Angeles Analysis – A Few Thoughts On Where We’re At

Prolly not a ton to write here that you’re going to want to hear, is there? But, I haven’t really just written a ton during the current stretch. A few scheduled stories that made the most sense on certain days and a ton of interviews from practices & morning skates and here we are on that front.

For today, just some thoughts from the plane last night and anything that maybe changed after a few hours of sleep.

For starters, I thought the Kings played pretty well last night. For me, it might’ve been the best performance of the seven, against one of the best – and arguably the hottest – teams in the NHL. A lot of the things that happened last night were things that you’d equate with a win. Florida is one of the most physical and tight-checking teams in the NHL and the Kings matched them every step of the way in those departments. They seemed to not only accept that style but embrace it. Everything the Kings got offensively felt earned. Nothing they gave up felt cheap. Can paint the picture of a job well done.

Right now though, even performances that you’d equate with a win are turning up in a loss column. And that’s what’s tough for this group right now.

There aren’t moral victories in the NHL. It’s a well-deserved point, sure, but it’s a night and a performance when two points would’ve felt really, really good. When you ask the standard question of was that a point won or a point lost, the level of play probably says a point earned but everything right now feels like the glass is half empty. If you put that loss in mid-November, with the run the Kings were on, we’d be talking about a playoff-type game early in the season. You’d see those “would love to see those two teams in the Stanley Cup Final” tweets. Two great teams, high intensity, every inch on the ice was earned. When that exact same game falls after six straight defeats, the conversation is naturally much different. Because, when it’s six straight defeats, the conversation around how that specific game actually went doesn’t seem to matter quite as much. Because, at the end of the day, a loss is a loss and the same narratives from the games prior continue to fester, regardless of whether or not they impacted that game……and when you amplify that x7, it becomes difficult to hear much else over the noise. Because, as Todd McLellan said before the game, we’re ultimately in a results-driven business and the results right now are what they are.

The Kings haven’t played 0-7 hockey but they’ve lost seven straight hockey games. That’s the reality of the results. Points in four of the seven takes away a bit of the sting, but they’re in search of two points on one night more than anything right now. That’s the number that’ll allow for a nice, deep breath.

The mood after last night’s game was that of a team that’s on the cusp of working their way out of where they’re at. Of the seven defeats, six have come by a single goal. Four have come via either overtime or the shootout. Even the Toronto game, a 3-0 defeat, was a disallowed goal in the third period away from an interesting finish. You don’t typically see a ton of losing streaks come the way this one has for the Kings.

After yesterday’s game, McLellan was asked if that was the most frustrating of the seven games, because of how the team played. He didn’t feel that it was, pointing to the Washington game where the loss came late in regulation, as opposed to overtime. He added that if the performance from last night came in Tampa Bay or Florida, among others, we probably wouldn’t be talking about a losing streak at all here this afternoon. Yet, here we are, in Detroit, looking towards tomorrow’s rematch against the Red Wings to be the night the Kings get back in the win column.

It’s a tough place to be in, without a doubt, and it’s a place this group has never been in together. Last season, the longest losing streak was three games. You’d have to go back to the 2018-19 season for the last time the Kings lost seven consecutive games. That was a bad team. This is not. My opinion doesn’t really matter all that much more than anyone’s down below, but I think there are solutions within the room, with the personnel currently in place. I get it. You could make a couple of moves here, a couple of alterations there, that might work. They also might not. We’ve all got a couple of ideas, but I’d argue that without a single change to the personnel at all, the Kings brought enough not to be 0-7 in those games. They have enough, without a single change, to not let seven become eight, and to not let another streak begin once they snap this one. The team as assembled, in my opinion, is good enough to get back to where they’re capable of, with the players and coaches in the building now.

So, what’s to be done differently?

For starters, finish. Over the seven games, the Kings are shooting at a clip of just over six percent in all situations and 4.6% at 5-on-5. They rank 31st in the NHL in both metrics. Coming in, this is a team that was shooting at 10.6% percent at all strengths and 8.9% at 5-on-5. Both nearly double. The puck isn’t going in right now at the clip that it was earlier in the season. There’s a bit of an element of luck to it, with a PDO of .963, but you make your own luck too. They’ve had looks to get from 2 to 3 and haven’t gotten them to drop. The Kings will have to shoot their way out of it to up the offensive production.

As noted in yesterday’s game preview, managing and holding leads is a priority. In speaking with Phillip Danault, he felt the Kings played better with a lead yesterday than they have been. I think that’s accurate. The goal against to tie the game felt like a tip your cap level of execution in a 6-on-5 situation. Elite player getting a stick on a shot from just outside the crease. It may have been involuntary, but there were spells of layoff in past games with a lead and the Kings have led in 5 of the 7 games. There were nervy moments last night, but the mentality was generally good.

There’s also the notion of overtime play, as the Kings carry a record of 2-8 in games that go past 60 minutes. That .200 winning percentage is the lowest in the NHL, with a 1-4 mark each in overtime and the shootout. If there’s a spin zone here, the last time a team finished with a winning percentage below .200 was the 2014-15 season. Ironically enough, it was the LA Kings that did so. I wasn’t here, but my guess would be that the overtime record was a heck of a talking point that season, considering how it eventually played out. Historically speaking, even bad overtime teams typically sort it out 100+ percentage points higher than where the Kings are at right now. Over the past two seasons, the Kings have been a middle of the pack overtime team, at 19-21 in games decided in OT/SO. So, there’s certainly concern, but it’s also an area the Kings will have to work their way through. 3-on-3 play is different. It’s not typically a part of too many practice plans, especially right now when practice time is quite bare. There have been missed chances and missed coverages. Posts hit, both for and against. Is it bounces, luck, personnel, strategy, approach…..something else? I don’t have the answer here, but it’s an area that’s coming up more and more, and an area the Kings ultimately know needs to be better.

Right now, it only takes one game to calm the waters a bit. Then we go on. One win doesn’t automatically quell the games that preceded it, but it would go a long way towards simply getting everything back on track. For now, the words are the words and we’ll leave it at that until tomorrow.

Kings touched down in Detroit after 2 AM last night and arrived at the hotel close to 3 AM. Scheduled day off today in the Motor City. Back on the ice tomorrow morning before taking on the Red Wings, game preview to come in the AM!