You woke up this morning and the Kings were 12th in the Western Conference.
You woke up this morning and the Kings were coming off a 0-4 thumping at the hands of the Washington Capitals.
They are 2-5-3 in their last 10 and slipping behind the likes of Dallas and Colorado now.
What the heck is going on here!? Panic button time? Are we being for real? Is it really panic time? Do the Kings needs a trade? Are they going to even make the playoffs?
In due time we will have more certain answers to these questions. But for now let's try and back off the ledge just a little bit. (But don't go too far...)
I know by this time it is a notion that many roll their eyes at, but the Kings are still a good hockey team in terms of analytics. Corsi, fenwick, scoring chances against, etc. etc. These numbers generally translate to wins, and if you are the Kings you can't really be unhappy with how you have performed in that area of the game.
A lot of things seem like status quo for the Los Angeles Kings.
Low scoring team, low goals for with low goals against, a decent 5v5 save percentage, and really good possession metrics. I am not here to tell you where they have been good though. The injuries and personnel shifting has taken a toll in one area though: the penalty kill.
It seems odd that a sport with so many moving parts could be corrected in one small detail, but with the Kings it seems as though the penalty kill is the one major sore spot on this team that didn't exist last year.
How bad has it been?
Last year the Kings were 11th in penalty kill with around an 83% kill rate. This year that has dropped almost 6% down to the bottom five of the league with a 77% kill rate.
Even worse, the save percentage in penalty kill situations is down in the 82% range.
The Kings have a set up to their penalty kill that isn't necessarily dependent upon limiting shots against, but more so the quality of shots against. This year, with no Voynov and no Willie Mitchell, the team has asked other players to step in and play more prominent roles. Alec Martinez is having to push his shorthanded minutes up. Likewise with Brayden McNabb and an aging Robyn Regehr. While these guys have done admirable it can be really hard to replace two players like Mitchell and Voynov. Mitchell in particular is a player that the Kings have been missing. His gap control and hockey sense were exceptional on the penalty kill. In the situation where you need your defenders to be taking away time and space from opposing forwards, that control that Willie Mitchell brought is a huge loss. In essence, the Kings powerplay is about limiting quality over quantity, and without some of their best PKers out there they have had a hard time doing so. While it isn't the best example perhaps given the firepower of the Hawks powerplay, take a look at the goal they scored against the Kings on the powerplay recently.
Quality chances like those have been far more common this year than previous years.
Another factor that has risen it's head potentially is emotion and preparation. It was brought up last night by King captain Dustin Brown in his post game comments to LA Kings Insider Jon Rosen.
It’s not good. It starts with our emotion. I answered that question similarly today. We’re a good team, but it’s hard to win when you don’t play with enough emotion. That’s on an individual level and a collective level. We need everyone to be invested in the game emotionally, and from there we can work on X’s and O’s and all of that, but you need the emotion first.
Furthermore, on fatigue potentially playing a role in it all
I think those are just excuses. I think it’s just a matter of getting yourself ready to go. I think it’s an individual’s responsibility to get himself going. If he’s ready to play every night, then it’s helping our team. If he’s not ready, or it’s one of those things where everyone has off nights – but the emotion can always be there and the work can always be there.
These are things we have heard before from Dustin Brown, dating back to a few seasons ago when the Kings were struggling to get into the playoffs. Something about it being each player's responsibility to make sure they are prepared and how some guys weren't pulling on the rope.
This is when the question of "Should a trade happen?" becomes somewhat relevant. If you aren't getting the effort from certain players there has to be a warning shot fired across the bow. In 2011-12 it was the firing of Terry Murray. Maybe this year the warning shot was the waiving of Mike Richards. Clearly Richards has been a tight fit in the Kings locker room and it may have been aimed as a message sending to the rest of the room that no one guy is safe.
Maybe, maybe not.
The moral of the story right now with the Kings though is that they aren't all that far off of being a winning team. The special teams play has to be better, and I'll take Dustin Brown's word for it and say that the emotion and preparation has to be better as well.
There are 32 games left in the season and the Kings hang at a 50% playoff chance with one of the most difficult schedules in the league ahead of them.
If they don't start playing for their playoff lives soon then they might want to start booking their tee times.
Last night was far too pedestrian an effort from Los Angeles, and that isn't going to fly for much longer with management, fans, or this team. It isn't panic button time yet, but the finger is hovering on the button for sure.
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