Angeles Analysis – 18 Days Later

Wild trip.

If you’re one of the five people who will get that one, kudos. May just be people in my group chat otherwise.

Back on track.

We departed Los Angeles on October 1 and returned on October 18, in the wee hours of the morning.

Long freakin trip, man. Long trip.

For the Kings, it was Quebec City -> Buffalo -> Boston -> Ottawa -> Toronto -> Montreal. I missed Buffalo and added a couple of other stops along the way, but no matter how you skate it, we all spent a lot of time away from home. And, wouldn’t you know it, there is no worse departure city in the NHL than Montreal to fly home from, costing us another hour on the back end. All in all, it was wheels up at 11:48 PM Eastern time, touching down in Los Angeles just shy of 3:00 AM. A long delay, a long flight, thankfully, though, on the back of two points against the Canadiens.

I think we all know things would’ve felt a bit sticky had that game gone the other way. And, despite what was by far the best start to a game the Kings have had this season, they were looking at a 1-0 deficit after a goal against the run of play. They stuck with it, turned 0-1 into 2-1 and eventually came away with a 4-1 victory on a night that I think most would agree was the most complete performance of the season, top-to-bottom.

Before the game, Jim Hiller shared that there would be one lineup change for the Kings – defenseman Jordan Spence would re-enter and defenseman Kyle Burroughs would be out. He was technically telling the truth, as the Kings did keep the rest of their personnel the same. What he did not disclose was that those same 17 skaters + Spence would be deployed completely differently. The Kings changed up all four forward lines and all three defensive pairings. Only the goaltenders, with David Rittich starting and Pheonix Copley backing up, remained the same from Toronto.

It was a bold move, without a practice day, but within that change came familiarity. Quinton Byfield moved back with Anze Kopitar and Adrian Kempe. Kevin Fiala slotted in with Phil Danault and Trevor Moore. Hiller said after the game that Byfield is still a center “all day long” and that he expects him to have a “long career as a center”. In the interim, though, this team obviously needed a jolt. After allowing 14 goals over six periods, it was nice to see that jolt result in a “1” on the scoreboard at the end of the night. It was a much needed 1, and a much needed 2 in the points department.

If you had asked me before Game 1 in Buffalo, I probably would’ve considered six points to be a good trip. Not an exceptional trip, but a good trip. Six points from five road games, in October, will get the job done and keep the ship moving forward. The way those points came was certainly not how it was drawn up. The Buffalo game was probably the sloppiest game the Kings have played this season and that was one of the wins. They scored 7 goals in a game and lost. They drove up the fancy stats, quadrupling their opponent in “expected goals” in a game they lost 6-2. Exactly why I don’t use that stat, when it is mostly used out of context.

I feel like I’m just kind of rambling words onto this page and I guess that’s kind of an embodiment of the trip. It rambled throughout, with some ups and definitely some downs, ultimately winding up in a pretty solid place with a pretty solid return. The Montreal game was one that Jim Hiller called “probably as good of a team win as we’ve had in a long, long time” and while the two points is why they play the games, seeing the Kings look like the Kings again for 60 minutes was perhaps even more important. On the second half of a back-to-back, on Day 17 away from home, it was even more refreshing to see that type of performance delivered, when it would’ve been easy to mail it in. At the very least, it shut up the loudest Twitter mentions, which is a win for us all.

Seeing that one unfold probably allows us for a much needed reflection.

Thursday’s win was encouraging, but it doesn’t change anything. The Kings weren’t in dire straights through four games, as it was often made out to be, but they entered yesterday with things to fix. They still have things to fix. Take a look, though, at Vancouver, Colorado and Nashville, all playoff teams a season ago, who have zero combined regulation victories. Oh the horror. The Kings are fine. They’re figuring some things out. They’re coping with the loss of Drew Doughty. Younger players are finding their place in the lineup and a few are thriving in doing it. Alex Turcotte 3C season. Given an opportunity and excelled and he’ll get more as he continues to grow and develop. We might not havre seen the last of the downs, but we certainly haven’t seen the highest of the highs. 6 of 10 points and I still don’t think we’ve seen the best of this team. Thursday’s win doesn’t make them world beaters, nor would a loss have eliminated the team from contention. It’s early days yet. We’ve seen some wonky results around the NHL, including an 8-7 score here in Kings land. There’s a lot to come, and we don’t know exactly how it’ll shake out. Better to tackle that road with six points in the bank as opposed to four, that much is for sure.

For now, it’s just good to be home.

Kings are back on the ice for practice today at 11 AM at Toyota Sports Performance Center and we’ll take a look at that skate, plus a deeper dive into a couple other storylines over the next few days.