sky-high possession numbers in favor of trying to be more dangerous offensively. After all, hanging onto the puck isn’t really useful when you don’t put it in the net.
And for a little while, that’s what the Kings did. Their possession numbers dipped, and so did their shots on net, but they were winning games, and all was right with the world.
It’s a different story now, though, as the mid-season slump and all that entails — the Ontario/Los Angeles shuffle, a sometimes unsteady Jonathan Quick, breathless coverage of Jeff Carter skating in a track suit — mean that the Kings are right back to fighting to stay in a playoff spot, and maybe all those pre-season predictions of “good enough to squeak into the playoffs” were actually right.