The season is in full swing. The Kings are on a roll. All cylinders seem to be firing currently, and the wins keep on coming.
The team is on a five-game win streak, they are 7-2-1 in their last 10, and the offense is starting get spread over more and more players. The Carter line continues to be an offensive threat, and now we are seeing offense chip in from the first and third lines as well.
More recently though, the Kings have been getting scoring from the blueline. The Kings have actually received goals from every defencemen except Jamie McBain in the last three games. Six of their 11 total goals scored in the last three games have come off the stick of a defenseman.
One of those defensemen who has jumped on the score sheet twice in the last three games, and in three of his last five, is Christian Ehrhoff.
The 33-year old vet has looked much better as of late, and Sutter has rewarded him with a return in elevated time on ice.
His season has been a bit up and down so far overall.
Many fans were excited when the Kings picked up Ehrhoff. Why wouldn't you be? The Kings blueline is one that historically lacks a scoring touch. They were one of the lowest scoring bluelines in the league last year, and Ehrhoff is a player capable of injecting a little scoring and puck-moving touch. The team was also looking desperately for someone to take minutes away from Drew Doughty.
At the beginning of the season this very much looked to be the case, as Sutter laid on multiple games of 20+ minutes on Ehrhoff. That stretch of the first three games of the season against Vancouver, San Jose, and Arizona may have been the worst stretch of games for the Kings this year. While Ehrhoff did not look bad, he certainly did not look like a player capable of playing 20+ minutes on the second pair.
Because of that, the veteran has been shuffled heavily in the lineup. He has played on just about every pairing, from first to press box. He has also logged at least a game's worth of time six King defenseman (Doughty, Muzzin, Martinez, McBain, Schultz, Forbort). He has settled in on a partnership with Jamie McBain that has been altogether fruitful for the Kings as a bottom pair. The duo are currently posting 57.2% corsi for percentage and a 66.6 goals for % when on ice together. Brief partnerships with Muzzin and Forbort were also statistically good, but little offense was being generated.
He actually did not settle in with McBain immediately. Ehrhoff has been a healthy scratch for the Kings four times this year in favor of the young Derek Forbort. While overall this move may have upset some pundits and fans, it was not unjustifiable given the curious and somewhat replaceable numbers and play that he was bringing to the table.
Despite a recent turnaround in his exit numbers over the last six to eight games, Ehrhoff remains one of the Kings most risky outlet defensemen. He is last amongst the regular defenseman, only managing to exit the zone around 65% of the time via the pass. The team average on the season for defensemen has been around 75.
He also saw a real dip in his scoring chance differentials and corsi for numbers.
View post on imgur.com
View post on imgur.com
So while it was curious to see the prominent off-season acquisition acquiesce his position in the lineup, it was not without justification. We have said it multiple times before, Darryl Sutter is a smart coach. He makes the right calls most of the time. While we can quibble over his lineup decisions on the fourth line currently, these are minor things on an altogether sturdy lineup that has been handled well.
For whatever reason, be it via watching a few games in early to mid November from the press box or some other coaching help, Ehrhoff has started to pick it back up. While that's bad news for Forbort, it is good new for the 33-year old German.
The Kings run a difficult breakout scheme, one we have talked about heavily in the past on this very blog.
In games where Ehrhoff has struggled, like both matchups against Carolina for example, he looked like he was trying to do way too much. These, however, are games stylistically that the Kings struggle in as a whole. Carolina's soft forechecking style gives the Kings fits, takes away options from outletting defenseman frequently, and makes them try and thread a needle. Ehrhoff obliged because, by style, he is an aggressive defenseman.
The result was not always pretty.
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Again though, recently, Ehrhoff has had games where he has looked more settled in and more comfortable with the puck. He is an outright aggressive dman who loves to join the attack. However, picking your spots is always the key element. With points in three of his last five, and an overall bump in ice time, maybe he and Sutter are both starting to get more comfortable with his game. The Kings coaching staff really pushed Ehrhoff out the gate with little to no warm up to the system. It is almost expected that he took a dip in form and is now slowly climbing his way back into things in the Kings lineup.
While he may have only settled into a third pair role with the Kings rather than a top four, he is still an important cog to the Kings even strength and powerplay crew. With a healthy, productive, and comfortable Christian Ehrhoff, the Kings may have one of the best blueline corps in the West. All credit to Jamie McBain as well, who has come in and looked like a much cleaner and less risky player in 2015-16. His emergence and partnership with No. 10 should not be underappreciated.
How will the duo, and Ehrhoff specifically, progress through the rest of the season? While it probably won't be close to the 40-50 point range this blogger so boldly predicted at the start of the year (Hey, they were supposed to be BOLD predictions!), a mildly productive addition to the Kings back end will go a long way in balancing out scoring, and eating valuable minutes against difficult opponents. His ZSO is amongst the softest on the Kings right now, as is his Corsi QoC (Quality of Competition). Maybe we start seeing slight adjustments from Sutter in order to again try to balance out pairings and attempt to limit the ungodly 30 minutes a night Drew Doughty has again been playing.
Slowly but surely he seems to be figuring things out, and that is big.
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