With the addition of Luke Schenn, it finally feels like the Kings have some legitimate defensive depth. Instead of relying on a platoon of McBain, Ehrhoff, and Derek Forbort, the Kings solidified at least one spot with Luke Schenn.
Now, the search to get the best partner with him is on.
After being suited up with Ehrhoff for the first four games of his L.A. tenure, an atrocious defensive game from the pair against Ottawa led to a shuffling. Jamie McBain stepped in for the two games against Anaheim and Dallas and looked arguably better, while still adventurous at times.
That seems to be the M.O. of McBain so far this year. He is an excellent puck mover. His outlet passes can be creative and borderline outstanding at times. Nevertheless, he still has lapses defensively that can be altogether baffling.
Examples of each.
That seems to be the nature of the beast with McBain. He is a glass cannon so to speak from a defense versus offense perspective. His aggression, which is his best asset offensively, can also be his worst asset defensively. Much like Alec Martinez of old (which we still see a touch of today.)
Ehrhoff, who has also had an up and down season, tends to be more steady in his play. However, Ehrhoff seems to execute much less offensively these days, and the turnovers can also be a bit glaring.
He has been a healthy scratch at different times during the season in favor of Forbort and McBain. None of these have really been without good reason. The game against Ottawa was a culmination of really rough circumstances. Schenn and Ehrhoff are not familiar with each other, Ottawa was playing very effectively in the offensive zone, and Ehrhoff was just plain having a bad game.
Take the 3-2 goal from Bobby Ryan for example.
In real time:
The Kings lose a puck battle in the corner, then Ehrhoff aggressively pushes out past his assignment to get in the shooting lane. The idea of getting in the shooting lane is right, but the execution of it falls flat as Ehrhoff leaves only Luke Schenn as the immediate defender behind not one, but two Ottawa Senators forwards (Zibanejad and Ryan). While Schenn looks out of sorts on this play, he was defending an immediate 2v1 in close quarters. That is tough no matter who you are.
These types of little things with Ehrhoff have come and gone throughout the season, but the issues remains: He is not creating enough offensively, while not preventing enough defensively.
Let's take a look at some simple rate statistics of the last 6 games of McBain, Ehrhoff, and Schenn.
First, your standard corsi for percentages, and ZSO.
Notice that of the three, Schenn plays the most heavy defensive minutes compared to the other two, and has still managed to nearly break even possession-wise.
Now if you look at the rate statistics of corsi, it gives us another look.
As expected with McBain, it's really high for both for and against. But with Schenn and Ehrhoff it's very similar, with Ehrhoff actually being better at shot prevention.
Now let's finally look at scoring chance generation.
Schenn and Ehrhoff are again very even, while McBain is doing his McBain things and being a wild card.
The last four games with Schenn definitely differs from the way Ehrhoff has played most of the season. In fact, he has been more along the lines of McBain, except slightly less offensive leaning.
This leads to an interesting dynamic on the Kings back pairing. On one hand you have the defensive minded Schenn, who may not be the most outstanding in covering up the risk of his offensive minded partner, and then you have Jamie McBain who is a defensive question mark, a risk taker, but solid puck mover. Somewhere in the middle, is Christian Ehrhoff.
The balance the Kings try to achieve on the backend goes further than simply right-left. They try to pair puck mover with defense first for the most part. We have seen success from Muzzin-Doughty, Doughty-McNabb, and Martinez-Greene for that very reason. It allows for a four man attack, with a competent defensive player backing up your risk taker and a good skater potentially being able to get back to cover. It is delicate, and can lead to some frustrating games if the other team opts to generate chances on the counter (Much like Ottawa did). Darryl Sutter is therefore presented with an interesting, perhaps game to game decision, with his bottom pair.
For this reason, it might be best not to isolate just the bottom pair, but include more personnel and other pairings to find a good balance. Early in the Ducks-Kings game, and a little bit in the Stars-Kings games, we saw a bottom four that looked like this:
Muzzin - McBain Martinez - Schenn
This is experimental, but on the surface it actually looks pretty good.
McBain gets the possession warm blanket of Jake Muzzin, while Schenn gets a more steady and reliable two-way partner in Alec Martinez. No offense to Luke Schenn, but Jake Muzzin is much more capable of handling a risky player like McBain than he is.
The D pairings with Sutter shift throughout the game depending on situation and usage, but on the surface that does not look altogether bad.
To be fair to both McBain and Ehrhoff, neither have been "bad" this year. In fact, both have been really good given their roles. This is not about removing the "bad" player from the lineup, but more about inserting a player that makes the most sense stylistically for what the Kings try to achieve. Puck moving and transition is paramount, and McBain has the edge on Ehrhoff in that regard. Paired with a cushy defensive partner he may prove even more capable than he has been so far. Sutter remains fair and consistent with his ice time to defenders, and the only ones who really see significant swings in usage depending on the score ar Brayden McNabb and Ehrhoff.
We see more of McNabb when the Kings are leading, and less of him when they are trailing. Vice versa for Ehrhoff. McBain has a similar spread in close games. There is slightly more of him in games where the Kings trail by one, and less of him when they lead. It may not get said enough, but Sutter is one of the best and most actively aware coaches in the league of his deployment and usage of players.
McBain has been a fairly solid find for the Kings. He currently gives them a little more variety on the back end versus Ehrhoff. With Schenn slotting in to "Replace" an injured Matt Greene, it only makes sense that we return to a Martinez - Schenn pairing. Lombardi and Sutter both have said multiple times they are trying to replicate the roster of the two cup winning teams. Think Ehrhoff/McBain for Voynov, McNabb for Regehr/Mitchell, and Schenn for a Matt Greene and you can kind of start to see stylistically how the Kings are trying to still be that team. So far so good right?
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Last week the announcement came that a site I often use on the blog would cease operation at the end of the season.
War on Ice is and has been a tremendous resource for writers everywhere and it is sad to see them go. Cherish these resources because a lot of people put time and hard work into them for very little in return. It is a privilege to have these sites like War on Ice, HockeyViz, Puckalytics, Behind the Net, Own the Puck etc. etc. and we sometimes take that for granted.
Best of luck to the founders and creators of War on Ice, you have been an outstanding resource to everyone.
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