Trade everyone!
Fire the front office!
The Lucic trade failed!
The defense is a mess!
We are doomed!
Alright, is that out of the way? Good. While the extreme hyperbole and moodiness of LAKings twitter was evident tonight, it was not without justification (Deep breaths needed from some though....). The Kings lost a 5-1 decision on home ice to the division rival San Jose Sharks in pretty bad fashion.
While the team had a pep in their step through the first ten minutes or so, the game slowly turned into a game of chase for Los Angeles. The Sharks outskated, outworked, and punished the parade of penalties that sapped any momentum the Kings could muster. It was ugly.
The Kings gave San Jose a whopping eight power play opportunities, two of which they converted on. It started halfway through the first when the Kings took three consecutive penalties, one of which Joe Pavelski converted on to get the go-ahead and eventual game-winning goal.
The game had some other ugliness to it, like this Dustin Brown hit on Logan Couture:
Brown hit on Couture pic.twitter.com/AcTP4oTP0D
— Stephanie (@myregularface) October 8, 2015Some are saying that the league could take a look at it. It appeared Brown made direct contact with Couture's head, using his own head as the contact point. (Insert head joke here)
This hit late in the game by Matt Greene also stirred up a bit of a hornet's nest.
Overall, Los Angeles looked incredibly sloppy, save from a few players.
Dustin Brown played a decent game overall, as did Nick Shore. Shore and Clifford led the Kings in possession at even strength with a 53 and 79% corsi for percentage respectively.
As a team though, they left a lot to be desired:
There were a lot of notables on the bad side.
Anze Kopitar, Milan Lucic, and Marian Gaborik looked completely out of sync both offensively and defensively. They were matched up against the Joe Thornton line, and had trouble holding the puck or generating any offense. The trio were limited to a total of four shots, and Gaborik in particular generated just two positive corsi events in his 17:34 ice time.
Lucic, Gaborik , Kopitar, Carter and Toffoli were the five worst possession forwards on the night for the Kings. Defensively, Doughty and Muzzin were the worst defensive pairing. Arguably the Kings best five-seven players on paper were their worst players on the evening. No surprise the scoreline was what it was.
I would not expect that to be a regular occurrence if I were a betting man.
The top line was also guilty of an ugly shift on the Sharks third goal. Something we will breakdown a little bit further in another blog.
Kings won 51% of their even strength draws, but only won 6 of 16 shorthanded (38%) and 11 of 23 in the defensive zone (48%).
Carter went 2-for-6 in the defensive zone while Nick Shore won 3-of-4.
Hard to get a handle on much of this game analytically, as the Kings were simply bad and outplayed. Insert all your standard, yet, relevant excuses here: It is the first game of the year, the Sharks are a good team, they played very well, and the Kings took way way too many penalties. Pretty cut and dry.
Darryl Sutter had an equally insightful analysis of the game:
(RE: TEAM ASSESMENT): “We played against a big, fast team and we didn’t play like a big, fast team.…
And,
On not generating many scoring chances: If you don’t check, you don’t have the puck enough. If you don’t have the puck enough, you can’t score. We had lots of opportunities to shoot in the first period, actually, when the score was 1-1, 2-1 on odd-man rushes and didn’t get shots. They were guys that have got to shoot pucks. Guys that are good at it, they’ve got to shoot the puck. Make the goalie work a little bit more.
An ugly display for a first game, but the Kings get a crack at a should be bottom feeder in Arizona on Friday. Look for a better performance overall, particularly from the Kings Top 6.
Commence discussions of everything wrong with the team in the comment section....now. Game one is in the books. Happy hockey everyone.
Full highlights are available here for those of you who are practicing masochists.
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