For the Los Angeles Kings, it was downright domination.

Desperately needing points on Saturday night, they held Colorado to only 10 shots on goal, suffocating an offence that has some of the game's top young talent in what became a 3-1 win. It was only the 22nd time since 1987-88 – when the NHL began widely recording shots on goal – that a team had been held to 10 shots or less.

With that, the Stanley Cup defending champs crawled back into the final wild-card spot in the Western Conference. But with four games and a week left in their season, – much of it on the road – the Kings' playoff hopes remain precarious.

Even though they are one of the best teams in the NHL.

That might sound peculiar, given L.A. has won exactly half of its games this season, the definition of a .500 record. The Kings have fewer points than teams such as Calgary and Vancouver – two of the non-contenders currently in playoff spots – and won't be one of the 10-odd teams that cracks 100 points.

Part of the reason why is explained by what happened with the 2012 Baltimore Orioles.

Statistical analysis in baseball is miles ahead of where hockey is right now, to the point that some statistical truths have been largely accepted thanks to people such as Bill James. One of those is that a team's record in games decided by only one run can be highly volatile and luck-driven – a trait that is unsustainable from season-to-season.

The 2012 Orioles, at 29-9, posted the best record in the history of baseball in one-run games and made a surprise playoff appearance as a result. The next year, Baltimore was 20-31 in one-run games, finished right around .500 and missed the postseason.

How does that relate to the Kings? Well, they're essentially the anti-Orioles of this NHL season. A great team by a lot of metrics, Los Angeles has a brutal record in one-goal games, winning only 13 of 36 – including a league-worst 3-14 record in overtime and the shootout.

The god-awful Coyotes and Oilers have better records in one-goal games. The almost-as-bad Leafs are a tiny percentage behind the Kings. Next season, all those outcomes could be entirely different.

Baseball and hockey are obviously vastly different sports, statistically and otherwisebut this close-game relationship is one they share. There's basically zero correlation, for example, in the number of overtime and shootout games an NHL team played in last season compared with this one, or between teams' records in those games.

The Kings are hardly the only example, either. Last year's Avalanche had a 112-point season in part on the strength of an Orioles-like 28-4-8 record in one-goal games.

This year, Colorado is below average in those close games and on pace for 25 fewer points, which means they'll be picking in the top 10.

Records can be deceiving, in other words– especially in the NHL, where close games make up a higher percentage of the standings than almost any other sport. That's very much part of the story with the Kings, who despite all appearances, are still a powerhouse team that controls the puck better than any other in the league.

No one should want to face them in the first round. If they even make it there.