Kings Proving It’s Better to be Lucky and Good

So we’ve established the Kings are still really, really good. Have they been any luckier this year than in years past? To determine this, we’ll look at how they rank in comparison to the rest of the league in 3 stats: 1) PDO (team SV% + team shooting %, where higher usually means luckier), 2) team win percentage in OT/SO and 3) games missed to injuries.

• In the first column, we see that the Kings have been remarkably consistent in 5v5 PDO. Usually they’re just below league average, which is where they are again this year. We can scratch this one off the list as a factor, as they’re no luckier in their shooting% + save% than any other year.
• In the second column, we see that the Kings’ luck in the OT/SO (and yes, despite there obviously being a skill element to this, the record is largely due to luck) has fluctuated wildly over the years. This was probably the biggest factor to them missing the playoffs last year, as they were dead last in their OT/SO winning percentage. This year, it’s the complete opposite, as they rank 2^nd – only behind the Calgary Flames – in their OT/SO win percentage. This is clearly a large factor in their excellent record and large division lead.
• The third column is the most fascinating to me, as I learned something new in researching this article: since 2010, the Kings have the fewest player games lost to injury in the league. The site mangameslost.com measures not just the man games lost to injury but also the quality of the players that are injured. Obviously some injuries are bad luck (think Kopitar in 2011), but when you are consistently at or near the top of the league in fewest player games missed year after year, and when other really successful teams perform well in the same area as well (the Bruins and Blackhawks rank 2^nd and 4^th), I think you can begin to attribute some of the “luck” in this area to the skill and knowledge of the training staff. Still, while the Kings may have found some effective methods of preventing injury, they have certainly been lucky with which players have missed time. Aside from that aforementioned Kopitar injury and the large chunk of time Quick missed in 2014 (where Scrivens and Jones played extremely well in his absence), the Kings have had basically no major injuries to any of their best players. I think it’s safe to say the Kings have an excellent training staff that has helped them avoid injuries, but have also been lucky over the years. This has held true once again in 2015-2016. They lead the league in a stat called Time Missed Impact to Team (TMITT). The only players missing large chunks of time have been Matt Greene, (out since game 2) Dwight King (out since the pre-season) and Kyle Clifford (out for several weeks). Both are good role players, but aren’t major difference makers. So the Kings are having a good and lucky injury season, even by their own lofty standards.

Overall, the Kings have an average rank of 6.3/30 in these three luck factors, whereas last year they had an average rank of 21.7/30. So whereas luck was a negative factor in them missing the playoffs last year, luck is a positive factor in their record and in the large lead they hold in the Pacific so far this season.