1992 Los Angeles Kings- An In-Between Team

[c9777666]

The 1991-92 LA Kings were one of those in-between teams.

They had a 35-31-14 record, which was dissapointing and surprising considering:

The previous season, they had a 46-win, 102 point division title winning season (the only time in team history they had a first-place regular season finish)

The following season, they made their memorable run to the Stanley Cup Finals despite a record that wasn't THAT much better (39 wins, 88 points).

The difference between 1992 and 1993 is that the 1993 team started red-hot and was meh the rest of the year, while the 1992 team never really got going and was no threat to Vancouver in the Smythe Division (a team that finished 37 points behind LA in the 1991 season)

In 1992, they made a pair of interesting moves- essentially swapping Steve Duchense for Jari Kurri, adding Paul Coffey.

The moves didn't pay off big in 1992 at times, but Kurri and Coffey were a big part of their hot start in the 1992-93 season (Coffey had 57 points in 50 games before the Detroit trade).

Also, the 1992 team had a less-than-memorable playoff exit against Edmonton- it went six games like the 1991 series, but whereas the '91 series could've gone either way (3 of Edmonton's 4 wins required OT, 2 of them double OT), the 1992 series was hardly a classic.

So why was this team unable to recapture the magic of 1991, but found a different type of magic in 1993?

 

[The Pale King]

A bit similar to the Rangers, who won the Presidents Trophy in '92, missed the playoffs the next year, before bouncing back to win the Cup in '94 and end the 54 year drought.

Still don't understand why they traded Coffey mid-season. McSorely really was excellent in the run to the finals (even with the infamous penalty), but you're a lot better off with Coffey as your no. 1.

 

[The Panther]

Yes, I agree -- the 1991/92 Kings were a bit of a mystery.

Everything went well in 1990-91 -- the Kings, as you say, finished in 1st in the division for the first time (they in fact had the best goal-differential in the whole NHL). The key matter in 1990-91 was that they FINALLY tightened-up defensively. Defense had been, and would be in future, the team's Achilles Heel. But in 1990-91 they improved from 16th (1989) and 18th (1990) to 4th defensively! I mean, it was huge: they shaved 50+ goals-against off, while maintaining their high-scoring offense.

It was a brief blip, however, as the team fell back to 15th defensively in 1991-92, 21st in 1992-93, and 24th in 1993-94. I mean, they were TERRIBLE defensively. (Can anyone find another team that finished 21st defensively and still made the Stanley Cup Final, as the Kings did in 1993?)

So, from that perspective, you can kind-of (to stretch it a bit) see why they unloaded Paul Coffey. The thinking was probably akin to: "1.5 years ago we were great defensively, and now we're terrible, and so if we lose Coffey, we might recover our safer defensive strategy." Of course, it doesn't work like that, and the trade was lousy, all things considered. (The last thing the Kings needed in 1992/93 was yet another soft, high-scoring forward, so why they thought to get Jimmy Carson back is an eternal mystery. I guess they were desperate to get a 2nd-center to Gretzky, but they must have been the only team by '93 to think Carson would be that person.)

Anyway, in 1991-92, I think a lot of little things went wrong from the off:
- Gretzky was 'Sutered' in the Canada Cup, and his back was off
- Gretzky's father had an aneurysm at the start of the season, and Gretzky's concentration and play hugely suffered (and he missed a number of games early).
- Both Jari Kurri (soft after a year in Italy) and Charlie Huddy were big disappointments. Kurri failed to meet the enormous expectations on him... it didn't help when he scored a hat-trick in his first game back. (He then scored 3 goals and went -13 in the next 18 games.)
- Tomas Sandstrom, as usual, got injured and missed half the season.
- Age caught up with Larry Robinson, who also missed several games.
- Not a single defenseman on the team played a full season: Only two D-men played more than 57 games, and one was Peter Ahola (!).
- Kelly Hrudey actually wasn't bad, despite his annual playoff meltdown. But the back-ups had a collective save-percentage around .865%.

Despite all this, the Kings somehow started the season 8-3-3. They then went 9-16-7 in the next 32 games.

 

[tarheelhockey]

they had a 46-win, 102 point division title winning season (the only time in team history they had a first-place regular season finish)

This doesn't seem possible, but I checked the records and you're right.

