Waking up with the Kings: December 21

Perhaps the one minute and thirty second third period stretch in St. Louis served as a rallying point? Complementing their upwards-trending possession game, the Kings have added urgency to their efforts and have responded well to mild adversity over their two most recent games, wins at home against the Blues and Coyotes that served as positive indicators of both team-wide and individual progression. Similar to when Jori Lehtera scored a go-ahead late second period goal on Thursday, Los Angeles wasn’t fazed when a pair of ghastly deflections – the first generated by a neutral zone turnover and improvable one-on-one defending – skipped past Jonathan Quick for a 2-1 Arizona lead that broke the visitors’ PDO counter. Instead, the Kings relied on what had helped them build up a scoring chance advantage to that point. They worked well with the puck in the offensive zone, generated shot attempts and scoring chances, and checked well without the puck. The Coyotes didn’t appear to have much to work with on Saturday; they remained mostly to the outside in five-on-five play, and when their dangerous power play unit was on the ice (for a total of only 5:11), L.A. allowed only two shots on goal.

Arizona Coyotes v Los Angeles Kings

All three members of the Gaborik-Kopitar-Carter line are red hot, and it will be interesting to see how long Darryl Sutter keeps three of his top offensive players stacked together on the same line. It has certainly paid dividends during a period in which all three were looking to find their games. Marian Gaborik, who has scored goals in four straight – six total – has five goals on his last eight shots, raising his season-long shooting percentage to 19.6%. It’s a terrific stretch by a player who has engineered a high shooting percentage his entire career at 13.0%, and shot 14.9% between 2005-12, a period during which all three of his 40-goal seasons occurred. Anze Kopitar offered a nice touch on the pass to set up his power play goal; even more impressive was Gaborik’s ability to deftly corral the puck and within a fraction of a second snipe top corner on an awfully impressive release well before Devan Dubnyk could move left-to-right to have a chance at a save. Gaborik, who has exhibited his ability to use his hands from close range and in the greasy areas, had a good chance at a second goal in the third period, but his deflection of a point shot offering appeared to catch the outside of the post on what was very nearly a pretty play.

Arizona Coyotes v Los Angeles Kings

Los Angeles hasn’t been outshot since the Chicago game and has seen its five-on-five Corsi-for percentage raise to 53.3%, the fourth-best mark in the league. Again, the Kings’ ability to play without the puck on their stick was very impressive on Saturday as they checked well and didn’t allow much on the penalty kill, but in terms of possession – a very important tenet of the team’s thrust – they’re getting back towards where they want to be. Marian Gaborik leads all Kings in the possession stat at 57.7% during five-on-five play, but don’t overlook the contributions by Trevor Lewis, who had been a negative in Corsi-for relative in each of his prior four full seasons but is squarely in the black at +4.7% this season. 57.5% of all attempted shots are directed towards the attacking net while he’s been on the ice this season; it’s a possession rate better than the usual suspects – Jake Muzzin (57.4%), Anze Kopitar (56.5%), Justin Williams (56.1%), Tyler Toffoli (55.8%) and Drew Doughty (55.6%), amongst others. Calgary, Los Angeles’ opponent in two of the next three games, has lost eight in a row (0-7-1); their Corsi-for percentage ranks 29th but hasn’t seen any great change over the last month. Instead, their shooting percentage has fallen dramatically; they’ve scored 13 goals on 245 shots for a 5.3% shooting percentage over their losing streak. The Kings will look to avoid being friendly hosts in the final game before the Christmas break, and recent trends indicate the home team on Monday should be an awfully tough opponent.

Arizona Coyotes v Los Angeles Kings

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