Standings pointless for Los Angeles Kings if wins keep coming

EL SEGUNDO, Calif – If the Los Angeles Kings win the rest of their games they will make the playoffs.

But they’re still super close to not making the postseason – tied with Winnipeg on points, but owning the tiebreaker in regulation and overtime wins for the last playoff spot. The standings are below. With that in mind, if you're LA, do you look at the standings, knowing if you don’t lose, you will definitely make the playoffs? In that case they're sort of meaningless provided you win.

“No,” said defenseman Alec Martinez, who then quickly pivoted. “I mean, I take that back because they’re posted everywhere. I’m conscious of where we are, but in a situation like that I think we just have to win hockey games and it will take care of itself.”

Behold the standings:

The Kings are on yet another roadtrip that will determine the fate of their season. They’ve had a few of these already, most recently the five-game trip through the New York area, Chicago and Minnesota where they went 3-2-0.

The Kings have three games in Western Canada, at Vancouver on Monday, then Edmonton on Tuesday, and the Flames on Thursday.

And coach Darryl Sutter has quite the 'Sutterian' take on these contests.

“We don’t have to do anything. You don’t have to win do you?” said Sutter who clearly has been getting his existentialist fix in of late. “Yeah, you play every game, trying to win. What’s bigger about this trip than the last one? We won in New York and we lost the next game. When we went to New York, that’s probably what you said too, and we lost to Minnesota and Chicago and we had to win there. It’s whatever you think it is.”

That would be the Kings mindset. No game is bigger than the next. Try to get wins. If you don’t win that game, win the next one. If you don’t make the playoffs, no big deal because you don’t have to win? That’s an interesting mind game. Again #sutterlogic.

“I think you can’t look at the whole mountain to climb, you have to take it one day at a time, and that’s what we’ll do,” said Martinez, with the double-whammy hockey cliché.

While the standings will take care of themselves if the Kings win on this trip, for some players, knowledge is power, rather than ignorance as bliss.

“You have to know where you stand, especially right now,” defenseman Matt Greene said. “Things are always changing whether you’re playing or not, so you have make sure you’re keeping pace with all the scenarios that are going on and you have to be aware of what’s going on around the league.”

Sutter, a former NHL player, doesn’t seem to mind what path his players choose, but doesn’t see why a player wouldn’t look at the standings this time of year – even if some days they may bring bad news.

“You like to know where you are. You like to know if you’re last or first,” he said channeling his inner Ricky Bobby.

While all remaining games are important to the Kings, April 9 at Calgary looms large. That game could very well cement LA’s playoff chances, as the above standings show. And on a side note may prove way more important for the Ducks, who are currently slated to play Los Angeles if the season ended today …

“This is our season right here is getting into the playoffs, and making sure we extend our playing time,” Greene said.

Because we all know what happens when the Kings extend their playing time into the playoffs … beware NHL.

- - - - - - -

Josh Cooper is an editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @joshuacooper

MORE FROM YAHOO HOCKEY