It was hard to imagine a scenario at the beginning of the year where the Kings missed the playoffs.
Defending Stanley Cup Champions. A roster full of talent that is pushing the cap. Yet they now find themselves in a situation that seems dire.
Last night's effort against Edmonton was a bit like the Kings season overall: Inconsistent. Frustrating.
We talked earlier on the blog about how the Kings have seemingly been unable to link up this year. When one line has been up, one line has been down. There has been no meat to the LA Kings sandwich this year. This final stretch, although good in overall results, is showing the weakness of Los Angeles.
A team that formerly had potential scoring threats up and down the lineup, has turned into a one line team.
With a total of 215 goals, the Kings are now the third worst offensive team in the Western Conference.
So what right? The Kings have always been a pretty meager offensive team. They tend to have few standouts on offense, but instead score by committee. A worthwhile strategy, until the committee starts to dismantle.
The disparity in the Kings scoring distribution is troublesome this season.
Much has been made of the Kings blueline, which is in a state of flux, but the real failings have come in the depth of the squad.
Here is the distribution of the Kings forwards when it comes to things like scoring chances and goals for per 60 minutes.
It paints a fairly accurate picture as to how the Kings have been. The big names are in the upper rightish corner. Kopitar, Carter, Toffoli, Gaborik, and to a degree Justin Williams are in the positive end of this spectrum. There are, however, a lot of names with small dots on the lower left.
Without a proper comparison or two thought, it is hard to gauge how uneven the distribution has been. So let us take a look at teams that are near or around the Kings in standings and/or offensive production.
With the same parameters:
Winnipeg Jets
Minnesota Wild
The distribution is not so favorable for the Kings when compared to other currently playoff bound teams. Keep in mind that both the Jets and the Wild only have a slightly better offensive output compared to the Kings. We were not comparing night and day. More like night and later that night. Winnipeg and Minnesota each have scored 225 goals on the season to LA's 215.
Also, you may note that there is some shifting on the X and Y axis numbers, but believe me, when you put them together with all players mashed into one graph it is equally as telling.
If you were to draw a line right down the middle on each axis, the entire Kings bottom six would be included on the low end of the spectrum. Outside Nino Niederreiter, the Kings also have some of the biggest ice time distribution to these players who are simply not generating offense. Dustin Brown, Trevor Lewis, Dwight King and Jarret Stoll have all been playing quite a lot, but not backing it up with any sort of production.
Some of these players can be somewhat eliminated from criticism. Trevor Lewis is having a career year, and for a primarily bottom six player is producing at a fantastic clip. Nick Shore is a player playing way over his head as a rookie given the situation. But the players such as King, Brown, Richards and Stoll simply have not pulled on their end of the rope enough this season.
You can also say the same for Anze Kopitar, who is finding himself in the glut of players just right of center. While Kopitar does so many little things that you love as a hockey fan and coach, he is on pace to have his worst offensive year. He will fail to break 20 goals for the first time in his career and is going to be almost a whopping 100 shots off his season average.
The only three Kings players who you can almost have no qualms with from an offensive standpoint are Marian Gaborik, Jeff Carter, and Tyler Toffoli. In fact, Carter, Toffoli, Gaborik, and Kopitar are all inside the Top 40 in the Western Conference in terms of generating scoring chances. However, again, if you go to the bottom 60 or so players of the 150 eligible out West you find the entire Kings bottom six-plus (Lewis, Clifford, Nolan, Shore, Richards, Stoll, King, Brown).
The LA Kings Sandwich. Bread on each end, nothing in the middle.
Of all the criticism and questioning of the Kings defensive pairings, you could almost say that this right here has been the architecture of their downfall.
Too few are players scoring.
Plain and simple.
We discussed it earlier in the year, but when you rely on five players to lead your offense it is unsustainable. A simple cold streak from any of those five players puts a major dent in your offensive output. This blog back in late February still remains relevant in terms of the streakiness of the Kings offense.
As it currently stands, the Kings need to win out against Calgary and San Jose, and hope also hope that Winnipeg beats Calgary on the last day of the season. It is not an impossible scenario, but it is not one the Kings wanted to find themselves in.
There are going to be a lot of questions this offseason if the Kings cannot somehow muster enough good fortune in these last two games to get in.
One of those questions is going to have to be about the Kings scoring depth. Do you also question Sutter about his ice-time distribution? What about the contracts of players like Richards and Brown?
Plenty of questions, and the Kings face a potentially long offseason to ponder them.
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