Well, it was bound to happen. After two cups writers are actually starting to talk about King players with some degree of admiration and respect when it comes to lumping them in with some of the best players in the NHL.
Now that seems to be changing a little bit.
NHL.com has been doing a panel recently to recognize and rank the top players in each position recently, and the Kings have a number of players on it. How accurate are these lists? Some are crazy, some are pretty agreeable. Kind of expected honestly. The panel includes Arpon Basu, Brian Compton, Corey Masisak and Dan Rosen.
They have been doing Top 14's for almost everything, and you can find all of them right here. Pretty good reads and decent lists for the most part.
As far as King players go. Our very own Anze Kopitar, Drew Doughty, and Jonathan Quick made the lists for their respective positions.
Gaborik came in 10th in the right wing pool (With Justin Williams getting at least one vote)
Jeff Carter received a handful of votes for top powerplay specialist but didn't make any of the lists because, well, Jeff Carter plays everything and he can't be on all the lists. Or maybe he should be. I don't know.
Also big props to Corey Masisak. He quickly got on my poo-pooing list for having John Gibson at 14 on his goaltender list (7 games of NHL experience and already 14 for next year? Come on.) but he made up for it with Jake freaking Muzzin at 14 on his defender list. Both are equally ridiculous. Muzzin is a fantastic young defenseman but 14 is crazy. Still though, good to see that some recognition is there. Same goes for Gibson in some regard. Very talented young goaltender.
Kopitar has always been talked about as sort of this 7-15 center. He never could crack the "Top tier" of Crosby, Getzlaf, Toews, Thornton, Sedin, etc. etc. But now after consistent performances in both regular season AND postseason, Mr. Kopitar seems firmly entrenched in the conversation of best center in the league. And rightfully so I might add. The man does everything. He is as good defensively as he is offensively, his point production has been consistently solid on a team that has predicated themselves on defense first, his faceoff numbers took a giant leap forward this past season, and oh yea he has two cups now.
Doughty, well, I'd say top is okay considering the raw potential that he still has. I feel like we have yet to see the best Drew Doughty and that is a scary thought. He has been tremendous for stretches of seasons and post-seasons, and when you watch him in the zone during a game it is something to behold. While there are definitely arguments to be made for other members in the top 5 of these lists for defenseman, it is projecting for the 2014-15 season. I don't think Doughty at No. 1 should ruffle too many feathers. Or maybe it will, what say you Subban/Keith fans?
The only one that I am not sold on is Quick at 4. Neither are fans from what I have seen. Some say he should be higher, some say he should be lower. I am torn.
Before I get into this, I think people can easily misunderstand me when it comes to Jonathan Quick. I think he is a world class goalie. Easily in the top 10, arguably in the top 5. When you talk about pure athleticism and ability, I think there is no question that Quick is at the top. That man makes saves that no human should make. However, when you look at this top 14 list, which only has Carey Price, Lundqvist, and Rask ahead of Quick, he has THE LOWEST SAVE PERCENTAGE OF ANYONE ON THE LIST. Rinne is in fact lower but it's hard to take his numbers seriously from 2013-14 when he had a serious back infection stemming from surgery.
The arguments for him being higher are not justifiable to me and they always go to things that are difficult to quantify. I will admit that I was a staunch Quick supporter back over a year ago, and used to adhere to some pretty fallacious reasoning when it came to Mr. Quick. Now, I am still a huge supporter, but I'd say I am more open to the idea that Quick might not be the best in the world. He is a top 5-10 guy. Some of the reasons I am seeing for him being higher?
"Quick is clutch"
"No other goalie I'd rather have in a Game 7"
"Two cups. Conn Smythe."
I get it. Those are all cool things. But they are super hard to reason with, and they all support themselves in this sort of ridiculous form of circular logic.
How is Quick clutch? "Game 7's brah, Conn Smythe winner!" But wait, ya know Marc-Andre Fleury has a cup right? "But Quick is way more clutch than Fleury" Oh...but how is he more clutch again? "Game 7's brah, Conn Smythe winner!" Save percentage? "Cups."
and round and round we go.
This is all fine and dandy but where is the solid foundational evidence? That's where I lose myself in the Quick debate and blood simply starts running out of my ears. Rask and Lundqvist are two goalies who are deservedly at the top. Rask, while still young and just 200 games into his NHL career, has some ridiculous numbers. A career save percentage touching .930 an a goals against near 2.00. He has also won a cup.
Carey Price is an impressive young goaltender in his own right. Looking at his numbers with Montreal and seeing his performance at the Olympics in Sochi definitely impressed the hell out of a lot of people. Montreal desperately needed him in the playoffs, and he was great until he got hurt. That's when it went off the rails for the Habs. Safe bet amongst the top goaltenders.
Lundqvist has equally impressive career numbers also, has been an example of consistent play, but is always hindered by the "He hasn't won anything important" argument. He also suffers from people saying somehow that he isn't "clutch" like Quick. A .923 playoff save percentage would seem to suggest otherwise but who am I to bear that bad news.
Quick? .915 career save percentage. Playoffs? .923. Pretty solid playoff numbers no doubt. He is prone to extreme fluctuation, with two of his six seasons being down in the .900 range. Then there are seasons where he has Vezina-worthy numbers (.929, 35 wins). Maybe the guys at NHL and the fans up in arms about Quick being No. 1 are adhering to some form of goaltender Kondratiev supercycle that I am not aware of. Maybe after two down years in terms of numbers, Quick will be back to 2011-12 form and destroy the hockey world that we know of. Goaltending is stupid like that. When you think you got a handle on it, it throws you for a loop.
With how he fluctuates I never know. I'm not really here to say that Quick is too high or not high enough, honestly. I'm here to say he's probably right around where he should be, maybe on the high side. Price, Lundqvist, and Rask are definitely a solid top 3. Quick at 4 makes sense because when you look beyond that it gets super dicey. Bernier, Crawford, Rinne, Bobrovsky, Schneider, Luongo. Who on earth knows what kind of seasons all of those guys are going to have. Quick could be tossed into that group as well. There is a very close group of 2nd tier goalies out there right now. I think that is where this all gets thrown to the dogs. That second tier is vast, and has any number of goaltenders who on any given night can befuddle a team. Heck, they can go on 5, 10, or 15 game stretches where they can put a team on their back. There are a huge number of them in that group, and Quick is right in there with em.
Regardless of all that, it is great to see some King recognition across the board. You could argue this all day really, and it comes down to a matter of one man's opinion versus another. I usually don't take too much stock in these styles of polls and lists, but I think the NHL panel did a pretty decent job. Kudos to them.
Now, how are you feeling about them?
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