LOS ANGELES — Those who are old enough to remember the CBS television show from the late 1960’s, The Wild Wild West, starring Robert Conrad and Ross Martin, should be able to relate very easily to what’s been going on in the National Hockey League’s Western Conference this season.

Indeed, the The Wild Wild West would be more than an accurate description of how tight the Western Conference standings have been from day one of the 2010-11 season to now, and it is likely that the West will remain as wild as ever right up to the final day of the regular season.

The Los Angeles Kings find themselves smack dab in the middle of the action in The Wild Wild West, in sixth place with 88 points going into action on March 23, six points behind Pacific Division-leading San Jose Sharks.

But what makes the West so wild is that five teams are behind the fifth-place Chicago Blackhawks (also with 88 points), and just three points separates the fifth place team from the out-of-the-playoffs tenth place club, the Calgary Flames.

The good news for the Kings is that they control their own destiny. If they win their games, they will make the playoffs. Conventional wisdom dictates that they will likely need ten more points to lock up a playoff berth.

Of course, with good news, there is usually some bad news to go along with it, and that is exactly the case for the Kings, who lost right wing Justin Williams on March 21 in a 2-1 shootout win over the Flames…

To read the full story, click on: From Top To Bottom, LA Kings Must Raise Their Level Of Play.

Frozen Royalty by Gann Matsuda is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. You may copy, distribute and/or transmit any story or audio content published on this site under the terms of this license, but only if proper attribution is indicated. The full name of the author and a link back to the original article on this site are required. Photographs, graphic images, and other content not specified are subject to additional restrictions. Additional information is available at: Frozen Royalty – Licensing and Copyright Information.

Frozen Royalty’s Comment Policies