Sheng Peng: Sutter's Style; Bob's Last Game On Sportsnet's report about Darryl's future + Anaheim steps up for Bob's last game

These duck fans have no clue what the rules of "good" goals are... at no point was that puck where Quick saved it was over the line. Call on ice was NO GOAL! You must have CONCLUSIVE evidence to over turn call. Again, at no point that puck was ABSOLUTELY over the line. You NEVER saw any white bheind that puck. Qucik makes yet another great save. As it should have been.


Not that it matters for kings anymore.

Sutter's style still works but only with the right pieces. The current team is to soft to play this style so either DL needs to find a team or the easiest move is to find a new coach. You can't tell me a team with players like Kopitar, Gaborik, Pearson, Toffoli and Carter can't be as fast as other teams.

Put him on a team like Florida and you'll see an improved team because they have the hitters to play his style.

This team needs speed and skill. Kings really only have 4 shooters (Carter, Toffoli, Pearson, and Kopitar), Along with doughty on the back end Kempe and brodzinski should be starters next year with a trade or two to get Kopitar the help he needs. This team needs a new coach. Not that sutter is a bad one but his style just hasn't worked the past 4years as we all know.

Sutter's style still works but only with the right pieces. The current team is to soft to play this style so either DL needs to find a team or the easiest move is to find a new coach. You can't tell me a team with players like Kopitar, Gaborik, Pearson, Toffoli and Carter can't be as fast as other teams.

Put him on a team like Florida and you'll see an improved team because they have the hitters to play his style.
- kingsfan626

Lombardi is the one to go. Too many ridiculous contracts to ageing players keeping the Kings from actually making good trades to fill in the areas needed.

Sad night tonight. We've been blessed with a brilliant triumvirate of sports announcers in Scully, Hearn, and Bob Miller. How in the hell are the Kings going to replace him? Both Charlie Steiner and Bill MacDonald are serviceable, but I don't tune in to listen to them announce. I tuned in to listen to Vin, Chick, and Bob. It sucks to get old....

Sheng, what's your take on Kopitar's comments about being ready to go next year whoever is behind the bench? Was that a slip of the tongue or just a poor choice of words?

Kudos to the Duck fans for standing and cheering during the tribute to Bob Miller. I was at the game and the applause lasted a few minutes. I taped the game, and unfortunately that tribute wasn't shown on TV. I get the teams don't like each other, but we all can appreciate Miller and his exceptional career. It's been a joy listening to him.

I went to game 5 against the Rangers a few years ago. While I was waiting around LA Live to meet up with family, I was walking by a restaurant. There was Bob Miller inside eating. Then later, I saw him out in front of the restaurant talking to fans and shaking hands. The dude is a classic! I'm glad the Ducks respected that tonight. The Kings aren't quite the same without him. As was mentioned tonight on the Ducks broadcast, many of us Ducks fans were Kings fans before 1993. We can all agree on Bob Miller, even when he says the puck was centered up the middle.

Sheng, what's your take on Kopitar's comments about being ready to go next year whoever is behind the bench? Was that a slip of the tongue or just a poor choice of words?
- duxcup07

Even on Rosen's transcript, he didn't quite catch the original question. And I wasn't there. So hard to say.

It's hard to believe that Kopitar would throw Sutter under the bus in an overt way.

If we're parsing words, "who’s behind our bench or who’s in the room" could just be a general statement that he'll be ready no matter what happens during summer. He could have been talking about Davis Payne, for all we know.

In short, I wouldn't make a big deal out of these comments without more context.

Sad night tonight. We've been blessed with a brilliant triumvirate of sports announcers in Scully, Hearn, and Bob Miller. How in the hell are the Kings going to replace him? Both Charlie Steiner and Bill MacDonald are serviceable, but I don't tune in to listen to them announce. I tuned in to listen to Vin, Chick, and Bob. It sucks to get old....

Sheng, what's your take on Kopitar's comments about being ready to go next year whoever is behind the bench? Was that a slip of the tongue or just a poor choice of words?
- duxcup07

Here's the quote:
Anze Kopitar, on how the Kings can improve next season (beginning of reporter’s question inaudible):
Well I think that’s it. That’s everything. And it starts right within the room. Nobody can prepare you mentally and nobody can throw emotion in your game. Like I say, you’ve got to prepare yourself. There’s a bunch of guys that have been there before and know how it feels like so this feeling right now, we should remember for the rest of the summer and know how bad that feels and obviously come next year, come hungry and ready to rock regardless of who’s behind our bench or who’s in the room. We’ve got to come in and play.
LA Kings Insider...

