All of a sudden the Los Angeles Kings are starting to resemble their glory days.
Great goaltending, shut down defense, just enough offense, and a lot of wins.
Thanks to their 2-1 win over the St. Louis Blues on Wednesday night they were able to extend their current winning streak to six games to keep hanging around in the West Division playoff race. It is a remarkable stretch for a team that entered the season with almost no expectations.
Thanks to their win on Wednesday, combined with Colorado’s loss to Minnesota, the Kings now find themselves in third place in the division. They are also just one point back of the Blues with two games in hand and only two points back of first place Vegas.
The Kings are in the middle of a rebuild now and loaded with one of the best farm systems in the league, creating some real optimism for the future. But the current roster isn’t ready to go away quietly this season and is starting to become a real nuisance for the rest of the teams in the division. The current success is being driven by some of their long-term stars, including Anze Kopitar, Dustin Brown, and Drew Doughty who are all putting up big numbers. But what really makes this winning streak like the recent glory days they experienced between 2011 and 2015 is the way they are keeping teams off the scoreboard.
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With just one goal against on Wednesday (a late goal from Oskar Sundqvist), the Kings have allowed just seven goals in the six games. That includes two shutouts, one game with only one goal against, and never allowing more than two goals.
The past two games have been the most impressive given that they were both on the road against a bonafide Stanley Cup contender in the Blues. The Kings ended up outscoring them by a 5-1 margin in those two games.
Alex Iafallo and Andreas Athanasiou were the goal scorers for Los Angeles on Wednesday, while Cal Petersen stopped 33 out of 34 shots in the win. He has won three of the games on the current winning streak.
The Kings’ winning streak is currently tied with Tampa Bay for the longest winning streak in the NHL this season.
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Adam Gretz is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @AGretz.