After the Ottawa loss, Kings in search of a return to defensive stability

Been an interesting trip, hasn’t it? The Kings have four of a possible six points here through the first three games. If you offered up that split last week I think most of us would’ve taken it. Pretty good haul from three road games on the East Coast.

The path to getting there, though, hasn’t been what that point total would suggest.

Four points from six games, sure, but we have not yet seen the best game the Kings have in their arsenal. And that’s by their own admission.

What does that say about this team?

“It’s what you have to do in this league sometimes,” defenseman Mikey Anderson said. “Sometimes things aren’t going well and you’ve got to find a way to get anything you can from it. We’re fortunate to have played two games we don’t like that much and still find a way to come up with something. It’s still early, we’re going to learn as we go and guys are going to keep giving more and we’ll keep growing.”

The win over Buffalo was fortunate in many ways. Certainly not how the Kings drew it up but heroics from Darcy Kuemper and Anze Kopitar helped earn the two points. I thought Boston was the best performance to date, as the Kings played in a physical and tightly-contested game and held their own against one of the best teams in the East. Very positive in terms of a step forward.

Then there was yesterday afternoon in Ottawa.

The Kings broke out offensively with seven goals, three of which came from a highly-productive power play, but the Kings lost that game. Burying seven and losing – though they did outscore the Dodgers – is not an outcome you’d have likely expected. Canadian Thanksgiving gets wild sometimes, I guess.

Just a bananaland kind of game.

It’s hard to evaluate it as a one-goal loss, because of the frustrations in allowing eight. I honestly don’t think the message from the players would have been all that different in an 8-7 win, with only the overtime session different than yesterday. It still would have been a game they were displeased with.

“It’s definitely a weird game to look at, it’s something that I’ve definitely never been a part of,” forward Alex Laferriere added. “I think there’s some positives and a lot of negatives……I think it’s just, you get a point and as bad as it was, you got a point. Now, we can look back, look at the clips and improve on it.”

Adrian Kempe used the word “unacceptable” to describe that game shortly after it concluded.

I thought that quote was important for a few reasons. Kempe is an evolving leader on this team and he will wear an “A” at home while Drew Doughty is out of the lineup. A couple years ago, I’m not sure he would’ve delivered the same message, but on a night when he scored his first of the season, when he added an assist for a multi-point game and when his line scored two goals 5-on-5, Kempe was focused only on the number on the other side of the scoreboard.

The side of the scoreboard that ended the afternoon displaying an 8, a defensive display Kempe called “careless”.

As he added onto, it’s more than just the eight though.

If the Kings play the same way, they won’t give up eight goals every game, but it certainly does not make it a recipe for success.

Through three games, the Kings rank among the NHL’s bottom-five teams in several defensive categories, most notably shot attempts against from the slot. No matter how you shake it out, how you want to quantify the attempts, what conditions you want to apply, the Kings are simply giving up far too many chances from that area of the ice.

The goal entering this season was to find the right balance between maintaining a defensive level that was the calling card of this group last season, while also trying to find more offense. The defensive performance last season was excellent, and it’s the identity the Kings have tried to maintain. It’s understandable that there could be some slippage, in a pursuit of offense, but it’s been much more open than the Kings want it to be.

“I think we have to look all of ourselves in the mirror and realize that’s not what our identity is and we’ve got to find it again,” defenseman Brandt Clarke said. “Once we do that, we’ll get back on the right track, but yeah, it’s not what happened [in Ottawa]……we didn’t stick to our identity and it cost us big time.”

Perhaps it was too ambitious to expect things to happen overnight.

A neutral-zone system change, some different principles in other areas, the loss of defenseman Drew Doughty early in training camp, younger players assuming roles on the blueline they weren’t initially slotted for, forward lines that hadn’t really played together……the list goes on. Maybe we underestimated some of those factors, but this league doesn’t wait for you. Results today are as important as they are in April.

Thankfully, as noted above, the results have been fine. Four points of a possible six, with both dropped points coming in 3-on-3 situations. Pretty good return.

The best time to look for a job is when you already have a job, so they say. The best time to work on these types of areas are in situations like this, before it’s cost you in the standings. So far, it hasn’t. But the Kings know that will change without course correction.

“I think a couple of different factors go into it, but one, I think, is just the willingness to want to do it,” Anderson said. “Making sure you’re staying within the structure we want, maybe got a little too loose throughout Ottawa. Very unorthodox game, so just reset and look at more of what we did in Boston, keep it a little tighter and try to do that a little bit more.”

With Toronto on the docket tomorrow, the Kings are facing one of the NHL’s most prolific offensive squads.

It’s a team that will make you pay if you concede enough outnumbered opportunities in dangerous areas of the ice.

As far as what to focus on, it’s not just one area.

Anderson spoke about some of the odd-man rushes as a “trickle down”. Perhaps the mistake came on the forecheck. Perhaps it was a bad pinch from a defenseman. Perhaps it broke down in the neutral zone. Lots of areas that can lead to different situations and all of these plays are situational.

“It comes from all different sorts,” he added. “Defense as a whole, it’s a full group effort, full rink. I think everyone has a little bit more to give and everyone’s going to give it tomorrow.”

There’s the last part – everyone’s going to give it tomorrow.

In the Maple Leafs, few teams get look from the slot better than Toronto and they’ve got more players than most who are equipped to convert in those situations. It doesn’t all need to come in one game, but you want to see progress, see strides, see the commitment we’ve always seen from this club. The sooner the Kings can rediscover that balance and find the mentality they showed in Boston, the sooner we’ll put two-point conversions in the past.