Angeles Analysis – Six Pack For The Road, Please

The LA Kings have played six road games this season. The LA Kings have won six road games this season.

Wins over Toronto, Ottawa and Philadelphia this week brought the Kings to a record of 6-0-0 away from home. The Kings are one of two teams that has yet to lose road game so far this season and they’re one of two teams with six road wins to their name. LA has played two fewer away games than the New York Rangers, who currently lead the NHL with 13 points on the road, but the Kings have done everything within their power to get off to the start they have, one shy of the league lead in road points.

Each win on the most recent trip had similarities and differences.

Todd McLellan brought up a couple of the similarities following yesterday’s win over the Flyers.

– Depth & All Four Lines Playing
– Good Goaltending
– Timely Goals

A strength of the team early in the season has been its depth, with four lines and three pairs contributing each night, in front of solid goaltending more often than not. The depth was on display last night, with the Kopitar and Danault lines each converting at 5-on-5, while the Dubois and Lizotte lines got one together, in between shifts, as Alex Laferriere fed Blake Lizotte for his third goal of the season. The same storylines are showing up night after night because so many different players are playing well, but it’s also not necessarily the same heroes each night. That’s a sign of a good team.

“I think when you can have all four lines rolling, all three D pairs, we have so much depth that on the road that we can’t play the matchup game, so everyone gets out there and we get contributions from everybody,” goaltender Cam Talbot said of what he’s seeing in front of him. “This is a deep squad and I think you can tell that when we’re on the road.”

In terms of the good goaltending element, look at the aforementioned Talbot. Covered him specifically in a longer feature from Friday, linked here.

We’ve got one more game’s worth of sample size now, however, and that included a shutout last night against the Flyers. The Kings have ridden Talbot early in the season, behind his strong run of form and a friendly schedule that is currently allowing them to do so, considering the ample breaks between games this month. The Kings will play just six games in the next 21 days in a stretch that includes four stretches of at least three days off in between games.

“He fits the group,” Todd McLellan said of Talbot after yesterday’s win. “He’s got a calm demeanor, he’s confident, he’s all the things we thought we were getting and we had a pretty good idea of what we saw in the past, of course, but he’s done a real good job and the guys have done a good job in front of him. A complete team effort.”

As far as the timely goals go, those were certainly spread out amongst the three games, coming from a variety of different goalscorers too.

Against Toronto, the Kings scored on the heels of a penalty kill on two occasions. Early in the first period, the Kings got a kill and scored within 60 seconds after. In the third period, the Kings gave up a power-play goal but scored a few shifts later to take the air out of the rest of the game. In Ottawa, the Kings scored twice in a span of less than four minutes to turn a 1-0 game into a 3-0 game, and they wound up needing all three of those goals in the end.

In Philadelphia, post-game quotes from the Flyers side pointed to the pair of goals scored at the end of the second period, both coming in the final four minutes of play, that really put the nail in the coffin. John Tortorella pointed to a good stretch from the Flyers, perhaps their best of the game, that could have pulled them to within 2-1 with a goal. They didn’t convert, and all of a sudden it’s 4-0. Game over, as Tortorella noted below.

“We almost score to make it two-to-one,” Tortorella said. “Next thing we know, we throw the puck out of the building, and we turn another one over. It’s four-nothing. Game over. That’s how quickly it can happen.”

The overarching theme, to me, is the depth element, because I think it oversees the other pieces of the puzzle.

It’s a lot easier to support your goaltender, and a lot easier to find timely goals, when it comes from all throughout the lineup. Each night on this trip, it’s been different players chipping in at different times with goals and points. Eight different players scored between the three games and 16 of the 18 skaters collected at least one point on the trip. Different lines are contributing. Goals are coming between line changes, when pieces are interchanged at different times. The blueline is chipping in offensively, both with goals and assists. The Kings have more points from their forwards than any team in the NHL and they rank inside the league’s Top 10 in terms of points from the defensemen. The line that has been the least productive thus far has the team’s leading scorer in Kevin Fiala. It’s the newest line together, as it also includes forward Pierre-Luc Dubois and Laferriere, a rookie. It’d be fair to ask for more from that unit at even strength, but with a 7-2-2 team, they have some time to gel together. It’ll come. Later in the season, when others may be a bit drier offensively, it’ll be that line picking up the slack. If all four lines start humming offensive together……look out.

The winning ways on the road, and the team’s depth, will meet its toughest test yet on Wednesday when they visit the Vegas Golden Knights at T-Mobile Arena. The Kings and Golden Knights had a tightly-contested showdown last weekend in Los Angeles and the rivalry now shifts into the desert. Vegas offers as much depth as any team in the league and the first 11 games of the season have shown that the Kings belong in that discussion as well. The Kings have 18 skaters with 3+ points this season, while Vegas has 17 – the two highest totals in the NHL.

Last week’s game was between two teams on the second half of a back-to-back, with travel going in. Wednesday’s will feature two teams with multiple days of rest between games. An early-season heavyweight bout in Vegas to come and an exciting one between two teams towards the top of the NHL coming in.

Back on the ice for practice tomorrow and Tuesday before the trip to Vegas, with a few stories to come between now and Wednesday’s matchup! Pleasure as always, Insiders!