The Kings have 50 games left, 32 points. Let's pretend the playoff threshold will be 98 points. Could be a couple of points less, but counting on that would be foolhardy. So let's go with 98: the Kings need 66 points in their final 50 games. That's a .660 point-percentage the rest of the way. Last season, when their rock-bottom was in the middle of January, the Kings needed to go approximately .700 the rest of the way, and they did it, finishing on a 22-8-5 tear. This year, it's not as steep a climb, but it's longer (since we crapped out earlier - yay?). To get to 98, the Kings would need some version of 33-17-0. If you want to throw in the statistically-likely number of OT/SOLs, make it 31-15-4.

That's doable. Especially for a team that's supposed to be one of the best in the Conference.

I broke the games down into blocks of (usually) six or seven games, with an eye toward making the breaks as natural as possible (i.e. the beginning of a road-trip or home-stand). The green line is the All-Star break. The red line is the trade deadline.

In general, the Kings need to win 4 for every 2 they lose.

In the chart, "R" indicates days of rest between games (a day of rest is a day with no game in it; back-to-back games read as zero days of rest). "Hr" indicates the actual number of hours between the start of one game and the start of the next. "TP" is total points. "P" is points needed for that block of games. "REC" is the record needed.



At which point, we've arrived at the trade deadline. Actually, the deadline is 2/27/12, at noon Pacific, five hours before the Nashville game.