Kings Identify Areas For Improvement Over 3-Game Skid, Target Improvement in Seattle

Trivia question for you – Which animal has the shortest memory?

If you’re a Ted Lasso fan, you know that it’s a goldfish. Key number one heading into a stretch of seven consecutive divisional games? Be a goldfish.

“I think you just need to have a short memory,” defenseman Matt Roy said. “We know that we have the skillset to win a game and beat any team, so we just need to take a pause, regroup and come back again.”

As far as adversity goes, the Kings are currently facing a pretty minimal amount, right? In the grand scheme of things, three losses in a row really is not very many. Pretty much happens to every team in every season. Happened to the Kings three times last year. Still though, when you’ve started a season as well as the Kings have, when it starts to go the other way, even if minimally, it’s certainly something that garners a bit of attention.

Over the last three games, specifically the last two, the Kings have seen things change a little bit. They haven’t established their game over the last six periods in the way that they did, extremely consistently, for much of this season.

Over the last three games, the Kings have scored 2, 1 and 2 goals respectively. For a team that has led the league in goals-per-game for a bulk of the season, it’s been a little bit different here over the last few games. Naturally, you can’t expect to average four goals a night all season long and still, at 3.62, the Kings rank third in the NHL on a per-game basis. When the goals aren’t flowing as naturally as they have been, though, there’s a natural inclination for a high-scoring team to push for that offense.

As Todd McLellan put it, sometimes pushing for that extra goal means turning what should be a 50/50 decision to take a risk into a 65/35 decision. That small change makes all the difference.

“We’ve been a team that’s been able to score a lot and it’s been a little tougher to score over the last three games,” McLellan said. “Inevitably, you believe you can still score and your checks and balances get out of order, you start to push to the offensive side of it and you take what’s 50/50 and you turn it into a 65/35 as far as gambling and that’s what we were doing [on Wednesday].”

Photo by Ben Jackson/NHLI via Getty Images

The result was a lot of odd-man rushes against on Wednesday versus Winnipeg. Upon watching the game back yesterday, McLellan felt there were even more than he initially saw.

If you ask the leaders in the room, they were inclined to agree. Defenseman Drew Doughty is one to tell it like it is and he felt there were far to many odd-man rushes against, boiling down to exactly what McLellan mentioned. As a group, in Doughty’s mind, the Kings were too quick to cheat in search of offense. What resulted against was an out-of-character display of what they allowed.

“We’re cheating on pucks and giving up way too many odd-man rushes, especially [against Winnipeg],” Doughty said. “I can’t even remember how many we gave up, it’s not our motto, we’re one of the top [teams] in the league, usually, on odd-man rushes. We can’t be cheating.”

As Doughty said, the Kings are typically quite good in that area, which jives with what McLellan felt as well. It’s an area that is usually a strength for this group. It’s not a perfect stat to support the quotes, but the Kings’ goaltenders rank seventh and 13th in the NHL in terms of fewest rush attempts per/60, via Natural Stat Trick, among 62 goaltenders with at least 300 minutes played. That’s not necessarily odd-man rushes, though, but I think there’s a bit of correlation.

On Wednesday, what is usually a strength was a weakness. McLellan understands there are no perfect hockey games, but when it’s something that is usually a staple of positive, it becomes something that the Kings are quick to address.

“We usually do a fairly good job in limiting other teams’ outnumbered rushes,” McLellan added. “You’re never perfect, that happens in the game, but total when we watched in the video was even more than we thought existed in the game. So, it was a part of the game that we had to address in practice and try and repair it.”

The Kings did certain things designed to work on those areas during yesterday’s practice in El Segundo. It wasn’t a long skate, but it was a fast skate and a purposeful skate. With two days in between games, it presented an opportunity for this group to take the time to work on a specific area of their game that was troublesome.

Internally, the Kings can point to a track record this season that suggests these three games are the aberration, not the norm. I mean, 16-4-3 coming into those games ain’t too bad. That notion gives the team some confidence going forward in being able to correct the areas they need to.

Alex Laferriere – For our group specifically, we know how to win games and obviously we want to win games. Having a short-term memory, forgetting about that, but also using those games and learning from them. We know what we need to do better and go back to what we were doing when we were winning.”

Cam Talbot – I mean, I think this was the first time we’ve lost two in a row and regulation this season, so we’ve been one of the most consistent teams in the league this year. I think that you can see why, the consistency in this team, we come to work every day, the attention to detail and stuff like that, it’s been phenomenal.

Using Talbot and Laferriere as examples here is the perfect reflection of the group, because you’re getting guys at both ends of the spectrum.

Talbot is new to the Kings, but he’s not new to the NHL. He’s been around the block a few times and he’s been through a lot more than a three-game skid.

As a veteran player, he understands the larger picture here. It’s December 15 and the Kings have 56 games remaining on the schedule. That’s a heck of a lot of hockey. There are always ups and downs within a season, peaks and valleys, whatever you want to call them. For a player like Talbot, who has played a number of seasons in this league, he’s able to recognize that and do his best to keep the mood light.

“It’s a long season, there’s going to be peaks, there’s gonna be valleys, it’s managing those emotions during during those situations,” Talbot added. “For myself, I just try to stay even keel. Even when things are going well, I try to do the same thing. You don’t want to get too high throughout the season because then the lows get more.”

For Laferriere, it’s his first time playing professional hockey, let alone NHL hockey. Minus a small cameo in the AHL towards the end of last season, Laferriere entered the NHL straight from the amateur ranks. He’s been impressive in the early goings, with how he’s adjusted to play in the NHL, but he’s also got a pretty good level of maturity for a player in his first professional season.

Perhaps one of the best traits you can have is to lean on the guys who have been here before. Laferriere has a strong group of veteran players around him and he’s looking to them to lead the way.

“I think in these times, you can lean on the veterans, the guys who have been around, to see how they handle these situations,” he added. “We expect a lot more out of our group than what we’ve given the last couple of games, but I think just looking to the older guys, how they handle the situation and what they expect from us, it’s pretty cool to see.”

Looking ahead to tomorrow’s game, the Kings visit Seattle to begin a stretch of seven consecutive divisional games. They’ll look to make that a game of turning things around, with sights on getting back on track.

—

Additionally, Insiders, sharing a piece of information from today, regarding team roster moves.

Goaltender Pheonix Copley exited today’s practice early and will not make the trip to Seattle. He’ll be replaced by goaltender David Rittich on an emergency recall. Defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov has been placed on injured reserve (IR, not LTIR) in a corresponding move.

Will look for more clarity on the situation tomorrow. One thing to note though is that the IR move for Gavrikov is not an indication that his timeline has changed. He is still week-to-week. But, with a week-to-week designation and how that timeline factors into the LAK schedule, it’s not a signal of any change.

More to come there in the morning, as we’ll hear from Todd McLellan in Seattle.

Photo by Ric Tapia/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images