The Kings were sloppy last night. No question.
They could not put tape to tape passes together. They could not seem to cash in on net front opportunities. However, they were also hindered by an incredibly rigid and structured Minnesota defensive layout and neutral zone scheme. You could almost consider this game a "Breaking down Breakdowns" style post, but we are going to credit Minnesota on this one.
On twitter I saw a proper cross reference to European football, and I could not help but think about it the rest of the evening.
@NotDeadRyanDunn Doesn't help that Wild are playing a Jose Mourinho "park the bus" game.
— Skylo Yiannopoulos (@SkylerCFelix) January 22, 2016"Park the Bus" is an association football term that rose in popularity back when Jose Mourinho managed Chelsea in the late 2000's. It is a term used in football circles to describe a very smothering, boring, and primarily defensive mindset. There is almost no offensive risk taken, but teams will play on the counter at times. It is often criticized for clogging up what is generally a beautiful and free flowing game. It is as if someone "Parked a bus" in front of goal.
With that in mind, does that sound familiar to last night's game?
Now we are crossing cliches here, so maybe not all of the same descriptions apply. However, if Minnesota was not mindfully "Parking the bus", they came ridiculous close to something similar from a systems stand point.
First off, let's credit Mike Yeo and the Wild. It is not easy to stay as defensively structured as they were last night. This game happens at split second speed and it is not always easy to stay tight, stay focused, and get the job done defensively like that. They did though. Also, this team had not won in five straight games. They had barely scored during that stretch. So as soon as they got their one goal, they sank and started slowing the game down tremendously. For better or worse from an entertainment standpoint (Worse, all worse) it worked.
How did they achieve this?
It is simple.
1. Neutral zone presence
At about the halfway point of the game, even before Minnesota had two goals, they were starting to stack the red line and blue line.
They were sending only one forechecker in to pressure the puck. The rest were waiting in the neutral zone like the above picture.
Here was another common sight:
With all five players back, the option to dump the puck became the only reasonable option in the Kings eyes. Dump it, get behind the D, and win the board battles. Dumping the puck is a very coin flippy play though in today's NHL, but it was altogether the best option in the eyes of the Kings since the line was so stacked it was going to be like navigating a minefield in a tractor.
Problem was, when they did win the puck battles and got some pressure, Minnesota did a good job at....
2. Clogging the lanes
Pretty good fundamental lane clogging and hard working defensive stuff from Minnesota. Good sticks in the lanes. This was far too common a sight. The Kings were driven wide, and then completely shut down as far as options through the middle go. They were forced to take most of their shots to the outside, which you will see in the next category in a twitter post I made. The other thing aside from clogging the lanes, and it goes hand in hand, their Dmen were boxing out forwards very very well.
No chance either of those forwards gets a stick on any sort of rebound.
and finally, even on the rush the Kings had players collapsing on them like crazy.
And finally....
3. Shot blocking
B stands for "Blocked" this kind of paints the only picture you need to know about the Wild D and Kings O tonight. pic.twitter.com/pycEn5xzOc
— Jason Lewis (@SirJDL) January 22, 2016It is one thing to get sticks and bodies in the lane, it's another one to put those bodies and sticks on a puck. Sometimes attempting to block shots can be more of a hinderance to goaltenders than a help. It can lead to deflections, screens, and difficulty picking up where shots are coming from. However, if you are doing a fine job of them, on top of locking out the high scoring area, the amount of high danger chances is extremely limited.
While the Kings had 76 shots directed toward net at 5v5, Only 28 of those were on net, and only 7 of those 76 were of high danger quality. They had 22 missed shots and 19 shots blocked at even strength. Pretty ridiculous, and also pretty commendable from Minnesota.
Does this strategy work all the time like this? Not hardly. If it did more teams would do it. However, Minnesota just happened to catch the Kings on a night where they were a bit sloppy in their own right, but it also hindered a team that is dependent upon neutral zone speed and center lane drives. The Kings score quite a few goals on tips, put backs, and second chance efforts. If that first chance isn't going through, then there is no chance at there being a second and third attempt.
Were Minnesota applying a park the bus style strategy last night? Absolutely. It was boring, it was grindy, it was low event, and it was frustrating for the offensive team. They took almost zero risks offensively, and they did everything they needed to make the Kings offensive game look like a living nightmare.
The pundits and coaches would say "Great road game, great road win."
And they are not incorrect. From a fan perspective it might have been a terrible watch, but from a standings perspective it won Minnesota two points on the road.
It does not always work as well as Minnesota applied it last night, especially in today's NHL where breakdowns on an individual level are much more frequent and detrimental than an 11-man soccer team. However, it was perfectly executed last night by the Wild and got the the two points.
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