A look inside the Kings power play heading into the final 35 games

Look, it’s no secret that special teams are a major point of emphasis in the latter stages of the 2021-22 season. The players have said it, the coaches have said it, and today’s practice focused on it extensively, both in terms of the power play and the penalty kill.

“A lot of review, a lot of polish up, a few things that will be specific to some of the teams that we’ll be playing against,” Head Coach Todd McLellan said today. “Working off of reads, what’s given to us and what we can take, those general concepts [are what we worked on].”

McLellan and forward Adrian Kempe touched on where they feel the power play needs to improve and adjust, with those quotes found HERE.

Looking at 5-on-5 play, the Kings have been among the NHL’s best this season. The Kings are a top-six team in terms of shot attempts, scoring chances and high-danger chances for on a per-60 minute basis when playing at five per side. I think these metrics need to be interpreted differently when referring to the power play, but it’s not surprising to see Toronto and Edmonton, the NHL’s top two power plays, atop most chance creation charts so far this season. In terms of chances created per 60 minutes, the Kings are among the league’s better teams in those areas on the man advantage as well, which speaks to a couple of the things that McLellan referenced the other day.

As McLellan mentioned, looking at a total of say slot chances, or secondary opportunities, the Kings are right in that conversation among the best in the league. But in terms of goals for, they’re among the league’s lowest, ranking sixth from the bottom on a per-60 basis. The league’s second-lowest shooting percentage on the power play would help to explain the gap between opportunities generated, which the stats say the Kings are getting, and conversion.

Adrian Kempe weighed in yesterday for the first unit, talking about the need to be more direct, as well as the importance of confidence, with the latter certainly relatable. When things aren’t going the way you feel that they should, or you want them to, you start to get frustrated, or you lose confidence in what you’re doing. And confidence is key to scoring goals.

Kempe feels that as the Kings have not put the puck in the net on the power play, confidence has dropped and the focus has deviated from the task at hand.

“When the power play is going well, you score a couple of goals, you get that going again,” Kempe said. “We feel like you have that pressure on you when you’re out there and you don’t execute as well as you want to, and then you get in your own head. We’ve got to keep it simple, move the puck faster, shoot the puck and eventually the goals will come. Don’t try to over-do things, don’t try to look for the hardest plays, I feel like we need to take what we get.”

There was certainly work done to improve on some of those areas, as well as others, during today’s practice, though the matter of confidence isn’t really practicable. It’s when that success does start to come, on a more consistent basis, that confidence is built. Ideally, as that practice turns into in-game success, confidence can build on the man advantage.

Sean Durzi spoke today representing the second unit, one that has seen personnel shuffle and is just starting to find its footing with the rookie defenseman at the helm.

“It’s just building chemistry,” Durzi said of his unit. “Once you get here for a little while, you start to know where guys are, know where you like to shoot and they start to read off of what I do now. When I first came up, I was taking shots in different areas and now you see the net-front guys moving into the right screen and tipping, middle guys are supporting in the right spots. We’re working really hard as a unit and I think that’s going to be very critical, to outwork any PK.”

Getting that power play – and both units at that – to the next level is what could bring the Kings to, well, the next level.

In reality, a regression to the mean would take care of it, but it’s not quite that simple. Even with league-average special teams in the final 35 games, the Kings would be well set up to benefit from that improvement. The Kings have been one of the NHL’s best even-strength teams this season, turning an identity into sustained success while playing 5-on-5 hockey.

Getting an increased input on the man advantage could put things over the top.

“I think, right now, our group at 5-on-5 can probably play with the best of them in the league, we’ve shown it,” Durzi said. “When it comes to special teams, it’s something that I personally think can take us to the next level, that top-tier NHL team level. That’s something I think a lot of guys know and we have the guys to do it, it’s just stringing it together, building chemistry. I think that’s going to be the focus moving forward, the rest of the way here. If we can do that, we can play with the best of them and that wins you games. You see teams that win games on special teams and a lot of our games right now are won five-on-five and even strength.”

The power-play metrics and underlying numbers on chance creation suggest that an improvement could be in the cards, though as always, the proof is in the pudding. The Kings have the NHL’s second-lowest PDO, a de-facto statistic used to measure “luck”. At an average across the league of 1.02, the Kings fall way below that line sitting at .952, indicating that eventually, you’d expect the Kings to trend positively towards that line over time.

It’s important to remember with the metrics, however, that everything is dialed down specifically to shot quality and opportunity. Statistics like expected goals are poorly named, because they’re simply an aggregate of the quality of shot attempt, with each opportunity graded on a scale to quantify its quality. Each statistic provided has value, but also needs to be taken. in the proper context 

Per the model used, if Alex Ovechkin and Zach Dooley have the same one-timer from the left-hand circle, the metrics would label that shot the same way, even though one of those individuals would obviously have a better chance of scoring it. No need to speculate on which is which.

Ovechkin and the Capitals are an interesting comparison too because they are a team with a shockingly similar output on the power play this season. The Kings are averaging 5.5 goals per 60 minutes on the PP this season, compared to 5.4 for the Capitals. The Kings are shooting at a 9.8 percent clip, while Washington is at 9.9 percent. Though traditionally regarded as an elite power-play team, Washington ranks fifth to last in the NHL at 15.5 percent, 0.8 percent worse than the Kings. The Capitals ranked third-best in the NHL last season, showing us just how quickly things can turn.

Comparisons aside, the Kings have targeted the power play as an area of focus here over the final 35 games. It’s something they’re working on during practice. Certainly, there is plenty of unseen work going on off the ice as well. Now, it’s about taking all that work and putting it into game situations.

We’ll get our first look at a power-play unit with a slightly different configuration tomorrow evening against Edmonton, with the league’s second-best PP across from them on the other side of the rink. The Kings tallied three times on a major penaly in Alberta back in early-December so it’s not that much to ask just to get one on the board tomorrow, right?

We’ll see how the hard work and adjustment pay off beginning tomorrow. It’ll be a wild and frantic finish for the Kings, and if the power play comes around down the stretch…..look out!