alt="LA Kings Insider with Rich Hammond" />Following up on the theme of possible team fatigue, and following up on Terry Murray’s comments yesterday about getting more minutes for his third and fourth line, here’s how the minutes played out today. I have listed each player’s average ice time, entering today, followed by how much they played today. It’s skewed in a couple places, obviously, because Harrold played defense and Purcell played on the second line, but it’s a fairly good representation.
The talk had been about balancing the minutes for forwards, but it seems as though the defensemen got even more of the balance Saturday…
Drew Doughty: 23:56 — 19:24
Jack Johnson: 23:04 — 21:08
Anze Kopitar: 21:24 — 21:15
Randy Jones: 19:28 — 20:41
Sean O’Donnell: 19:10 — 17:49
Alexander Frolov: 18:58 — 18:59
Michal Handzus: 18:50 — 15:17
Dustin Brown: 18:36 — 17:49
Jarret Stoll: 17:00 — 17:01
Justin Williams: 16:56 — 17:08
Matt Greene: 16:54 — 21:03
Davis Drewiske: 16:32 — 15:19
Wayne Simmonds: 15:28 — 11:52
Scott Parse: 12:03 — 11:17
Teddy Purcell: 10:50 — 9:54
Brad Richardson: 8:50 — 11:40
Peter Harrold: 7:57 — 8:32
Raitis Ivanans: 4:42 — 8:33
Playing with Ivanans sure did a number on Zus and Simmer, didn’t it? Not only did they lose 3-4 minutes of ice time, but they were much more ineffective when they were there. I can recall a couple times Simmonds getting into the offensive zone with a little speed, but having nothing after he got there…Raitis couldn’t keep up, and Handzus was covering for him.
I’m all for a more balanced ice-time scheme, but let’s give it to those who can play. Even a Brandon Segal would make a more effective and useful 4th line than Ivanans…and Raitis ruins the third line.
Hope this experiment ends way soon…like Wednesday.
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In other news, check out the meathead Duck fans, there is a reason they all suck and here it is…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvFo18SJZQE&NR=1
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I’m pro-DL and anti-TM, but here I’ve got a problem with the players DL is giving TM. TM feels the need to balance out the minutes a bit more to rest his top guys. OK. So he increases the playing time of three forwards: Richardson, Harrold, and Ivanans-our beloved 4th line. Altogether they have a combined ONE SINGLE POINT for the whole season. Hurray for Harrold’s assist!And are a combined -15. Yeah, playing these guys more is the answer.
Me and some other guys on this board have been bemoaning the 4th line, especially for the last two years. Make it a Kid Line, put some skill there, ditch Ivanans and get a tough 3rd-line winger to be your fighter, something more creative and with more potential than just a collecting pool of poor management and decisions.
And when Scuds comes back, the odd-man out will be Drewiske, who’s a better defender than Harrold. But Harrold will stay cuz TM likes his “versatility”. Ivanans will stay because he’s blackmailing TM, no, just kidding, DL and TM are wedded to the idea that having an enforcer, even a bad one, makes your team “tough”. And DL doesn’t want to admit that acquiring Richardson, for a 2nd-rounder!, was a mistake.
The 4th line is not THE problem, but it’s a big one.
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Tom in over thirty years of watching the Kings I have never seen a bigger waste of ice time than Ivanans on Sat. He is terrible.
He can’t play at all, he continues to take bad penalties and doesn’t even play the enforcer role well.
Except for the occasional prearranged non spontaneous fight, he never takes a good player off and the other teams are entirely comfortable going at the king’s key players because they know he will do something dumb.
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Fatigue? San Jose has had a similar amount of games and they seem to be doing just fine. Fatigue is another word for excuse, IMO.
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agree with pautna
also I just looked at the standings and the Kings can easily fall to #12 real soon. Kinda sucks
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ivanans only 833 of ice time!! i guess we just notice him out of position and screwing up every time he s on the ice
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Rich
Can you perhaps ask some questions of TM regarding Ivanans on the third line, getting him more ice time on a team that is having trouble scoring, the number of games that Quick is on pace to play if Murray doesn’t change something (has he in foresight realized that Quick may be playing over 70 games at this point? Isn’t that short sighted?), the complete failure of the special teams, Kompon’s responsibility, if any, for it, as it appears to be as much system as it is execution (look at the manner of zone entry, left wing’s role, the lack of lateral movement, etc) and specifically what is being done to address it (verses lips service that we need more “effort”), and some of the other things that knowledgeable fans who read this blog want to know from someone who has access to the team.
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bringbacktsjersey
THANK YOU! You nailed it…How are we to judge TM when you look OBJECTIVELY at the players he has to work with. I’m going to stop going down the list but we have one scoring line, two checking lines and you may as well not dress the 4th line because its completely useless!
All those who thought this was a playoff team should start facing reality. The Kings got off to a fast start due to nothing more than ONE line playing great hockey meaning Smyth and Kopitar and even Williams. Since than, I haven’t seen any improvement in any of our other 3 lines. The fact is the rest of the league is catching up and all they have to do is shut down Kopi’s line and game over!
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It doesn’t matter how we rearrange the deck chairs. If the Kings keep playing unintelligently, they will sink like the titanic.
It doesn’t matter how we rearrange the deck chairs. If the Kings keep playing unintelligently, they will sink like the titanic.
There were multiple stupid plays the last 2 games and smarter teams took advantage. The only excuse, besides Smyth being out, is fatigue. Well, this may be true, but if so, it doesn’t bode well for the rest of the season. We’re only in November! Click here to continue…
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I have to agree that the fatigue idea sounds like an excuse. Up until very recently, the team seemed even healthier than the league average. Now it looks like they’re in the same boat as everyone else.
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