Angeles Analysis – Good To See You, Positive Trends

It’s certainly more enjoyable to write these when you’re looking back at three wins, as opposed to two losses. And three extremely exciting wins at that. While the 2022-23 LA Kings haven’t looked identical to the 2021-22 LA Kings, this new version has shown it can win games in a variety of ways. Over the course of this trip, however, we’ve seen certain traits from last season’s team begin to reappear, and these are traits that last season’s team prided itself on, leading to wins over the course of the season.

Let’s start in Minnesota.

A 7-6 victory over the Wild, in a game between two teams that last season you might not have expected to combine for six goals, let alone score six goals each. While that was a strange game by all accounts, one that will likely not be replicated, one thing stood out as reemerging from last season’s team, and that’s the bump-up shift.

At least that’s how Todd McLellan has referred to it and it refers to the shift after a goal against. It’s an important shift in an effort to reestablish momentum and the Kings did a heck of a job of it versus the Wild. Not once, but twice did the Kings score within a minute of conceding. On the road, in a game where momentum was quite delicate considering the 13 goals, those response shifts allowed the Kings to settle back down, while halting the momentum of the home team and quieting the crowd at the same time. There were times where that game could have gone off the rails and we might have been discussing the last time the Kings scored seven and lost, as opposed to when they last conceded six and won. Responding quickly after conceding is a big reason as to why we aren’t.

Then there’s the games against Detroit and Nashville, when we saw the reemergence of more things we saw last season. In Detroit, we saw the second line start to look a lot more like the second line. Through three games, none of Viktor Arvidsson, Phillip Danault or Trevor Moore had a point, though Arvidsson had missed a game due to illness. With Arvidsson working his way back up to speed, coming off of back surgery over the summer, it took a bit of time to look more like themselves. We started to see that in Detroit, with Arvidsson’s play a big reason as to why. Danault and Moore combined on two goals in the process, a key part of the victory over the Red Wings.

Then we go to Nashville, when it was Blake Lizotte and Brendan Lemieux’s turn. Playing with both Arthur Kaliyev and Carl Grundstrom at different times, Lizotte and Lemieux were energetic, physical and pesky, using their style of play to force turnovers and play extensively in the offensive zone. Even before Lemieux created a goal, they were a lot like themselves, with single-game possession metrics showing 70 percent control over shot attempts. It was Lemieux’s burst of speed down the left wing that created Matt Roy’s first goal, a good reward for a line that was good all night.

Then there’s the comeback mentality. If we’ve heard Todd McLellan say it once, we’ve heard it a million times – it’s in the DNA of this team, and has been for some time. I actually thought that Cal Petersen phrased it quite eloquently after the game:

“We’re going to inevitably have situations like this again throughout the season and we can reach back and know that we’ve done it before. It’s part of our identity now and it was part of it last year, so now we have the confidence that we’re never out of it and we can find ways to come back and get points, win games.”

This is one to look back upon when the situation calls for it down the stretch. While it wasn’t always of the third-period variety, only three teams in the NHL had more comeback wins of two-or-more goals last season than the Kings did. Now, the Kings are one of four teams in the early goings of the season with a multiple goal comeback win in the third period. You don’t lose what’s in your DNA, but it certainly doesn’t hurt to have a reminder that it’s in there. The Kings got that last night in Nashville.

I don’t want this to be taken as a comparison article between the earliest version of this season’s team and what we saw from the Kings last season. It’s not meant as such. It’s rather a benchmark of evolution and how we are slowly seeing some things that the Kings did positively last season reappear this year. Todd McLellan has been adament about preaching patience when it comes to the formation of an identity for this season’s group, it’s not simply a carbon copy of what worked last year. It’s taking time to see that identity form and while this is not evidence of a finished product, the reemergence of certain things have created positive steps along the way.

Now, the Kings have two games remaining on this first road trip of the season, one that has already gone substantially better than the first trip of last season. 0-3-1 was the record coming out of games in Nashville, Dallas and St. Louis (x2) and the Kings have already picked up six points from three games thus far, with stops in Pittsburgh and Washington to follow before heading home.

It’s a tough start to the season on paper, with 12 games in 22 days and nine of those games coming against teams that qualified for the playoffs in 2022. As players continue to find their own games, and find their games within the team’s game, we’ll hope to see more of last season’s successful traits emerge, while the 2022-23 craft an identiy of their own that hopefully not only includes some of those successful things, but builds on them.