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Did the Kings Have the Balance?

April 26, 2016, 10:51 PM ET [18 Comments]
Jason Lewis
Los Angeles Kings Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT



The dust has settled on the remnants of the LA Kings season. It is over now, and fans can start to accept some facts. The Kings were not the same. They were eliminated by a very good Sharks team, and much credit is deserved to San Jose for their part in that. However, the Kings were not the same team that we saw achieve greatness several years before.

We are left with a lot of questions, a lot of reflection on what went "Wrong", and ultimately a summer for both fans and management to react and reflect.

Today on LA Kings Insider, Jon Rosen did an absolute must read post on what happened this season and how things sort of spiraled down from the clinching to the final game. If you missed it, click here to go read it.

One simple question, perhaps one far too vague question to ask is simply this: Did the Kings have the balance needed to make a cup run?

There is always a balance to a hockey team. Are they a good offensive team, or rather, a good ENOUGH offensive team to overcome defensive deficiencies? Is the goaltending good enough to overcome a leaky defense? We see cases of each and every kind of team out there. Montreal is a team that relied so heavily on their goaltending, that when it was not there to bail them out, things spiralled entirely out of control. Dallas is an offensive team that has to be incredibly high paced and productive because goaltending and defense is constantly at question.

For the Kings, this balance has always fallen on the defense being good enough to overcome a lack of offensive struggles. That was, for the most part, the case again with the Kings this season. Between a strong and balanced six-man corps of defensemen, good responsible forwards, and goaltending from Jonathan Quick that will get the Kings by most nights, the team was able to handle the rigors of an 82-game season and clinch with ease for once.

During the regular season they ranked 1st in 5v5 goals against per 60 at 1.83, and 17th in goals for per 60 at 2.13. In 2013-14 the Kings only scored 2.03 goals per 60 at even strength while allowing a league best 1.62. So the defensive stalwartism if you will was a little bit better. In 2011-12 it was an even 1.84 and 1.84 for both categories. Thus you could see why the Kings went in that year as an eight seed and rode an incredibly hot goaltender and stretch run to a cup.

Something was different with the Kings this year in the second half. While many pundits, myself included, believed that the Kings would "Turn it on" somehow in the playoffs, there was concern and a REAL deficiency in balance that was perhaps overlooked due to the playoff mystique of the Kings. We can't all bat 1.000 with our predictions, and the Kings often played right into the cliche of coming up big in the big games. But in hindsight, the "What have you done for me lately" attitude and approach may have been more telling than the "These guys will eventually come around because, why wouldn't they?" approach.

What is painfully obvious in hindsight is that the Kings were not as deep, not as threatening, and perhaps not as balanced as many had thought or hoped. Let us not act like the Sharks-Kings series was a total blowout though. It was not. It was a game of inches, and thos inches came on San Jose's masterful powerplay, and also on the back of Martin Jones. The latter of which was not challenged incredibly, but also made the stops he should have made throughout the series.

Still though, watching Drew Doughty eat 30 minutes a night, while a 36-year old Rob Scuderi played around 23 was an awakening of sorts. On a strong team, on a cup-winning team, Rob Scuderi would not be playing that much. While his post-season performance was altogether admirable, it would have been more suited for a 6th defenseman spot. Like Rosen's piece suggests, injuries really ran rampant on the Kings, as did the understandable timidness by Dean Lombardi to go out and actually commit to landing a big UFA defensive rental ala Dan Hamhuis. With Sekera walking and the Kings staring at a draft cupboard that now has one less first round selection and no Roland McKeown, a Hamhuis deal may have seemed way too scary for a system that is already light on pure talent. Any deal for Hamhuis likely started at Adrian Kempe. It was a no-go for them, having already moved hard-working skill forward Valentin Zykov for Kris Versteeg, a player perhaps underutilized for the cost.

All that aside, the acquisition of Lecavalier and Schenn, the addition of Scuderi, and Versteeg, these all seemed like moves that were to supplement an already strong core. However, it became painfully clear that these were more than that, or perhaps became more than that over the course of the stretch run. That should have signaled alarm bells.

When Vincent Lecavalier moved into a top 6 role it should have raised questions. When Luke Schenn and Scuderi both jumped into top 4 roles that too should have raised concern. However, with the Kings there was always the "They will turn it on in the playoffs" or "They are built for a playoff run" that seemed to lessen the could be freak out. It was a hubris that probably hurt the Kings as much as it helped them.

After a steady start to the year, it was clear that wild swings of inconsistency, high peaks and valleys, started settling in.

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While they still ultimately led the league in several analytics categories, there were overlooked red flags in personnel usage and "little things" like closing out games, allowing late period goals, sluggish starts, uncharacteristic breakdowns etc. etc.

All of it circles back to the Kings not necessarily having the ideal balance of things within the roster. The offense was not always there, which has been the case with many an L.A. Kings team. This year, however, the defense also wasn't there at times, and the goaltending also had its challenged despite Quick having his best statistical year since 2011-12.


The defense was far too varied, with too many changes to personnel, and too much volatility amongst depth players. That is evident especially when viewing the corsi against per 60 and comparing it to previous years when the Kings were perhaps at their peak.

(Get out your magnifying glasses...or click on the image to view a larger size...sorry!)

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Should the Kings have done something against tradition? Like play more young players and ease them in? Maybe, maybe not. Coulda, shoulda, woulda. These are all things to mull further. But one thing is apparent: Something was missing this year.

You could say it was defense, you could say it was offense, depth, goaltending etc. etc. but the reality is that they, somewhere along the line, lost that delicate balance of play and resorted to uncharacteristic volatility. The depth was not nearly as strong, the consistency not quite as solid, and the night to night focus on their style of hockey was also not there towards the end. It was probably a little bit of everything listed above that was not quite as good, but the scary part was is that we could not put our finger on what problem it might be night to night. Would it be the penalties? A bad defensive game? A low-scoring game where fans groan in frustration at every missed shot? While you could set your clock by the Kings teams of old, this one was far more varied in its issues, and far more difficult to read as they stepped onto the ice each evening.

What was the balance this season? Were they a team chasing leads with offense? Were they a defensive shut down team that made up for a lack of offense? Were they a dump and grind team? A true north-south team? It is hard to answer that question, and it will be one that the Kings no doubt ask themselves this offseason. They still have a tremendous core to build around, but the pieces to supplement the core are going to need tweaking.

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