March 14: Thursday morning links

-Lisa Dillman of the LA Times learns that Jeff Carter is a lot of things to a lot of different people. To Dean Lombardi, he’s Josey Wales. To Mike Richards, he’s Ronaldo. To Darryl Sutter, he’s “money”. To the NHL statistics page, he’s tied third in the league with 17 goals. Also in this story: interesting comments by Dustin Brown and Dustin Penner on Carter’s quick release.
LA Times – Kings’ Jeff Carter is quick on the draw

The Scott Burnside feature on Rich Clune has already been linked; you can join the discussion on that topic below.

-John Hoven of Mayor’s Manor caught up with Ray Whitney, who offered some real talk on the Coyotes’ distractions at the end of Game 5 of the Western Conference Final. “Coming out of [the Brown-Rozsival incident], we weren’t focused and prepared to move forward,” Whitney said. “The Kings just went about business as usual, and you could almost sense it. You knew what was gonna happen after. Something always happens after – whether it was a missed call, or I think it was just a non-call.”
Mayor’s Manor – Former Coyote saw lack of focus and composure in playoff loss to Kings

-Linked by Robert P. from Jewels of the Crown yesterday (and hosted on the JFTC site), this Eric T. / Broad Street Hockey feature coherently broke down several advanced stats and found that the Kings “Score-Adjusted Fenwick” formula places them in good company. A good read, this.
Broad Street Hockey – Los Angeles Kings: Masters of Puck Possession

-Speaking of Jewels from the Crown, Robert P. continues to analyze scoring chances for and against, and offers positives and negatives from his data at the half way point. Good things should happen if the team raises its save percentage.
Jewels from the Crown – Los Angeles Kings Midseason Review: Scoring Chances

There are reports that Los Angeles and Buffalo are talking trade, which makes sense. Also making sense: Every team sniffing the playoffs talking trade with Buffalo, a team that has a short-term UFA-bound stay-at-home defenseman in Robyn Regehr, the snakebitten Drew Stafford (two goals in 27 games) – who carries a four million dollar cap hit through 2015 – and the less-likely-to-be-moved three expensive players who become UFAs in 2014 in Thomas Vanek, Jason Pominville and Ryan Miller. Quisp links to several Sabres writers and offers his own analysis of moves that could make sense.
McSorley’s Stick – Which Sabres player would/should be coveted most by the Kings? And who would/should they give up to get him?

-KingsCast recaps the previous week of games and offers insight to what the Calgary Flames did on their day off between Saturday’s and Monday’s games. “The Flames had a team dinner at Spago, which, like the Flames, is old, barely relevant, and needs to be torn down.” KingsCast 1, Jay Feaster 0.
KingsCast – Episode 183: Jarome Iginla will not be an LA King

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