Here's the quote:
Anze Kopitar, on how the Kings can improve next season (beginning of reporter’s question inaudible):
Well I think that’s it. That’s everything. And it starts right within the room. Nobody can prepare you mentally and nobody can throw emotion in your game. Like I say, you’ve got to prepare yourself. There’s a bunch of guys that have been there before and know how it feels like so this feeling right now, we should remember for the rest of the summer and know how bad that feels and obviously come next year, come hungry and ready to rock regardless of who’s behind our bench or who’s in the room. We’ve got to come in and play.
LA Kings Insider...
- arh777

Thanks, IMO Rosen took this completely out of context, he makes it seem like Kopitar knows Sutter is gone.

I understand the part about players being able to get themselves ready and all, but at some point, a coach should interject a little inspiration or a little extra of something when that something seems to be direly lacking. I'm not saying everybody gets a trophy or even that DS turn rah-rah in the room, but some type of outside motivation to stir the guys. The Kings played a heartless brand of hockey up until Iginla showed up. But I think I saw a glimmer of hope: last night when some Duck leveled Muzzin, Kopi got immediately IN HIS FACE. No punches were thrown, not even a shove, but that has NEVER happened under Kopi's captaincy. It was, maybe, a step in the leadership direction.

It's not that Sutter's system no longer works. It's that it relies on a lot of things going right to work. The players need to buy in, play at a certain intensity for a full 60 minutes and do the same things ("grind, cycle, point shot") over and over until, hopefully, the percentages work out in their favor. There isn't much margin for error. Those things have to happen every game for the team to come out on top at the end of the night, and, usually, it's by the slimmest of margins. It's tiring and can't be very enjoyable. It's certainly not the game that they grew up playing and fell in love with. Eventually, the players stop having fun because they're playing robotically and not creatively, which leads to them losing intensity, which leads to them losing their buy-in.

BTW, LA finishes the season with the 9th-least points. Because Vegas automatically gets slotted at #3 in the draft, LA will be picking 10th, barring the lottery outcome. Speaking of which, they have a 14.4% chance of winning one of the top 3 picks in the lottery, which includes a 4.5% chance of winning the 1st-overall pick.

But would we even be having this conversation if Anze Kopitar and Tyler Toffoli have customary seasons & the backup goalies (Jeff Zatkoff, Ben Bishop) didn't go 4-10-3 with an .898 save %?
- Sheng Peng

Yes, I think that we would, because those things all happened last season and didn't make a difference in the 1st round and we still questioned the system over the Summer.

These duck fans have no clue what the rules of "good" goals are...
- KINGS67

Every fanbase has homer fans who boo calls that go against them even when they're very clearly good calls. It happens just as much at Staples Center. Kudos to the classy Ducks fans who still posted to show respect to Bob Miller.

Every fanbase has homer fans who boo calls that go against them even when they're very clearly good calls. It happens just as much at Staples Center. Kudos to the classy Ducks fans who still posted to show respect to Bob Miller.
- Osprey

Reality can be a female dog.

How do you guys feel about Lindy Ruff? It's been reported that Dallas won't be bringing him back. The scouting report on him is that he's all offense, no defense. The "no defense" part is a big criticism of him, but LA doesn't need someone to come in and teach them defense. The players have already had that beaten into them by the organization and will continue to be at least decent defensively, in spite of Ruff. They might no longer be a top defensive team under him, but the boost in their offensive game might more than make up for it (at least for a few years, at which point, the window for this core might be closing, anyways).

First and foremost, thanks to the ducks fans, players and organization for showing Bob tremendous respect in their barn and being classy all around.

Sutter has a role in this mess, the players have a role and so does the GM.

The trick is identifying the exact and correct things to blame on the correct person(s)

The low hanging fruit is the GM and his contracts. I personally didn't think the Gabo and Brown contracts were all that bad at the time they were given, its just that both players fell off relatively in a short amount of time after getting said contracts. He can absolutely take heat for the Mike Richards balk. and I think Kopitar is more of a 8 - 8.5 guy coming off a 6.8 deal. The Bishop and ignla trades are only bad in retrospect because the team slipped out of the play offs, those might have come in handy during the play offs but looking back over the last 20 games, I personally think they were bad moves.

