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The Penguins return to the game action tonight and their opponent will be the buzzsaw that is known as the Los Angeles Kings.
The Penguins took on one of the NHL’s best teams last Sunday and played an overall good game against the Blues. Pittsburgh lost a 1-0 game that was as close as the score. They will have to bring that kind of effort again tonight as the Kings are every bit as good as the Blues. In fact the Kings have been the team that has ended the Blues season the past 2 years.
The Penguins laid a clunker against the Coyotes and that spawned a player’s only meeting after the game. The meeting called out the team’s discipline and compete level. Tonight is the first opportunity to see if that meeting will have any impact on the team.
The LA Kings are a relentless team that owns the puck and drives play. They are the #1 possession team in the entire NHL, they have a FF% of 56.6%. This makes life difficult to score on them; they are tied for 1st in the league (along with Boston) in only allowing 2.07 goals per game.
However, the Kings do have an Achilles’ heal. They do not generate a ton of offense for as much as they own the puck. They only rank 27th in goals per game at 2.38 goals per game. They rank 29th overall in even strength shooting percentage at 6.5%.
Their incredibly low shooting percentage is what makes the Kings dangerous moving forward, let me explain.
The Kings shooting percentage is so incredibly low given the talent level they have that it is only a matter of time before that percentage starts to pick up. When it does, the Kings will be close to unbeatable. Will it happen in time for the playoffs? It could.
On March 6th the Kings PDO started to progress back to normal levels, during this time period the Kings played in 10 games. They scored 30 goals in those 10 games which gave them 3.0 goals per game, much better than the 2.38 that they have been averaging this year.
If the Kings get on a hot streak with PDO it will create a tall task for the opposition to try and outscore them. If the Kings shooting percentage goes up and possession stays where it has been all year it might be too tough of a combo to overcome for other teams. Add Jonathan Quick into the mix and you can see why the Kings are one of the Stanley Cup favorites even though they will have to navigate through the tough Western Conference.
The Penguins will have their hands full tonight.
The Penguins twitter account made a faux pas the other day with its #AskNeal hashtag. Last night they sent out this tweet:
We're hoping to see a lot of this tomorrow night against LA... Who's with us? pic.twitter.com/kZd21Dmlaj
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) March 27, 2014
It is an innocent enough tweet but keep in mind who the Penguins are playing against tonight. The Los Angeles Kings are the heavyweight champions of the NHL team twitter universe. After the #AskNeal debacle it might be best if the Penguins twitter took the sage advice from Walter White of Breaking Bad and “tread lightly… on social media for the next 24 hours.
If the Penguins do want to have some fun and trade barbs back and forth with LA, they too will need to bring their A game much like the Penguins team tonight.
Beau Bennett played in his 3rd and final game with Wilkes Barre Scranton for his conditioning assignment. He will now rejoin the Penguins to make his long awaited return from injury. He had 1 assist in 3 games playing with Chuck Kobasew and Andrew Ebbett. Bennett is not expected to return to the lineup for tonight’s game against the Kings.
Coach Bylsma said Shero's scouting reports are more critical than scouts, but he gave Bennett a "glowing report." #Pens
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) March 27, 2014
Here are the line rushes from the morning skate, no changes from Tuesday:
Kunitz-Crosby-Stempniak Jokinen-Sutter-Neal Pyatt-Goc-Gibbons Glass-Adams-Megna
I read some concerns about the Penguins having Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin tied up in high priced contracts in the comment section from last blog. This is a non-concern. They have good contracts; you are going to see that in the coming years. The new CBA changed the landscape of what high end players make. We saw it first with Ryan Getzlaf (8.275M), Corey Perry (8.625M), and Phil Kessel (8.0M), and we are really going to see it with Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane (10M<) up for a new deal next year. Steven Stamkos and Anze Kopitar are due for new deals the year after that.
Big big money is going to be thrown around. All the while the cap will be going up up up.
Thanks for reading!
Follow me on twitter Follow @GunnerStaal