With goals hard to come by, the Kings dive focus into offensive situations in Friday’s practice

Over the first 32 games of the season, through the win over San Jose coming out of the NHL’s holiday break, the Kings were among the NHL’s best teams in 5-on-5 scoring. The Kings averaged three goals per game at 5-on-5, the third highest total in the NHL. Even as the power play was inconsistent, the Kings could rely on 5-on-5 scoring throughout the lineup to carry them through most nights. It was one of the strongest assets of the team and when combined with the team’s bread and butter, which is defensive structure and execution, the Kings were damn effective.

Over the last 11 games, of which the Kings have dropped 10, we’ve naturally seen changes.

In total, the Kings have 24 goals scored over those 11 games. Nine have come via a power-play unit that is now pulling its weight in terms of production, while one came shorthanded into an empty net and 14 came at even strength. Of those goals, four were in Carolina, meaning just 10 have come in the games the Kings lost, an average of one per night. Since December 28, the tables have turned in terms of 5-on-5 scoring.

Since that date, the Kings rank 31st in the NHL in 5-on-5 scoring at 1.44 goals per/60 at 5-on-5, ahead of only the undermanned Chicago Blackhawks.

For myself, the first thing I look to when there’s an upswing or a downturn in goals is what do the underlying numbers say. When the goals are not flowing, a natural starting point is – are the chances still there, they’re just not going in, or are the chances as dry as the goals. The other way, you look for underlying metrics that are either sustainable or unsustainable as a sign of whether or not trends are likely to continue, things like shooting percentage and a disproportate difference between chances and goals scored.

So, using Natural Stat Trick numbers, the Kings have seen a bit of a downswing in terms of scoring chances and high-danger chances, but shot attempts are largely the same.

The Kings averaged 68.3 shot attempts before December 28 and have averaged 68.0 since. Essentially the exact same thing.

In terms of scoring chances and high-danger chances, the numbers are a bit lower than they were prior.

Pre-December 28 – 31.1 SCF/60, 12.3 HDCF/60
Post-December 28 – 26.9 SCF/60, 10.7 HDCF/60.

Still though, that’s a 13 percent decrease in both categories, which is something, but not really explainable for more than a 50-percent decrease in actual goals, especially when the difference in expected goals from the first stretch to the second stretch is even less than that.

I also think that those numbers only tell part of the story.

The above is based entirely on having a shot attempted. Therefore, if the Kings generate a 2-on-1 opportunity but a pass through the slot is broken up by the defenseman, without a shot attempted, it doesn’t actually factor into these totals. Now, that goes for both sets of data, but how often lately have we seen an outnumbered attack that didn’t result in a shot attempt? As the numbers also say, the Kings have actually seen an uptick in odd-man rushes for at even strength from December 28th on, which says the Kings are doing a lot of good things to put themselves into the right positions. When they get there, though, getting the right shot away, and finishing when a shot is taken, have both fallen of late.

That brings us to today’s practice, which had a pretty direct focus.

When you get into the heart of the season, the ability to run extended, hour-long practices goes away. The Kings typically opt to focus on a few, selected drills that have targeted outcomes in mind. While it wasn’t the only thing, the Kings did run calculated 2-on-1, 3-on-1 and 3-on-2 opportunities, with an apparent focus on direct play and getting the puck first on the net, and then in the net, in those situations.

“There was a purpose to practice,” Todd McLellan said today. “There was the pre-practice stuff that was just as important to what we did on the ice……there was purpose. We haven’t had a lot of success scoring lately, but we’ve had multiple opportunities to at least create the scoring chance that hasn’t even happened. Forget about the scoring, just the actual creating the scoring chance, the finish or the execution of the final play to see if the puck will go in the net, we’re not getting that done. We tried to simplify some things today and walkthrough some things.”

It’s a message that seems to have gotten into the minds of the players as well.

“Something coach has been focused on is not passing up our opportunities and being direct,” forward Alex Laferriere said. “Instead of trying to force a pass, try to get a puck to the net and create some havoc in front of the net.”

The players haven’t shied away at all from what’s happened as of late offensively. Anze Kopitar spoke about it candidly after last night’s game, noting the team’s recent success rate on odd-man rushes. That comes down to needing to bury more of their chances, but also in getting more quality shots off from dangerous areas.

Right now, it’s not one player or one line that isn’t converting at the level the Kings know they’re able to.

Over the last 11 games, eight skaters have scored at 5-on-5. Just four have scored more than one, including defenseman Matt Roy who has buried twice. Trevor Moore and Phillip Danault each have a pair, while Adrian Kempe has three. Kempe and Danault are the only two players who have actual goal totals exceeding expected goal totals.

It’s the area of goalscoring that the Kings really honed in on today during practice. An offensive approach, certainly.

“Practice today, it was an offensive mindset,” forward Quinton Byfield said. “When you’re not scoring, as a team we’re not scoring that many goals right now, the sticks get a little bit tighter. Right now, we just want to find ways and get pucks to the net as much as we can. Don’t pass up a good scoring opportunity, just little things like that, be more direct. Todd always says that, just be direct, and that’s something that we’ve got to do. Back to basics and get some greasy goals.”

A pair of veteran players – Adrian Kempe and Phillip Danault – both made mention of the concept of continuing to shoot and focus on shot volume. That seemed to apply both in practice and during games. In practice, the work is great, but at the end of the day, the in-game play is what this whole thing is judged on.

A focus today on shooting, a mentality going into games to shoot the puck. Good underlying signs.

Danault – The more you shoot, at some point it’s going to turn, for sure. The more you shoot in a game, the stats at some point are going to turn out, you’re going to get a tip or something. The more you shoot, the better it is. It’s never easy to score in this league.

Kempe – You try to score as much as you can in practice, but I’ve always been trying to do that. The team isn’t scoring that much and that’s maybe a little bit frustrating. You’ve just got to keep shooting the puck, keep getting it to the net and we’ve got to work on that.

The other key is to improve in these areas without just opening the game up and leaving things exposed at the other end of the ice.

McLellan felt the Kings checked better against Nashville than in losses to Dallas and Detroit and that was certainly true. If you give up two goals, you should win most nights. It was the area that Rob Blake leaned into the most as well, the notion of relying on structure when times get tough. The Kings did do that, and played a much cleaner game defensively, but couldn’t get the production to match. It’s time now to put it all together.

Looking ahead to tomorrow, the task gets no easier with a New York Rangers team that defeated the Kings 4-1 earlier in the season, at Madison Square Garden. The focus today in practice was good. The acknowledgements and missions statements are good. Tomorrow, it’s about taking them and putting them into game action.