Angeles Analysis – A Tough Start & A New Approach

Not the fairytale start, is it Insiders?

A challenging opening two games at home have left the Kings at 0-2-0, after losses to Vegas and Seattle. For a team that entered the season with expectations to build and grow off of last season’s playoff berth, it’s not the start to the season that anyone had hoped for, though it’s also something that Todd McLellan warned us would be possible. With new expectations, comes a different type of season.

Last night’s game though made me think back to this time last year, when we didn’t know who the LA Kings were, what they were about or what kind of team they were going to be. We knew they had improved the personnel, we knew they had a vision of what they wanted to do and who they wanted to be, but it wasn’t evident through two games. We saw far too many penalties, heard the phrase game management over and over again and even on nights when the team played quite well, they still werent getting the results they deserved.

McLellan raised an interesting comparable after the loss to Vegas, which is that the only reference point we had to compare to was last season’s team. But, the team we used was the team that ended last season, not the team that started it. Last year’s team had an identity in the second half of the season of being structured and hard to play against, with predictability amongst teammates that enabled anticipation and checking ability that frustrated the opposition on a night-to-night basis. The identity was so strong that it felt like it was there all along, but it took time to come together.

McLellan has followed that up multiple times now by saying that you have to reinvent your identity each season as a team. That’s not to say that everything the Kings built last year simply went away in the offseason, because it didn’t. The identity the team created last season could be the same as what we see this season as well. Last year’s team was built to win games a certain way and by the time the calendar flipped to 2022, the team was full speed ahead in playing that way and winning that way.

Sharing two quotes here – one from practice on Wednesday and one from after yesterday’s game. They’re both rehashing, but for reference –

10/12 – As we go forward now, we’ll have to lay game two against game one because now we’re starting to get this year’s evidence. Maybe we’re going to be a loose, gambling, score five per night team and get it done that way, I don’t know, but that looked like how we wanted to play. If we feel as a group that’s where our identity has to go and we’re going to try it that way, great, but I’m not betting on it. We either reestablish who we are, or we try it a different way.”

10/13 – We’re trying to figure out who we are, how do we want to play the game? For the media that was there this morning or yesterday, it doesn’t happen automatically, you get to recreate yourself every year. The reference point that we had after game one was last year, now we have six periods in the bag.

I wonder if I personally have been guilty of hearing what McLellan has been saying, but not actually listening to it. I’ve certainly been looking at these first two games with a comparable in my own mind to the way the team played down the stretch last year. Naturally, the takeaway is that this hasn’t been as good. However, comparing this year’s team to last year’s team isn’t really useful at this point. 5 of the 18 skaters from Game 7 are not with the organization and none of the lines or pairings from that night are still intact. On paper, the Kings have a better roster and a more talented group than they did last season, between offseason acquisitions and what we’ve already seen to be some internal growth from players like Gabe Vilardi and Quinton Byfield, with those three players among the team’s better stories throughout the preseason and opening two games. Now, we’ve got to see what this team, as assembled on paper, can establish on the ice. Perhaps that might take more time than six periods to see in play.

If it’s going to be the same approach as last season, then the Kings do have some strides to take.

Last night was certainly better defensively – the goals against included a power-play goal, a weird-bounced own(ish) goal and another goal that came immediately after a power play had expired. That’s a little bit more like the Kings than opening night was, which saw upwards of 50 shots on goal against. The thought process coming in, at least mine anyways, is that the Kings could still be that same defensive team they were last year, but the additional speed, skill and offensive talent would correct the areas that hurt the team, which was a below-average goalscoring output.

Can this year’s team win as it was assumed they might? Certainly. 80 games left on the calendar is too early to push the panic button. Players today said that believe this group is fully capable of playing the way that it did last year and despite the team bringing back several players off of injuries at the same time, there’s still a more than talented group in place. The pieces are there and the players believe in what they have. Still, is it perhaps time to change the approach we’re taking and view this team as a new entity, that is still discovering the type of team they want to and need to be? It might be.

With five games coming up on the road – all against teams that should contend for a playoff position – Phillip Danault perhaps said it best yesterday. It’s time to go into the warzone and get it done. Last season’s Kings earned a point from 30 of 41 road games, the best mark in the Western Conference. No better time than the present to carry over a positive trait from a season ago.