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Finding Muzzin & Martinez

February 23, 2017, 3:39 PM ET [18 Comments]
Sheng Peng
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Three months ago, I wrote "Muzzin and Martinez have been LA's most consistent pairing."

That statement appears laughable now -- the pair has just been split up and own the worst plus-minus numbers among Los Angeles defensemen. Now I'm not a big believer in judging players with plus-minus -- and I believe my statement about their consistency was valid at the time. Compare their Corsi For %, Scoring Chances For %, and Expected Goals For % together from the first quarter of the season to today (all stats from Corsica):

View post on imgur.com


The wild swing of those relative figures also give us this insight: As the team has improved, Muzzin-Martinez have declined.

Anyway, Darryl Sutter broke down his second pairing's recent defensive struggles to LA Kings Insider:

"First and foremost, [Muzzin] has to be a physical player. That doesn’t mean tramping or running over guys, but you have to be able to absorb it, to make plays, and then when it’s there, also initiate it...

"Marty, he relies on his skating and being really mentally sharp, and I think he’s made a lot of mistakes that are mental mistakes."


So for Muzzin, you want to see him win the one-on-one battles. This is just a minor example from last month -- he loses to Mikkel Boedker at the blueline:



As for Martinez, you don't want to see gambles like this one from last week:



So what happened to this pairing, which had been counted on so heavily? Remember that they've faced the toughest zone starts among Kings blueliners -- a sign of Sutter's trust in them. Muzzin offered:

"We get frustrated and down on ourselves...Try to do too much and then we end up making errors and forcing plays."


I can see how that might happen: Case in point, the Brendan Perlini goal from above. Muzzin can't expect Martinez to get beat like that -- and he recovers reasonably well, correctly assigning Christian Dvorak to his backcheckers, while forcing immediate danger Perlini into a stoppable shot -- only to see Peter Budaj let it slip by.

That happening over and over again, as it seems to have this season to Muzzin or Martinez, could change one's approach. Such a change might erode the foundation of a strong defense, which is based on trusting your teammate -- whether it's your backchecking forward, D-partner, or goalie -- to do his job.

It's worth noting, however, that LA's 5v5 scoring chances against figure is as low as it's been since 2011-12 -- so Muzzin-Martinez's troubles are relative to a team more or less as tight defensively as ever. In other words, they've made glaring mistakes, but they're still key, working components.

But certainly, both must be more consistent. If they can approach past heights -- Muzzin's performance last season earned him a Team Canada World Cup spot, while Martinez was playing at an All-Star level earlier this year -- watch out. This is the kind of dynamic physicality, mobility, and puck-moving they can deliver:










There's been an intense spotlight on getting the team's stumbling forwards going -- Anze Kopitar, Marian Gaborik, Tyler Toffoli, to name a few -- and rightly so. But whether or not Muzzin and Martinez can find their game on a consistent basis will be just as critical to where the borderline Kings finish.



Stats as of 2/22/17, courtesy of Behind the Net, Corsica, Hockey Analysis, Hockey Reference, Natural Stat Trick, NHL.com, Puckalytics, and Sporting Charts.

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