The hockey statistics world let out a collective groan this year when word that War on Ice would be, not shutting down, but ceasing to keep up to date at the end of the year. While all the data will still remain available, the collection of it would stop.
However, Emmanuel Perry (
@MannyElk on twitter) has put together a site that could effectively alleviate our collective apprehension over losing War on Ice. It is known as Corsica, and the early designs are extremely promising.
Poke around yourself and take a look at what is going on , mind you it is still in a pretty nascent stage.
One appetizing tool on there is the line combo tool for forwards. While hockeyviz does a great job at showing us the visuals of players and lines and how they are performing, Corsica's line combo tool is sharing the raw data. The horrible per 60 rates and all.
This allows us as viewers to get into a little bit of roster theory crafting along since we can couple numbers with viewings and knowledge of the Kings system.
So let's look at the King Kingpin then shall we?
Anze Kopitar. He is the catalyst, and he has been all season. With Jeff Carter suddenly going cold, Dustin Brown being the snakiest of snake bitten players, and the bottom six doing very little to actually contribute on the offensive side of the puck, Kopitar has been the guy yet again.
What we have learned over the course of Kopitar's career is that no matter who you stick him with he is pretty darn good. That is because Kopitar himself is pretty darn good and he makes player around him better. This year is no different.
View post on imgur.com
He is leading the Kings in scoring, and 22 of his 34 assists are primary assists. Everything offensively, and I mean pretty much everything, runs through Anze Kopitar.
View post on imgur.com
Where has the Kings leading man had the most success though?
Well from a possession standpoint (AKA Corsi/Fenwick) Corsica can help us with that. Here is a look at what Kopitar centric line combo has had the most possession.
View post on imgur.com
Up on top it is the line of Brown, Kopitar, and Pearson that have had the most possession for the Kings. This is followed by the most recent and the most consistent incantation of the top line, Kopitar, Lucic, and Toffoli.
For the most part, Kopitar has had a year that has been pretty consistent in terms of linemates. He has been with only six different unique combos, three of which had Marian Gaborik, two of which had Lucic, and one that had both. Surprisingly enough though, even with his bad year offensively, both lines that had Dustin Brown have had the most corsi events for. This should really come as no surprise considering Dustin Brown shoots everything he touches, forever and ever.
And when you look at Dustin Brown line combos this year, you can pretty much see that whatever line Brown plays on tends to be absolutely stupid good in both team relative for and against numbers.
View post on imgur.com
(I miss you Brown-Shore-Lewis)
At this point we know this about Brown though. Brown lines generally fail to create offense because the offense runs through him, and Dustin Brown is en route to breaking his career low in shooting percentage for the third straight year. Say what you will about him, but it is hard for opposing teams to score when they do not have the puck.
But back to Kopitar and his line.
The Toffoli/Lucic/Kopitar combo has been fruitful in keeping the Kings now meager offense churning, combining for 13 goals and 33 points in their 200 minutes together. In our lovely roster theory, it is a perfect set up of feeder/shooter/retriever. Except in this case, instead of the shooter being Brown it is Toffoli, and instead of the retriver being Pearson it is Lucic. You can already find it easy to believe just from that that this line would have success. The interesting thing here is that while duo's seem to be the key to many top player's mutual success, Kopitar has had to deal with two different rotating duos of two very different styles: Lucic and Gaborik.
What the Kings should really be looking at though is keeping together the two real threats: Kopitar and Toffoli.
What this does is effectively solidify a strong one-two scoring combo. While it may seem cold to Carter, who has had so much success alongside Toffoli, it also accomplishes something for Toffoli that Carter was starting to have trouble with.
Toffoli is not that great defensively, and alongside Carter we saw spikes in chances given up when the two were together. This is confirmed when looking at the Corsica combos, as Toffoli and Carter lines are at a healthy 8.30 corsi against relative to the team. They give as good as they get. So in that regard it is worth experimenting with a Kopitar-Toffoli tandem for a while in at least this writer's opinion.
So what happens to Carter? 77 has actually played so little with anyone else this season other than Toffoli that it won't even show up on the <50 parameters on corsica. It would be breaking new ground for Carter who has played 1174 of his 1800 even strength minutes over the last two years with No. 73. With the Kings hurting for some scoring depth there is no better time than now. So who have had the best numbers, albeit in the smallest of small sample sizes with Carter OTHER than Toffoli?
Pearson-Gaborik
Lucic - Kopitar
Not a good start. In fact, it is hard to go back over the past three years and find anyone that Carter has had any amount of sustained success with who was not named Kopitar or Toffoli.
Darryl Sutter's solution to this, at least in the most recent practice in which he had some....interesting line combos...was
King-Carter-Lewis
This is the same practice in which Pearson - Lecavalier - Toffoli were a thing (A second line thing), so take it with a grain of salt.
For sake of pure roll with the shooter/passer set up
Lucic - Kopitar - Toffoli
Pearson - Carter - Brown
The bottom six, admittedly, gets ugly without Versteeg or Gaborik.
Clifford - Shore - Lewis
King - Paramedics - a guy from the stands
This is always fun to play with, but in reality the lines change in game about as frequently as the internet changes their opinion on the color of a jacket/dress (It's blue and black by the way).
The bottom line is that the Kings are definitely hurting for depth up front. With the injuries to Gaborik, Versteeg, and yes, even Jordan Nolan, the versatility and effectiveness has been severely limited. Lecavalier is being pressed into more minutes (Please god no), and Andy Andreoff is dressing games on a consistent basis (Please make it stop). While it may not be the best long term solution, numbers would imply that the Kings are in need of A) loading the top two lines, and B) trying to find some bottom six lines that will not bleed the team to death in chances given up. Another option which is always popular amongst the armchair GM, call up some young guys to play nothing minutes on the fourth line. While none of these options are truly inspiring or ideal, it is what it is right now amongst injuries and a lineup that can barely crack the two goal mark at even strength over the past three months. Getting Versteeg back (Which seems imminent) makes a big difference. Still, Load up your top six, batten down your bottom six, and hope your best players outplay their best, while your worst players do not mess up.
This is hockey in March of an 82-game season, and it is a drag.
Visuals and numbers thanks to Corsica Hockey and
HockeyViz
Follow me on twitter for news and notes about the Kings and the NHL
Also be sure to like HockeyBuzz on facebook!
Los Angeles Kings Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»