The Golden Knights had a rough week and are sliding down the standings, making the Pacific Division a massive mess in the middle between the strong Los Angeles Kings and the terrible Arizona Coyotes.

The Kings were scuffling a little bit in November but turned things around last week with a perfect road trip. They went into Detroit, Washington, St. Louis, and Chicago, and came out with four wins, outscoring their opponents by a combined score of 16 to five.

A key in Los Angeles’ winning streak has been the play of Jonathan Quick. While he scuffled in early November, the team did too. But Quick has been nails over this winning streak, allowing only five goals in his last five starts. He also had a save of the year candidate in last week’s win over Detroit.

The Golden Knights, on the other hand, are sliding. After a five-game winning streak put them at the top of the Pacific Division standings last week, a three-game losing streak slid them back down. The Golden Knights lost to Dallas, Minnesota, and Winnipeg last week, but came up with a clutch overtime win against the Coyotes.

In better news, Marc Andre-Fleury could be close to returning to action as he’s set to be cleared to practice this week. Malcom Subban has been fine since returning to action last week, but getting Fleury back would be a big boost.

The Sharks won two of three games on their Eastern road trip last week, beating the Flyers and Panthers but losing to the Lightning. They’ve done a solid job keeping pace this season, never getting too high or too low. The Sharks haven’t had a winning streak longer than four games, but their longest losing streak has only gone on for three.

The weird thing about the Sharks this season has been their inability to score. They’re 30th in the league with just 65 goals for this season and are relying almost entirely on lock down defence and goaltending to win games. Even in the two games they won last week the Sharks only scored five total goals.

The Canucks returned home from an Eastern road trip last week in which they went 2-3. Since coming home, Vancouver beat Nashville and Toronto, sliding the Canucks back into a tie for the last playoff spot in the Pacific Division.

In more unfortunate news for the club, Derek Dorsett announced that he wouldn’t be returning to the AHL due to back injuries. In the team’s first game after Dorsett’s announcement, the Canucks put forward a great effort against the Predators, coming out with a 5-3 win. Daniel Sedin also scored his 1000th NHL point in the win, joining Henrik as the only Canucks to score 1000 points as a Canuck.

The Flames returned home from a six0game road trip last week and wen 1-2, beating the Coyotes handily but getting dropped by the Leafs and Oilers. The loss to Edmonton was a pretty bizarre one, as Edmonton went up 6-1 in the third period but the Flames nearly battled back with four quick goals of their own before T.J. Brodie redirected a puck into his own net.

While the Ducks have done an admirable job at navigating through injuries to their top players this season, the team seems to have hit a wall. They’re currently on a six-game road trip and they’ve only won one of the five games they’ve played on it.

Last week, the Ducks lost handily to the Blackhawks, then got edged out by the Blues, Blue Jackets, and Predators. In the four games, they allowed 16 goals, which is well above their average for the season as strong goaltending from John Gibson and Ryan Miller has kept the team above water thus far.

The Oilers had an eventful week last week, edging out the Coyotes in overtime, losing the the Leafs in a barnburner in which Kris Russell scored on his own net after playing perhaps the best game of his Oilers career, and then beating the Flames 7-5 on Hockey Night in Canada.

The Oilers are still alive, sitting just six points out of a playoff spot, but they have to hop over the entire Western Conference, so they’re going to need to go on a winning streak sometime soon. They have yet to win more than two games in a row this season.

Since snapping a five-game losing streak with their first regulation win of the season back on Nov. 16, the Coyotes have actually been decent, going 5-3-2 in that span. Last week, Arizona got dropped by the Oilers and Flames, hammered the Devils 5-0, and picked up a loser point in an overtime loss to Vegas. They’re only five points behind Edmonton in the standings right now.