Everything You Need To Know About The Kings Clinching A Playoff Berth

For the fourth consecutive season, the LA Kings have earned a spot in the postseason, locking them into the field of 16 once again.

Results in two games today clinched the spot for the Kings. First, the 3-0 Kings victory over the Oilers set the stage for this evening. With the Calgary Flames falling against the Vegas Golden Knights, the Kings magic number is officially down to zero, meaning the Kings cannot be caught by any of the teams currently outside the playoff field in the Western Conference.

Today was actually the first opportunity to clinch. Entering today, the magic number sat at three and that was against Calgary, the first team outside of the playoff field with the highest maximum point total. With the Kings/Oilers result, it set the stage for the Kings to lock up a playoff berth several hours later, pending the result of that Vegas/Calgary game.

Personally, I don’t know if it’s good that the Kings clinched a berth tonight. I'm not sure that Jim Hiller was rooting for it either, though he wasn't tipping his hand.

He said he would certainly be watching the Calgary/Vegas game and would be watching the game and that there would be a "certain team we'll be pulling for." I'll let you guys read between the lines there.

Obviously it’s always nice to lock things up. But would we have preferred to see Vegas lose, which would have kept the Kings one point back in the race for the division lead? Perhaps that would have been preferred, with an eventual clinch all but assured in that scenario. Well, it didn’t happen. The Kings got the clinch formalized, which is nice, and now they move on to the other things they can accomplish in the regular season – securing home-ice advantage in Round 1 while chasing a potential division title, sitting now three points back with six games left to play.

Now, we look ahead at what’s to come.

The Kings sit firmly in second place in the Pacific Division. They are four points clear of Edmonton for the second seed and three points behind Vegas for the top seed in the division. With today’s clinch, finishing anywhere besides one of the three Pacific Division playoff spots is no longer possible, so the Kings will be either P1, P2 or P3. The Kings will hold the tiebreaker over Edmonton no matter what happens down the stretch, so if those two teams finish tied, the Kings would be ahead. The Kings magic number to lock up home-ice advantage is eight, between Kings points gained and Oilers pointed dropped.

Mathematically speaking, there are still a number of different options for the Kings if we got a bizarro-world ending to the season.

Realistically speaking, though, there are three teams that the Kings have at least a 10 percent chance of facing, per the numbers at PlayoffStatus.com.

Per said website Edmonton is by far the most-likely R1 matchup at 73 percent, with an 89 percent chance that Game 1 of that series comes in Los Angeles, after today's win. A Kings/Oilers matchup in the P2/P3 slot on the bracket is the most likely scenario at the time and the Kings have pole position at home-ice advantage entering the final six games of the regular season. Again, any combination of eight points earned by Los Angeles or dropped by the Oilers would ensure the Kings finish ahead of Edmonton.

The other two teams that came in at over ten percent are St. Louis and Minnesota.

Those two teams come into play if the Kings vault ahead of Vegas and win the Pacific Division. In that scenario, the Kings would play WC1, which will most likely come down to the team that wins the race between the Blues and the Wild. Sure, there are outlier options with some truly crazy results down the stretch, but as of right now, the percentages lean in those directions, with Calgary a slight possibility as well. If the Kings can really go on a roll and win the division, they’d see one of those two teams, with St. Louis the slightly more likely option at 12 percent, versus Minnesota at 11.

With the playoffs now a lock, playoff tickets are available for all four potential Round 1 dates on home ice. Naturally, for the fourth game to even be a possibility, the Kings would need to finish either first or second in the division. For those interested in attending, more information is available HERE! Personally, I'm really hoping for a Game 1 at home. Something hits differently about that first game in a home arena and there hasn't been a Game 1 in Los Angeles in nine years.

Across the NHL, the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs are scheduled to begin on Saturday, April 19. On paper, that is the first day the Kings could play. Had the schedule gone on as it was intended to, I think the Kings likely would have opened on that day, but with the rightfully-rescheduled game versus Calgary now set to be played on Thursday, April 17, it puts the Kings in action on the final day of the regular season. With that in mind, you’d think the Kings would get the extra day off and perhaps open on Sunday, April 20, though you always have to account for television scheduling and building availability. Hoping rational heads prevail and the Kings get the extra day they’d deserve.

For now, enjoy the formal clinch, Insiders, but there's more to come.

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