Credit © William Liang-Imagn ImagesSAN DIEGO, CA — Nineteen regulation wins. That's the number that tells the story of the Los Angeles Kings' 2025-26 season better than anything else.
According to Sportsnet Stats, the Kings are clinging to a playoff spot despite recording just 19 regulation wins this year, the fewest for a playoff-bound team since the 1987-88 Toronto Maple Leafs, nearly four decades ago. That's not a flattering comparison. That Leafs team missed the playoffs the very next season.
For a franchise riding the final year of Anze Kopitar's legendary career, this season has been a far cry from the send-off anyone had in mind.
The Kings have scored just 211 goals this season while allowing 236, carrying a minus-25 goal differential that doesn't belong to a playoff team by any conventional measure. They have survived not because of dominance, but because the Pacific Division has been anything but. Connor McDavid himself called it a "pillow fight," as Pacific teams have repeatedly gone winless on the same nights, with Eastern Conference also-rans outperforming some of the West's supposed contenders. ESPN
And yet, here they are, still in. But still very much in danger.
With 83 points through 77 games and just five remaining, Los Angeles has no margin for error. And here's the cruelest twist of all: even if the Kings were to win out, they are not guaranteed a playoff spot. The San Jose Sharks are right on their heels and carry a massive edge in regulation wins, 25 to Los Angeles' 19. Under NHL tiebreaker rules, if two teams finish level on points, regulation wins are the very first tiebreaker applied. In other words, if the Kings and Sharks end the year tied, San Jose wins that battle by six regulation wins. Six.
Fortunately for the Kings, the road to getting in is layered with pillows, so to speak.
On paper, two games against Vancouver and one against Calgary represent winnable matchups to close things out, though the Flames game comes on the road, where Los Angeles has struggled in the Saddledome. Those contests are manageable. But the schedule also includes a Saturday date against the Edmonton Oilers, the team that has knocked the Kings out of the playoffs in each of the last four seasons. Los Angeles was eliminated by Edmonton in six games last season, five in 2024, six in 2023, and seven in 2022. Now, of all times, Los Angeles needs a win against that same team just to stay alive in the regular season. The Oilers are almost certainly not going to play the Kings in the playoffs for a fifth consecutive year, but an opportunity is materializing to massively dent their playoff aspirations.
And if they do survive, if the Kings navigate this gauntlet, hold off San Jose, and scrape into the postseason, what awaits them? In all likelihood, a date with the Colorado Avalanche, who became the first team to clinch a playoff spot this season and made history by recording only two regulation losses through their first 40 games. Colorado currently sits at 50-16-10, leading the league in goals scored with 287 while allowing just 196. They are not a flawed giant waiting to be slain. They are the class of the NHL.
For those who prescribe nostalgia, stop right here. This is not 2012. That Kings team, an eighth seed, was an underperforming juggernaut that caught fire at exactly the right moment, opening all four series 3-0 on their way to the franchise's first Stanley Cup. There was latent talent waiting to be unleashed. This version of the Kings is not hiding anything. What you see is what you get: a minus-25 goal differential team with 19 regulation wins, with a poorly constructed backend, a starter who hasn’t been the same since injury, running out of time, running out of runway, and potentially running headlong into the best team in hockey.
This is Kopitar's final season, and the aftermath will be met with boundless curiosity from those inside and outside the organization. The hope was that Los Angeles would honor his farewell with a genuine run. Instead, the Kings find themselves in a position where winning every remaining game might still not be enough, and even if it is, the reward might be the hardest possible path forward.
The 1987-88 Maple Leafs are their only peers in this dubious historical footnote. Sometimes that's all a team can hang onto, the fact that they're still here. For now, at least, the Kings are still here.