HIGHLIGHTS
- The Kings have played 32 overtime games this season, breaking the NHL record they set just three days earlier against Toronto
- Los Angeles owns both records: most OT games in a season (32) and most OT/shootout losses (19), yet still sits in a wild-card spot
- Full breakdown of how they got here, what the records mean, and whether this team can hold on below
The Los Angeles Kings broke the NHL record for most overtime games in a season on Saturday against Toronto. Then they broke their own record three days later against Nashville. They are now at 32.
The previous record was 30, held by the 2003-04 Boston Bruins. Los Angeles tied it on Thursday against the Predators, broke it Saturday in a 7-6 overtime win over Toronto where Quinton Byfield scored the winner at 2:33 of overtime, and then pushed it to 32 on Sunday when Anton Forsberg stopped all three Nashville shootout attempts in a 3-2 win.
The Kings also own the record for most overtime and shootout losses in a single season at 19. Their record in overtime games is 12-0-19. They win barely a third of the time once the third period ends, and have been doing this all year. According to Sportsnet, Los Angeles has 19 regulation wins and 19 overtime losses. The symmetry is not a coincidence. This team has a real problem finishing games.
And yet they are still in the playoff picture. The Kings sit at 32-26-19 with 83 points, holding the second wild-card spot in the West by one point over Nashville. The loss of Kevin Fiala to a season-ending injury at the Olympics did not help, and neither did a brutal schedule stretch through March. Interim coach D.J. Smith has kept them afloat.
“I think right now the guys are pushing for each other,” Smith said after Sunday’s win. “We’re giving everything we got, and it won’t be for a lack of effort. It’s going to come down to someone is going to have to make a big play at the right time, and right now we’re finding that way.”
Forsberg has been a big part of why they keep surviving these close games. The Kings have three games left. Two are against division opponents. If they lose any of them in regulation, Nashville owns the tiebreaker and has a game in hand. There is no margin. Byfield is the best player on the ice most nights, and he will need to keep being that down the stretch.
If the Kings do make the playoffs, it will be one of the messier runs in recent memory. 32 overtime games, a record-setting number of extra-time losses, and still somehow hanging on. Whatever comes next, nobody in the NHL has done this quite like them.
