Western Conference lives up to wild billing

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So how is life treating the Los Angeles Kings these days in the wild Western Conference?

Not so great, especially if you imagined this was the year the Kings flexed their muscles and emerged as one of the NHL's young up-and-coming powerhouses.

Just a short time ago, the Kings were traipsing through the east, earning kudos for their play. One of the top outfits on the circuit in the early going, they were everybody's darling, a team built the right way by general manager Dean Lombardi, featuring all sorts of homegrown talent, beginning with the dynamic and irrepressible Drew Doughty.

Since then, the Kings have hit an icy patch on the road - and a loss to the Anaheim Ducks on Monday left them at 13-10-0, not bad if you're stationed on the Eastern side, where a winning record is enough to keep you in the playoff mix. But in the Western half …

The Kings' sudden slump had them down in 11th spot (before Tuesday's games). Joining them on the outside looking in is another perfectly respectable hockey team, the 11-7-4 San Jose Sharks, last year's regular-season conference champions, who are having a difficult time sorting out their new goalie rotation while busily relearning an old lesson: The margin for error in the Western Conference is not the same as it is in the Eastern, and that good teams annually miss the playoffs out here.

As the calendar clicked over to December, no one in the Western Conference is saying it's early any more because no one can afford to think that way. It is that close. It is that tight. Again.

The NHL made a mockery of the concept of .500 hockey when it introduced bonus points for overtime and shootout losses.

Last year, for example, 23 teams finished with more than 82 points, which theoretically gave them "winning" records. The only time .500 has any currency any more is the absolute knowledge that in the Western Conference, if you're too close to that number by season's end, you will be heavily scouted by Canada for the 2011 world hockey championships - and may consider booking a tee time at Pebble Beach soon after the regular season ends.

And this has dire implications for Canada's slumping NHL franchises.

As of Tuesday morning, the Ottawa Senators had a losing record at 11-13-1 - and surrendered 17 more goals than they've scored - but are still in reasonable shape in the Eastern Conference. Compare that to the team that defeated them Monday, the Edmonton Oilers (7-12-4), who are already completely out the race, or to the Calgary Flames, who have virtually the same record (10-12-2) as Ottawa, but have so many teams ahead of them in the standings that only the most optimistic of mathematicians think they still have a chance.

"If we win three or four in a row, we put ourselves right back in the middle of the pack," said Flames forward Alex Tanguay, one of those enduring optimists. Tanguay spent the past two seasons playing in the Eastern Conference for the Montreal Canadiens and Tampa Bay Lightning, and thinks these developments are cyclical.

"With the struggles we've had, I wouldn't say it's comforting that if we win a few in a row, we'll be right back in a playoff spot, but certainly, the option is there," he said. "Even Vancouver, they're ahead of us, but if we beat them a couple of times, first thing you know, we might be in a position to battle them for first [in the Northwest Division]

"But we've got to do our share and our share is to win hockey games."

Presumably, that will need to start Wednesday, when the Flames face the aforementioned visiting Vancouver Canucks (12-7-3).

Before Tuesday's games, Vancouver was one of five teams with 27 points jammed in the middle of the standings. Two had more than 28, two had 26. Altogether, 13 of the 15 Western Conference teams had a "winning" record in the new NHL's way of keeping score, meaning even the decent teams have little margin for error.

The teams that have struggled, such as Calgary? Things are desperate, maybe even more than Tanguay is willing to let on.