The Kings’ penalty statistics are a bit deceiving

Los Angeles is the most penalized team remaining in the playoffs, though the penalty minutes per game they’ve averaged aren’t necessarily the most accurate gauge of the team’s discipline.

“Minutes are bogus,” Darryl Sutter said. “The minutes don’t mean nothing because there are rounds or games, especially early in playoffs, where the officials are calling 10s where it’s just to calm it down. So the penalty minutes don’t mean nothing.”

He’s got a point – the Kings have been assessed five misconducts, all of which came in the first round. Chicago, Montreal and New York have combined for three misconducts.

“It’s actual penalties,” Sutter continued, aware that Los Angeles was faced with at least five penalty kills three times in the San Jose series and only once since.

Though the Kings (14.2 penalty minutes per game) have racked up the penalties at a greater rate than Montreal (9.6/game), Chicago (9.4/game) and New York (9.1/game), they’re really only averaging one minor penalty more per game than those teams. The Kings average 4.9 minor penalties per game, while the Rangers average 3.8, the Blackhawks average 3.7 and the Canadiens average 3.6 – and, again, the Kings’ rate is buoyed by a testy series against the Sharks.

“So if last night it’s three-four [minor penalties taken], those are good numbers. That’s where you want to be,” Sutter said. “It’s the execution or the killing or the power play that come into it then. It’s interesting because both teams are good special teams teams. Minutes ebb and flow. I mean, heck, I remember in the last series we had a press conference, and it was all about ‘What’s wrong with your power play?’ So that was an issue.”

The Kings were a perfect four-for-four on the kill in Saturday’s Game 3 win, and Sutter didn’t appear to be particularly concerned with the nature of the calls, which included delay of game and a too many men infractions.

“Last night’s a funny night in penalties if you look at it,” he said. “Martinez has one over the glass, so that’s automatic. Too many men – puck comes back into guys that are changing, so if you play the puck in there, that’s automatic. Two stick fouls – Williams and Pearson – sticks in the visors, well that’s 200 feet from your goalie. Those aren’t penalties that I like. So that’s four right there, and that’s the penalties. And so it was three and four, and quite honest, if you do it in the playoffs, every team has three, four, five.”

As a strong five-on-five team that relies heavily on its ability to possess the puck and control the run of play, if Los Angeles is able to continue to reduce the rate at which they take minor penalties, they’ll be well served.

“When we get into a rhythm of rolling four lines and staying out of the penalty box, I think it’s big for our hockey team because that allows us to roll four lines and come at the other team in waves and just keep that relentless pressure on. I think it’s big for our team,” Mike Richards said. “Staying out of the penalty box is big for us in a lot of different ways. Obviously you don’t want to be killing penalties all night. It wears on a lot of people. But when you stay out of the box, like I said, you just roll those four lines and we’re tough to stop when we do that.”