How will the Kings look to slow down Toronto’s potent offense?

Tonight’s game against the Maple Leafs at Air Canada Centre serves as an interesting clash of styles. The Maple Leafs, one of the youngest and fastest NHL teams, are led in scoring by three rookies in William Nylander (4-8=12), Auston Matthews (6-5=11) and Mitchell Marner (4-6=10), with established veterans James van Riemsdyk (4-6=10), Nazem Kadri (6-3=9) and Tyler Bozak (5-4=9) lurking right there or close behind. Toronto is tied for sixth in the league with an average of 3.08 goals per game, while Los Angeles is tied for 26th with 2.25.

While the Kings are able to play at a raised pace – similar to how they practice – they aren’t able to boast the same individual speed and skill present in Toronto’s top two lines. Los Angeles has long been established as a team able to use its size and physicality to maintain possession in the offensive zone and a high shot volume while relying on its tight, aggressive checking to limit opportunities elsewhere on the ice.

At today’s morning skate, I spoke with Tyler Toffoli, Drew Doughty and Jake Muzzin to learn how the team plans on slowing down Toronto’s potent offense, and also chatted with Toffoli (along with Ken Campbell of The Hockey News, who wrote this piece earlier today) about how his offensive capabilities should materialize soon.

Tyler Toffoli, on slowing down the Maple Leafs:
I think just standard things … if we just play our game the way we want to play it obviously it’s not going to go the whole game but we just got to try and contain them. They got a lot of skill over there, I mean, it’ll be kind of similar to playing Calgary — Gaudreau, Monahan, those guys. We just got to be ready for it and come out.

Toffoli, on whether he’s happy with the Kings pace of play:
Yeah I think we’re getting better. I think we’re finding ways to score at the right time now and just shut it down. Our penalty kill has been a lot better and obviously taking less penalties is definitely key.

Toffoli, on whether the scoring problems the Kings were having our behind them:
Yeah I mean, that happens to every team. There’s obviously times when you can’t score goals and it’s just not going your way but I think all four lines right now are playing pretty solid and holding on to pucks and getting lots of shots and that’s what’s key.

Toffoli, on how he feels about his own scoring:
Yeah, I mean you want to score every game, but like I said I’m getting lots of shots. Just got to get to the net and eventually they’ll just start going in and like I said, just keep shooting.

Toffoli, on whether the chances have been there over the first 12 games:
I think compared to last year when I had a little bit of a drought I wasn’t really getting any shots but I think I’m still kind of getting three to five shots a game which is pretty good obviously. Just got to keep shooting like I said, and just get to the net.

Toffoli, on whether “puck luck” is the difference between saved shots and goals:
Well I hope so. I mean, you just got to keep playing hockey and keep doing what you can to help the team win. If that’s not scoring goals then I feel like, Carts and I on the penalty kill we’ve been playing pretty well and kind of shutting it down a little bit and using our speed to kind of disrupt a lot that’s going on so we just got to keep playing hard and just keep getting to the net.

Jake Muzzin, on defending against the speed of the Maple Leafs:
You kind of build off that game we had the other night against Calgary. Kind of similar, young, skilled guys, want to take you 1-on-1, stuff like that and if we play our strong defensive game we’re going to create offense from checking well defensively.

Drew Doughty, on the Kings strong possession numbers and why it hasn’t translated to goal-scoring:
You know, I don’t know. We seem to have these goal-scoring droughts every single season and I can never really exactly put my finger on what it is but we always end up seemingly to get through it. We just need to get more pucks to the net, it’s the same old thing, get more people to the net, get more sticks and pucks on deflections and rebounds, and that’s how you’re going to score goals. Playing good defense creates good offense so we don’t need to be cheating for any more goals or anything like that, it’s just playing the right way and it’ll come.