You might be surprised by who's come up aces for the Kings during their post-Trade Deadline, 5-6-1 bust which has dropped them off the playoff table.
Would you believe Anze Kopitar?
The tarnished star leads Los Angeles with five goals since the Deadline.
All season long, everybody from Dean Lombardi to Gustl has been waiting for the eight-time 20-goal scorer to heat up. And when he does, at the boiling point of the year...pretty much everybody else goes cold:
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That, by the way, is a grand total of 25 goals in 12 crucial contests -- five of which came in one game against Winnipeg.
Kopitar is followed by Jarome Iginla, who's provided a boost which most (
including myself) did not expect.
None of this is to excuse Kopitar for his relatively unproductive season or Lombardi for adding just Iginla up front at the Deadline. And this isn't to take anything away from Jeff Carter and Tanner Pearson, who have carried LA's scoring load for most of the year. I realize that I'm focusing on an unfairly small sample size.
It's just something else to laugh about in a season which has strained the senses.
Here's one final statistical tidbit for your amusement: Since the Trade Deadline, the "scorching-hot" Kopitar has a team-worst 7.65 Individual Corsi For/60 and 2.09 Individual Scoring Chances/60, All Situations. The ever-selective shooter is attempting less shots than each member of his blueline.
Naturally, among LA's leaders in iCF60 and iSCF60 during this stretch are Jeff Carter (21.02, 5.66) and Andy Andreoff (17.96, 4.49), who have one empty net goal between them.
Don't try so hard, I guess?
Andreoff, of course, is scoreless in 33 games this season. Carter has just two empty net goals in his last 20.
I can't help but think of the Greek myth Sisyphus when thinking about LA's scoring struggles. Essentially, the gods punished King Sisyphus by forcing him to push a boulder up a hill for eternity. Every time he reached the top, the boulder would roll back down to the bottom.
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Just imagine this boulder as a big fat zero on the scoreboard.
It's been that kind of year for the Kings.
Stats as of 3/28/17, courtesy of Behind the Net, Corsica, Hockey Analysis, Hockey Reference, Natural Stat Trick, NHL.com, Puckalytics, and Sporting Charts.
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