5 Issues Plaguing the Los Angeles Kings in 2014-15
After a dreadful four-game swing that saw the Los Angeles Kings muster one of a possible eight points, they bounced back with a nice 3-1 win over the Dallas Stars on Tuesday.
The game provided a number of reasons for optimism, as the club is regaining its health and starting to deliver stronger puck-possession outings.
With that said, there are still a few kinks to iron out.
The 7-4-2 Kings sit in fourth place in a really tight Pacific Division. Remedying the following ills would go a long way toward improving that record and building positive momentum while preventing another slide.
Deployment
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Even when taking injuries into account, the Kings haven’t iced an optimal lineup for most of the season.
Slumping veteran Jarret Stoll has been granted minutes that Mike Richards deserves, which is playing a part in the team’s lackluster offense and puck-possession metrics.
That changed—at least for one night—on Tuesday.
Richards was promoted during the contest against the Stars, and the team reaped instant rewards. Stoll shored up his game while Richards posted the helper on Dustin Brown’s game-winner.
Stoll appeared visibly comfortable in a grinder’s role, shedding any scoring burden—which ironically led to his first point of the year—and merely focusing on physicality and positioning.
Meanwhile, Richards was finally slotted alongside wingers with offensive ability. This resulted in longer shifts on attack and much better looks at the net. From the second period onward, the third line of Richards, Brown and Dwight King was buzzing.
If the Kings weren’t Darryl Sutter’s squad, this would be very promising. However, L.A.’s bench boss has always been quick to shuffle lines and squash the possibility of chemistry.
LA Kings Insider's Jon Rosen indicates that Richards, Brown and King took line rushes together and could start Thursday's game as a unit against the New York Islanders.
Whether they'll finish the tilt together is the concern.
Justin Williams muddies the picture as well. Rosen suggests he'll miss the Islanders game with an injury, but once he returns—which should be soon—there's no telling where he'll suit up. Sutter alternated between him and Brown on the top unit on Tuesday.
It’s quite difficult to establish a rapport with other players when there isn’t a semblance of lineup stability. To foster long-term success, Sutter must stick with one configuration for more than a game or two.
Otherwise, the forward corps won’t realize its full potential and offer the Kings the best depth in the league.
It’s there for the taking.
Unfortunately, this old dog may not be willing to learn new tricks.
Individual Regression
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Though the Kings have floundered as a whole, a couple individuals have stumbled more glaringly than most through the first month of the new campaign.
Top-pairing blueliner Jake Muzzin has regressed to his 2013 level since returning from injury. Despite registering stellar possession numbers, he’s committing the blunders he had seemingly eliminated last season.
In seven games, the 25-year-old has fumbled countless pucks and been a step slow in his reads. He possesses the worst plus/minus rating on the back end at minus-four.
This dip in play has had a wretched effect on partner Drew Doughty. His goals-for percentage with previous pairmate Brayden McNabb is 75. With Muzzin, that mark plunges to 25.
If Muzzin can’t right the ship, L.A.’s defensive miscues will persist. After all, he plays over 22 minutes per night. Here's hoping this is simply a case of a player shaking off the cobwebs.
Up front, Dwight King has also failed to carry over his impressive play from last season after inking a three-year, $5.85 million extension over the summer.
It’s not unusual for a recently signed player to seem a bit complacent, but the hulking winger has been much worse than that so far. He sports a team-worst minus-six rating and is turning pucks over in all three zones—that's alarming for such a traditionally safe player.
Moreover, he’s losing the 50-50 battles once again.
Board play had developed from a weakness to an undeniable strength in 2013-14, but he hasn’t been as effective in those areas, losing leverage in the corners and often ending up on the wrong side of the puck. As a result, King’s Corsi percentage has dropped from 58.5 to 49.9.
His steady all-around game should be one of the constants on the bottom six. To this point, he may be the group’s second-worst performer ahead of out-and-out disaster Jordan Nolan.
Penalty Kill
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L.A.’s penalty kill hasn’t been atrocious, but it certainly hasn’t been a strength. With the personnel on hand, it should be.
The Kings currently rank 15th in the league in short-handed situations, which is thoroughly mediocre. Poor execution has permeated most of the lineup, as players are flubbing clearances and tendering opposing power plays additional cracks at the net.
That should improve as the season wears on and rust dissipates.
In order to truly bolster the penalty kill and turn it into a top-five unit, though, Anze Kopitar’s usage should be limited in these scenarios. While brilliant at even strength, his conservative style doesn’t lend itself to penalty-killing success.
He’s well on his way to registering the highest goals-against average per 60 short-handed minutes among Kings forwards for the third straight year.
Conversely, Richards is the only forward on the team who has logged 10-plus short-handed minutes without conceding a single goal.
He’s been sterling as always, controlling the flow of traffic and routinely funnelling the power play’s zone entry into no-man’s land. His angles are spotless...yet the coaching staff refuses to lean on him.
As the polar opposite of Kopitar as a penalty-killer, Richards is aggressive when one man down, seldom allowing the power play to set up. Just managing a shot—let alone a scoring chance—is an ordeal when he’s on the ice.
