Sens Week Ahead : Feb 22 to 28

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The Western swing starts this week, with only a back-to-back on the schedule

The Ducks are a tough team to pin down.  They've lead the league at points this season, but their possession numbers haven't been backing their position in the standings up.

Typically that would mean a high PDO, but it's very close to 1 so it's not like they've been driven up the standings by puck luck.

They've also been having a relatively rough stretch lately, going only 5-4-1 in their last 10.  They've been a sub-50% possession team in those ten games, and three of their five wins have come against the Hurricanes and Oilers.  Still, despite all of that they still lead their division and are still in the hunt for the Presidents Trophy.

It would be easy to put the recent struggles on the injury to starter Frederik Anderson, but with a save percentage of .916 he hasn't exactly been carrying the team on his back this season.  John Gibson's .911 hasn't helped, but isn't enough to really drive the fall.

Sheldon Souray, Frederik Andersen, Matt Beleskey and Sami Vatanen are out on IR.  Clayton Stoner is day to day.

The Kings enter the week on top of the three-way tie in the Pacific division that stretches from the third divisional spot to out of the playoffs, much lower than what was expected of the defending Cup Champions.

Their possession game is still way up there at second in the league, less than a third of a percent behind the league leading Chicago.  Despite that, they've mostly been middle of the pack everywhere else.  Goals for and the power play are right in the middle, with goals against sitting barely in the top third of the league.

One big weakness the Kings have had this season is their penalty kill.  It sits below 80% and at 25th overall in the league.

Tanner Pearson is on IR, Alec Martinez is day to day, and Slava Voynov is just an asshole.