While in a whole it was not a bad road trip for the Kings, who went 3-2-1 in the six games, their were two games in particular that left a bad taste in the mouth of the team and the fans.
We are, of course, referencing the 3-5 loss on the 14th at the hands of the Ottawa Senators, and the final game of the road trip on Saturday against the Toronto Maple Leafs in which the team lost 5-0.
While the narrative can write itself for the most part, being that the team was on the longest road trip of the season against hungry and motivated teams, there were some pretty basic X and O style breakdowns that occurred that are of interest.
First off, the games in which the Kings struggled were two very different games. You could also say they struggled against Montreal but were bailed out by an unreal performance by Jonathan Quick, but the games in which they lost to Ottawa and Toronto, they were two very different games.
Let's look at Ottawa first, because this is a more basic sort of counterattack style that can give the Kings issues, and has in the past.
The Sens basically played a rope-a-dope style game, looking to use their speed and the Kings over aggressiveness in the offensive zone against them. On the 4-1 goal by Mike Hoffman, this became painfully clear.
While you can say that breakdowns occur within the defending team zone 90% of the time maybe, this one occurs at the other end of the rink. At the time it was a seemingly meaningless dump in off the stick of Brayden McNabb. The Kings are down 3-1, they want to be aggressive, so they commit two forecheckers on the play: Anze Kopitar and Marian Gaborik.
Problem here is that A) it was a pretty bad dump in play, B) the forewards were nowhere close to getting to that puck C) they committed two forwards down low which were easily bypassed by a simple, low threat outlet pass.
The minute that play was made, the break was on. Ottawa was able to build an outnumbered attack through the neutral zone, with a mobile defenseman activating into the play.
It was a 4v3 from the moment the puck left the stick of a player behind the goal line. Transition game beating aggressive forechecking at its absolute finest.
Controlled entries are always a better option than a dump play, but in this game, the mindset from the Kings and the message from Darryl Sutter was almost certainly "Get pucks in deep and bang bodies." Like a boxer, Ottawa was waiting on these kinds of plays, waiting for the Kings to overcommit, and it happened.
It happened more than once as well.
From a coaching standpoint, this one had to be a touch more frustrating.
Short version: Kings players went for an ill-advised change.
Long version: It starts again with an overpursuit by Nolan and Andreoff. Andreoff being probably the most heinous of culprits. With the Kings looking to be aggressive, Nolan commits on a forecheck in an effort for his linemates to change. This is pretty standard practice. After pushing them back, Nolan himself goes for a change, as does Kopitar. Andreoff flies into the play and immediately makes this an odd man rush situation with a good and pretty low risk breakout. It's a small play but you've got a big problem when this happens.
All three Kings forwards are below the opposing blue line without the puck! That is a bad sign! The other two forwards are just now jumping off the bench closer to the center line but they are still, by default, behind the play that is about to go up ice. That is trouble.
That is a straight up 5-man attack coming at you. For the Kings, even in a best case scenario where Toffoli is able to get back into the play, it's a 5-on-4 break with Erik Karlsson on the puck. Forget it. Also, from an individual standpoint, Forbort affords Karlsson way way too much space on this place.
On a complete side note, this is why plus-minus can be an incredibly bad way of gauging a good or bad night defensively. Notice how neither Kopitar, Andreoff or Nolan are on the ice in this play, yet that line is the one that committed the penultimate error in the goal against? Toffoli and Carter take the minus on the play having made no actual error.
Watch the play in full back at the top and watch how wide open Turris gets due to the activated defensemen.
So these are two examples of the full-200 foot game coming to fruition. These were not breakdowns in the defensive zone. They were breakdowns in THE OFFENSIVE zone, strangely enough.
Let us go to the other game, where the Kings were lit up in the defensive zone. The Maples Leafs were, for most of the game, attempting to win battles on the halfwall. This was not working out through the first 30 minutes of the game. The Kings were taking away the boards, not allowing dump ins, and basically denying entries that were coming from the outside in or from the side down low.
Babcock, maybe by accident or maybe by design, switched it up about halfway through the game and started pushing play through the center with multiple forwards. This was done in order to open up the defense. Overall it led to some spacing issues with the Kings in their own zone. With multiple forwards driving through the center, it caused everything to sink in and then expand out in disorder for the Kings. In turn, it became much more wide open. When Toronto started beating the Kings and were able to get the puck behind the net, it became an overaggressive approach on the defensive side. We have seen this in the past with the Kings as well.
Here are a GIF example of the sort of swarming forward effect Toronto was employing in order to create space off the Kings aggression.
In this play, the Kings get caught scrambling and trying to push out to pressure their assignments.
Both Bryan Froese and Shawn Matthias are able to find acres of space between the defending Kings forwards. Mersch is sort of in no man's land, Doughty is pressed to home plate, and Brown is also in a sort of No Man's land where he is watching his defensive point assignment but also not really committing much on the backside forward. This space is a huge threat if the board battle is lost by McNabb, which it was.
Look in this play how the Toronto forward is hovering in a huge amount of space right in front just waiting for the battle to be won and or the puck to pop free for him. This is dangerous stuff from a Kings standpoint, but it also puts emphasis on winning one on on battles.
And finally, let's look at the 2-0 goal by Grabner, which came as a result of that sort of buzzing around in the slot kind of game. The Kadri, Komarov, Grabner line were exceptional at this in the third period. Here is the video of it so you can watch it in real time.
Ehrhoff and McBain simply both go to the same guy as Ehrhoff comes out from behind the net. That tiny bit of space given to Grabner, caused by the misdirection from Komarov, leads to the goal. Komarov does an excellent job of simply being a distraction to both defenders. One of which, Ehrhoff, takes the bait and gets drug away from his man ever so slightly.
There is a lot to take in in these two games and the breakdowns are worlds different. This just goes to show you that there is no one singular way to beat a good team. The Kings are widely regarded as a good defensive team, but because the game of hockey is so widely varied in style, you can beat the same team multiple ways. Ottawa did it with speed on the counter attack. Toronto did it with center lane drives, spacing, and misdirection. That is also an element of speed and being able to maneuver away from defensemen. This partly explains why the Kings find success against teams that try to "Out grind" them, but can seemingly struggle against smaller more shifty teams like Nashville, Carolina or Edmonton.
The Kings return home tomorrow to take on the San Jose Sharks before heading back out on the road for a four game trip against Pacific Division rivals after Christmas.
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