In nearly 50 years on the ice, the Kings have 2 Cup banners but only one division title. Great piece of trivia.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

I remember how bad the team depth was down the middle after they dealt Todd Elik and Steve Kasper that offseason. It forced Bob Kudelski to move to C and Corey Millen (who was a pleasant surprise offensively) was small and weak defensively.

By opening night of 92-93, Kurri was moved to C, replacing an injured Gretzky for half the season. Millen centered the USA line with Tony Granato and Mike Donnelly, and Pat Conacher centered an effective checking line with Dave Taylor and Warren Rychel.

Trading Coffey away for Carson was a terrible deal, as Carson went on to be a healthy scratch for most of the playoffs.

The series of bad decisions the organization made starting in the summer of '91 really hampered the team's overall depth. And it would continue on after '93. Nick Beverley was a terrible GM, as was Sam McMaster.

 

[c9777666]

Everything went well in 1990-91 -- the Kings, as you say, finished in 1st in the division for the first time (they in fact had the best goal-differential in the whole NHL). The key matter in 1990-91 was that they FINALLY tightened-up defensively. Defense had been, and would be in future, the team's Achilles Heel. But in 1990-91 they improved from 16th (1989) and 18th (1990) to 4th defensively! I mean, it was huge: they shaved 50+ goals-against off, while maintaining their high-scoring offense.

I sometimes wonder if the '91 Kings would have beaten Minnesota had those OT games with Edmonton in their last hurrah with the 80s core of players gone differently (The 1992 team that also crashed the playoff party was a lot different by comparison). They won game 1 in OT, but Edmonton won the other sudden-death games that series (Klima, Tikkanen, MacTavish).

(Then again, given Hrudey's playoff shakiness, maybe the North Stars power play doesn't miss a beat had that matchup happened)

Had a few OT bounces gone the other way, we either could've gotten a Gretzky/Lemieux dream Finals or the North Stars '91 run through the Campbell Conference would be more incredible as it already was (Imagine if they beat the 1-2-3 teams in the league!)

Crazy how things turned out: you had 1-2-3-4 in the league all in the same Campbell bracket, and it was the Oilers of all teams (.500 record, yes, but they WERE defending Cup champs who had an undeniable playoff aura) who had home ice in round 3.

 

[The Panther]

I sometimes wonder if the '91 Kings would have beaten Minnesota had those OT games with Edmonton in their last hurrah with the 80s core of players gone differently (The 1992 team that also crashed the playoff party was a lot different by comparison). They won game 1 in OT, but Edmonton won the other sudden-death games that series (Klima, Tikkanen, MacTavish).

Yes, I think the same thing -- the 1990 Kings and 1992 Kings lost bad to Edmonton; it wasn't even close. But the 1991 team was the great missed opportunity: they really SHOULD have beaten banged-up, old, talent-depleted Edmonton in April 1991, but somehow they lost three games in overtime, and with them, the series.

And absolutely the '91 Kings would have taken down Minnesota. The clock was ticking on Minny anyway by the third round, and I cannot see Gretzky in his last great year, on a very good team, losing to 68-point or whatever Minnesota.

So, I think had L.A. beaten Edmonton in '91 (which required maybe just one of three OT games going the other way), we'd have seen a late-prime Gretzky vs. mid-prime Lemieux Stanley Cup Final.

Sigh.

 

[Talisman]

it would`ve been very interesting to see if kings had`nt trade Bernie nicholls to Granato/sandstrom??. the team with very good center duo Gretzky/Nicholls : off course the deal gave very good wing depth to kings witn sandtrom and Granato landing in LA.

 

[tony d]

For a team with as much success as L.A. the past few yrs. it's pretty neat that they only have 1 division title; 26 yrs. ago.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

For a team with as much success as L.A. the past few yrs. it's pretty neat that they only have 1 division title; 26 yrs. ago.

The Gretzky era Kings were known to be very weak defensively, and historically the Kings were never known for their defense or goaltending until recently. Hell, Jon Quick already has achieved just about every team record for goaltending.

The 10 division banners the Canucks have. The Capitals and Blues have 9 division titles, and the Sharks and Sabres have 6. I'm sure they'd all trade those banners for one Stanley Cup. Those division titles really are meaningless.