Sutter, he can take heat for the way he missuses talent and favors veterans that don't deserve the favoritism when they are not performing. He also can take heat for favoring SOG's as opposed to shooting to score. I realize some players are actually trying to pick corners and not all shots are being shot for a rebound, it just seems like that SOG concept is beaten into their psyche a bit too much. In shoot outs and break aways, I feel the coach should encourage stick handling and making moves more than trying to snipe. not sure if that last one fits but its a team problem, maybe more on the players.

The team/players - they don't move the puck quick like Peng said, that is a big problem. They hesitate to pinch and when they do commit they get burned. Muzz, Amart are too soft and get beat a lot in our own zone. the D has big trouble getting shots through from the point. players tend to get on the wrong side of the puck and lose battles, they make some bad passes (Gaborik) and they generally lack creativity and the ability to make plays at speed.

fixing all of this is no easy task, but it starts with letting the kids play and scrapping some traditional thought.

How do you guys feel about Lindy Ruff? It's been reported that Dallas won't be bringing him back. The scouting report on him is that he's all offense, no defense. The "no defense" part is a big criticism of him, but LA doesn't need someone to come in and teach them defense. The players have already had that beaten into them by the organization and will continue to be at least decent defensively, in spite of Ruff. They might no longer be a top defensive team under him, but the boost in their offensive game might more than make up for it (at least for a few years, at which point, the window for this core might be closing, anyways).
- Osprey

we will really get to see how good/great Quick is... I would take the trade-off of less D and more O. At least it will placate the Sutter-haters.

How do you guys feel about Lindy Ruff? It's been reported that Dallas won't be bringing him back. The scouting report on him is that he's all offense, no defense. The "no defense" part is a big criticism of him, but LA doesn't need someone to come in and teach them defense. The players have already had that beaten into them by the organization and will continue to be at least decent defensively, in spite of Ruff. They might no longer be a top defensive team under him, but the boost in their offensive game might more than make up for it (at least for a few years, at which point, the window for this core might be closing, anyways).
- Osprey

I haven't followed Lindy closely in Dallas, but I kept tabs on his long run in Buffalo. "No defense" would probably not be a fair assessment of that phase of his career. The Sabres often had to get by without much talent up front - check out the roster of the '98-'99 squad that went to Game 6 of the finals, they were built from the goal (Hasek) with not a ton of memorable talent up front.

Compared to his last two gigs, I'd say the Kings have more defensive depth than Dallas, and more offensive potential than many of the Sabres teams he coached.

I haven't followed Lindy closely in Dallas, but I kept tabs on his long run in Buffalo. "No defense" would probably not be a fair assessment of that phase of his career. The Sabres often had to get by without much talent up front - check out the roster of the '98-'99 squad that went to Game 6 of the finals, they were built from the goal (Hasek) with not a ton of memorable talent up front.
- responsible_D

To be clear, I was repeating what seems to be the common assessment of his time in Dallas, that they went all-in on offense and paid no mind to defending. That said, it could be argued that the Sabres teams supported a similar assessment. First of all, an offensive system would explain why a relatively talentless forward corps was able to still produce a reasonable number of goals to allow those teams to be successful. Secondly, Hasek is considered one of the greatest goaltenders because he had the frequent opportunity to stand on his head and flopped all over the place. That makes it seem like defense wasn't the team's strong suit and that they relied on Hasek (and, later, Ryan Miller) to bail them out.

It seems to me that, if you have a really good goalie and a forward corps that's lacking in talent and/or depth, a system that stresses offense over defense is probably the way to go. Right now, LA's system largely has the same strengths and weaknesses as the roster, which some might say makes for great "fit," but others might say makes the weaknesses unchecked and glaring (ex. weak forward depth in a system that doesn't promote scoring).

Sutter and Lombardi relieved of their duties!

Sutter and Lombardi relieved of their duties!
- arh777

This shall get interesting.

Sutter and Lombardi relieved of their duties!
- arh777

Sutter and Lombardi relieved of their duties!
- arh777

Not sure luc and Blake are the answer. Thank you for 2 cups DS and DL

Not sure luc and Blake are the answer. Thank you for 2 cups DS and DL
- Stu17

Yeah I really wanted to see Futa take the reigns