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The Eastern Conference leading Pittsburgh Penguins are in Tinsletown to take on the Los Angeles Kings. This is a matchup that pits two of the more talented teams in the NHL against one another.
The Penguins and Kings will be sending 13 players to Sochi Russia for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games. Those players are Anze Kopitar, Drew Doughty, Jeff Carter, Jonathan Quick, Dustin Brown, Slava Voynov, Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Chris Kunitz, Olli Maatta, Jussi Jokinen, Brooks Orpik, and Paul Martin.
Both teams have as good a chance as any to raise the Stanely Cup at the end of the season.
Presently the Los Angeles Kings are going through a rough patch; they are only 1-6 in their last 7 games.
But there are signs that lead me to believe that their struggles are an anomaly.
The Kings are the most dominant puck possession team in the NHL, they also have the best goaltending in the NHL, so what gives?
The Kings are currently ranked 29th in team shooting percentage at even strength. They shoot at a lowly 6.4% clip.
Given the amount of talent on the Kings roster it would be very surprising to me if the Kings hovered around the bottom for the entire season.
I am very confident that the Kings will remain a top possession team and also continue to receive top notch goaltending. I predict that their shooting percentage will improve as the year goes on. That makes for a perfect storm come playoff time for the Kings, they will be an extremely dangerous team in the spring.
The following charts that I am going to use will display the season long PDO levels for the LA Kings and Pittsburgh Penguins. PDO is considered a “luck” stat. It combines both save percentage and shooting percentage together. No matter how high or how low a team’s PDO gets, the tendency is to regress back to the 100 level. Using PDO you can predict when teams are due for a hot streak and when they are due for a cold streak. Its not an absolute but it’s a nice barometer.
For instance, if you have a team that is not a good possession team and their PDO is sky high, expect that team to crash down to earth. If you have a team like the Kings who are a top possession team and they have a low PDO, expect them to go on a run in the near future.
In December the Kings started the month 9-1, that coincides with the huge spike in PDO. On December 21st at the apex of the spike the Kings beat the Avs in a shootout 3-2. After that game their PDO plummets. The Kings went on a 5 game losing streak and would go 5-11-2 in their next 18 games.
The Kings are going to turn it around eventually, does it start tonight with the Penguins?
Conversely, lets take a look at the Penguins season and their PDO
Remember way back at the beginning of the season when the Penguins were dominating play but weren’t scoring any goals (IE: 1-0 Avalanche game)? This chart represents that cold stretch of bad luck for the Penguins.
Fast forward to later in the season and you can see the time frame when the Penguins had Sidney Crosby doing his thing while James Neal and Evgeni Malkin were on absolute fire. This was right before the time when the bottom 6 forward grouping started to tank.
December 19th was when the goal scoring stopped for the bottom 6 forwards. Once the bottom 6 stopped producing all together you can see the Penguins PDO start to drop.
On top of the bottom 6 offense going stale, the Penguins are giving up the most goals per game they have all year in the month of January, the dropping save percentage is reflected in the most recent dip as well.
PDO isnt an end all be all statistic but it can help with understanding trends over the course of an 82 game season.
For you gambling folks it can be a very lucrative tool.
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Here are the poll results from the past 2 days:
Matt Moulson is the runaway winner in this poll over Steve Ott. The majority of the people that voted would rather utilize the trickle-down effect to improve the Penguins bottom 6 forward grouping.
The voting was much closer in the Brad Boyes poll. A majority believe that Ray Shero should inquire about the availability of Boyes but there is certainly a large section of the Hockeybuzz community who feel that the Penguins should steer clear of the former 40 goal scorer.
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Here is your game preview for tonight:
Line Combos
Kunitz-Crosby-Gibbons
Jokinen-Malkin-Neal
Glass-Sutter-Megna
Pyatt-Adams -Engelland
Orpik-Martin
Scuderi-Letang
Maatta-Niskanen
Power Play 1
Neal-Crosby-Kunitz
Letang-Malkin
Projected lineup for the Kings
King-Kopitar-Carter
Brown-Richards-Williams
Clifford-Stoll-Lewis
Nolan-Fraser-Toffoli
Muzzin-Doughty
Regehr-Voynov
Mitchell-Greene
1st Power Play
Richards-Kopitar-Carter
Voynov-Doughty
Injuries
Tomas Vokoun has started to take shots from teammates. He still has a long way to go before he can start to practice in a full capacity.
Fenclose %
The Penguins find themselves in 11th place overall and outside of the top 10 for the first time this season at 51.9%
The Kings are a possession machine and are ranked #1 in the NHL. They are at an amazing 56.1%.
Power Play
The Penguins are first overall on the power play at 24.3%
The Kings are a very surprising 28th overall with 13.4%. You would think the Kings power play would be a lot better given the talent they possess.
Penalty Kill
Penguins still maintain the best power play and penalty kill in the league as the Pens PK is 1st overall at 87.6%.
The Kings are much better on the PK than they are on the power play. The Kings rank 6th overall on the PK at 84.4%
Even Strength Save Percentage
The Penguins rank 23rd overall with .914%
The Kings are ranked 2nd overall with .939%.
The kings have received quality goaltending no matter who they have inserted into the lineup this season. Much of that can be traced to the fact that they are the #1 possession team in the NHL and their goaltenders do not get overworked on a regular basis but it also has to do with the fact Jonathan Quick is a tremendous goalie as well.
Marc Andre Fleury is also at .919% at even strength.
Trends
Penguins are 9-1 in their last 10 vs. Pacific
Kings are 5-2 in their last 7 vs. Metropolitan
Kings are 1-6 in their last 7 overall
Kings are 0-4 in their last 4 vs. Eastern Conference
Penguins are 5-1 in the last 6 meetings
Home team is 4-1 in the last 5 meetings
Stats courtesy of Covers.com
Thanks for reading!
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