Consistency has been elusive for the Kings, but a roadmap back exists, approaching Game 4

Football coach and administrator Jim Tressel once remarked; “The hallmark of excellence, the test of greatness, is consistency.”

Pretty sure Tressel wasn’t talking about the Los Angeles Kings or their power play which is currently 0-for-10 in the playoffs heading into Game 4 Sunday night at crypto.com Arena. Or the Kings’ penalty kill that is operating at .500 efficiency having allowed seven Edmonton power play goals on 14 opportunities. Or, for that matter, the team’s 6-1 loss in Game 3 that allowed Edmonton to take a 2-1 series lead.

But he could have been.

In fact it’s hard to imagine a collection of words that would apply more directly to this Los Angeles Kings season as a whole but specifically what has transpired through the first week of the playoffs.

Consistency. Greatness. And if you have lost your way, how do you find your way back to the kind of consistency that you know exists and will be needed to rise back up in this best-of-seven series?

“It’s hard to be consistent over a long period of time but in the playoffs you expect that, because it’s just a race to four wins, that you’re going to have that night after night,” Kings head coach Jim Hiller said Saturday morning.

The coach admitted he had difficult sleeping after Friday’s disappointing loss that saw the Oilers take a 3-0 lead into the first intermission and the Kings once again come out on the wrong side of the special teams battle allowing three power play goals in a game for the second time in the series.

And this after the Kings had done such an admirable job of responding in Game 2 after a different but equally disappointing loss in Game 1.

“We got our blueprint back in Game 2,” Hiller said. “So, disappointed, frustrating last night for sure. We had all those emotions. We went through that already this morning and now we turn the page once again just like we did in Game 1, we were down by a game came back and played a good game got it even and that’s just the same challenge for us tomorrow.”

Hiller wasn’t the only one who had difficulty digesting the disappointment of Game 3. He wasn’t the only one who was dogged by thoughts of how Game 3 had unfolded.

“After a game like that you go home and you’re really frustrated,” Adrian Kempe who has been one of the most consistent offensive producers for the Kings in this series with three goals and an assist.

“I can only speak for myself, real frustrated by your game and how it went,” the underrated forward said. “Kind of felt like you were in the game and then all of a sudden you’re not in the game. The last 10 minutes felt like it took 45 minutes to play so it was pretty frustrating.”

But, like Hiller and the rest of the team, Saturday marked a new dawn and a chance to reflect, digest and then flush the events of the night before.

The team chose not to skate but rather discussed the path forward.

“I think addressed it this morning pretty well,” Kempe said. “Feel like everybody came to the rink, tried to regroup here, everybody seems positive and try to leave that game behind us. Obviously look at some video stuff that we can do better look at the good things and then new game tomorrow so we have to not forget about this one but regroup and be excited to play tomorrow again.”

The Game 1 loss felt huge because it was the first game of the playoffs yet that was immediately negated by the strong play of the Kings in Game 2, a game in which Los Angeles took a 3-1 first period lead and never trailed. The Game 3 loss, lopsided and at home, has forced the Kings into regroup mode once again and the urgency factor multiplied lest the Kings fall behind 3-1 and facing a trip back to Edmonton for Game 5 on Wednesday.

Tressel said that consistency is the hallmark of greatness but he didn’t say how hard it would be to get there, to achieve that level of play night in and night out at the most important time of the season, or to retrieve such consistency when it goes AWOL.

“We think we have a plan and a recipe that’s going to lead to success,” Hiller said “We didn’t follow it well enough last night and in the first period specifically. We know what we have to do we just have to do it better and sometimes I don’t know if it’s the emotion of the home crowd. That was the disappointing part is we expected that that game would go a lot different from the drop of the first puck.”

Halfway through a series it’s not about making wholesale changes but recommitting to those moments when the team has been at its most consistent and effective, not just in this playoff series but in the regular season and even during the last two playoff series against the Oilers.

“Our team identity is to play a little more grinderish,” offered Blake Lizotte. “I’ve played the 1-3-1 for four years now. Best part of our identity is playing tight checking and not maybe so much on gambling on scoring five or six. We’re not going to win many when we give up four or five. The recipe for success for us is to stay five-on-five and win a game 3-2. Once the scoring gets up to five, six, with the skill level they have in their top three or four guys, it’ll be tough for us to win games.”

In terms of specifics, the path back for the Kings is pretty simple and was visible for a brief period of time in the second period of Game 3 and for most of Game 2.

Forecheck relentlessly and create offense from turnovers both in the offensive zone and the neutral zone. Keep the Oilers from moving through the neutral zone with speed. Get timely scoring especially when the matchups are favorable for the Kings and especially with talented forwards like Kevin Fiala, P.L. Dubois and Trevor Moore who have combined for three goals and zero assists in three games. Discipline is critical, that goes without saying. And getting a power play goal will be crucial to finding the level of play that will give the Kings their best opportunity at tying this series up Sunday night.

Kempe believes it’s going to happen for the power play in spite of the current drought.

“I think it’s just about getting the first one and after that I think we’ll be fine,” Kempe said.

The rest? Well the pieces to the puzzle are there, can they be cast together to form the picture needed by this team remains unknown.

“I personally think it’s ridiculous to think this series is over,” Lizotte said. “It’s 2-1. Yeah it wasn’t a good game but it’s one game. We’ve got a chance to win tomorrow night and bring it 2-2 back to Edmonton. I think we would take that at the beginning of the series. I think our confidence in our guys to keep this series alive is high we just have to go out and execute.”