Consider these four-on-five numbers:
| TOI | SA60 | GA60 | |
| Jarret Stoll | 24:02 | 62.41 | 9.99 |
| Jeff Carter | 23:24 | 58.97 | 7.69 |
| Dustin Brown | 21:05 | 48.38 | 2.85 |
| Anze Kopitar | 21:05 | 65.45 | 11.38 |
| Dwight King | 17:51 | 43.70 | 3.36 |
| Mike Richards | 16:02 | 37.42 | 0.00 |
The Kings have allowed 32.8 shots per 60 five-on-five minutes through 13 games. Richards' penalty-killing unit has only allowed 37.4 shots per 60 four-on-five minutes.
That’s absurd.
It’s no happy coincidence that he’s on pace to concede the fewest shots among Kings forwards for the fourth consecutive season. He’s been a terrific penalty-killer throughout his entire career and evidently still is.
Not handing him more responsibility in this department would constitute a major oversight.
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Power Play
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L.A.'s top group on the man advantage currently features That '70s Line (Jeff Carter, Tyler Toffoli, Tanner Pearson) alongside Drew Doughty and Kopitar, and the club is ranked 23rd in the NHL.
Obviously, there's more to power-play success than lumping a team's five best offensive players on one unit.
A disruptive net presence and smart playmakers along the wall are key, but there may be no more critical piece on a power play than a quarterback.
Doughty doesn’t fit the bill. His offensive instincts are typically superb, but on the man advantage, he becomes oddly apprehensive. His zone entries are sluggish and he often makes puzzling choices.
The Kings have attempted to rectify this by placing Kopitar at the point in recent outings. However, that isn’t ideal either, as it removes his puck possession and strength down low from the equation.
L.A.’s two best candidates for the job are Alec Martinez and Richards.
They offer very different approaches. Martinez looks to fling pucks at the net relentlessly and is a much speedier option—both in his skating and puck movement. This backs off defenses on the zone entry and affords teammates more space to work with.
Richards is more of a probing general waiting for the right opportunity to pounce. He’s not as fleet of foot, though, which means he shouldn’t be tasked with carrying the puck into the offensive zone.
Once there, his decision-making stands out. Rather than dishing back and forth for the cute play, he looks to put the Kings in advantageous situations by shooting for screens, deflections and rebounds.
As evidenced by the stats, this has proven to be an effective tactic:
| TOI | PTS/60 | |
| Jeff Carter | 36:26 | 3.29 |
| Tyler Toffoli | 27:53 | 4.30 |
| Anze Kopitar | 26:25 | 2.27 |
| Tanner Pearson | 25:23 | 2.36 |
| Mike Richards | 24:33 | 7.33 |
| Justin Williams | 22:29 | 2.67 |
With that in mind, it might be worth spreading the wealth around to threaten the opposition’s penalty kill for a full two minutes.
Sutter should opt to complement Kopitar, Doughty, Richards, Marian Gaborik and either Brown or Williams on one unit with Carter, Toffoli, Pearson, Martinez and Muzzin on the other.
Regardless of personnel, the Kings must simplify their designs, throwing pucks on goal with greater frequency and converging toward the net. This would create second chances and open up passing lanes all over the ice.
Movement must also be emphasized for those without the puck. Fluid rotations and backdoor cuts present the penalty kill with far more to worry about than stationary perimeter passing. If the box isn't stretched out and manipulated, seams to exploit become that much harder to come by.
L.A. hasn’t been a finesse-based club in its current purple patch. It should stop trying to play like one on the man advantage.
Breakout
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Known for their suffocating puck possession, the Kings haven’t lived up to their reputation through 13 games. They sit 17th in Corsi percentage after leading the league in this metric for two straight years.
The main reason for this drop-off is the team’s poor breakout.
When assessing L.A.'s stellar performance from last season, theScore's Justin Bourne wrote: "The moral of the story is, wherever the puck went, the Kings clustered around it for one another."
At present, the forwards are too far from both each other and the defensemen, which is forcing the Kings to attempt hopeless stretch passes or hold on to the puck for longer than they'd like. The club must get back to basics, offering strong puck support in order to exit the defensive zone as a cohesive unit.
The larger issue, though, may be the team’s inability to even initiate a breakout.
It has by and large struggled with the puck to start the season, failing to make crisp, accurate passes to transition from defense to offense.
Not only does that stall the attack, it extends defensive-zone time, gifting the opposition more chances to pepper Jonathan Quick with shots.
Stoll and Brown have been guilty of giveaways at the defensive blue line, whereas King is no longer making those deft touches along the wall to put teammates in a position to enter the neutral zone with speed.
On defense, Robyn Regehr sputtering in possession is nothing new. However, Slava Voynov’s indefinite suspension has also pushed Martinez from the left to the right side, where he’s clearly less comfortable. His Corsi percentage has dropped from 56.3 to 49.5.
There isn’t much roster flexibility as it stands, so the current starters must solve their problems by tightening up their execution.
The forwards must circle back and provide the defensemen with closer outlets, and the rearguards need to connect on their passes or at the very least clear the zone when granted the time and space to do so.
L.A. has suffered from turnover upon turnover to start the season. That finally caught up to the squad over the course of its recent road trip, handing the Kings four straight losses. They’ve now seen firsthand how costly their sloppy play can be.
It’s time to tidy up and tilt the ice back in their favor.
Advanced statistics courtesy of Stats.HockeyAnalysis.com. Contract information courtesy of CapGeek.com.
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