GDT: 2021-22 season game 34 LA Kings vs Nashville Predators @7:30pm 1/6/22

[kings11]

We need more offense from our blue line, I doubt we get Chychrun but Provorov or even Soucy would be an upgrade right now

 

[Sol]

I like that Stoll rolled his eyes when Patrick said "silver lining". Nice telling microexpression strollzy

 

[lumbergh]

Kings outshoot their opponent and lose? What a surprise.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

Now that we're playing better I'll take a moral victory.

Great effort against the hottest team in the league. It took two godawful calls and our godawful special teams to win that one for the Preds.

Haven't scored with the extra man since Dec. 2019 LOL...I mean I'm not surprised, it sure feels like it, but it's weird to actually have a stat match the feeling for once.

Moverare looked really strong, he's already more reliable than Maatta. Considering the strength of opponent especially.

need to turn tonight's effort into a W on Saturday though, can't afford to get on a rough streak again.

 

[bland]

LOL I was thinking the same thing.

When three guys get beat clean by one defender the team is screwed. Nobody else on the ice in their right mind would think that is going to happen, so you cheat for the offense when you are down a goal. One Predator won the battle, makes one pass and its a two on one with an empty net. Game over.

 

[DoktorJeep]

2019 is when TMac and Sturm came to town and the last time the Kings scored with the goalie pulled. No coincidence IMO.

 

[ru4reals]

Well I mean we did play okay today. Generated a lot of shots. Just played against a hot goalie. Can't get too upset I guess.

 

[DryIslandBartender]

When three guys get beat clean by one defender the team is screwed. Nobody else on the ice in their right mind would think that is going to happen, so you cheat for the offense when you are down a goal. One Predator won the battle, makes one pass and its a two on one with an empty net. Game over.

The puck was being chased by one king into the corner, nobody made an attempt to disrupt the second predator in front of the net. There was nobody within a mile of the Pred. Moore was not hauling ass at all.

 

[Bandit]

Well I mean we did play okay today. Generated a lot of shots. Just played against a hot goalie. Can't get too upset I guess.

f***ing watch me!

 

[AbsentMojo]

Listening to Movarare post game he said Pepe gave him a pep(e) talk before the game that helped

 

[tny760]

Listening to Movarare post game he said Pepe gave him a pep(e) talk before the game that helped

kind of amusing, all these teammates saying good things about him while the average hf main board poster seems to think they know otherwise

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

God put a f***ing letter on Lemieux already

 

[FSL KINGS]

Moverare looked fine. Hope he gets a few more games. Nashville isolated him on one of the PP's. Used his stick to block one lane, got skates in another. Came away with the puck. Can make passes, stand up, get shots through.

Game was fine. Couple posts early, puck bounced on a penalty shot. Had a good chance to win this one. Good energy with a depleted roster.

 

[kingsholygrail]

At least we got to see Brown score the slowest breakaway ever.

 

[Schmooley]

God put a f***ing letter on Lemieux already

That line leaves it all on the ice every single shift. Wouldnt mind watching a full team like that even if they lose.

 

[ru4reals]

f***ing watch me!

Someone please check up on Bandit!!!

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

Gotta love Anze giving up the GWG because he was too tired and lazy to get the puck deep then too non-motivated to backcheck and cover Matt f***ing Luff. That's a nice way to blow a game, captain.

Good thing he got another 20+ minutes while being the 4th worst possession forward on the team--only worse line was Kupari-Brown-Andersson as expected but they still finished +1.

On the flip side, Drew Doughty was an absolute BEAST tonight, and Danault finished nearly 90% frigging CF%, with 17 shot attempts for and only TWO against.

Literally no reason to not give that line and the 'fourth' line more minutes and reduce the others accordingly, at this point they should be roughly even across the board frankly. Kopitar getting nearly twice the icetime of Lizotte and Kaliyev and co. absolutely does not sit well with me when looking at how tonight went down.

Two tiers of effort on this team right now, guys going balls out every shift and guys playing out the string in conserve mode.

 

[AbsentMojo]

Gotta love Anze giving up the GWG because he was too tired and lazy to get the puck deep then too non-motivated to backcheck and cover Matt f***ing Luff. That's a nice way to blow a game, captain.

Good thing he got another 20+ minutes while being the 4th worst possession forward on the team--only worse line was Kupari-Brown-Andersson as expected but they still finished +1.

On the flip side, Drew Doughty was an absolute BEAST tonight, and Danault finished nearly 90% frigging CF%, with 17 shot attempts for and only TWO against.

Literally no reason to not give that line and the 'fourth' line more minutes and reduce the others accordingly, at this point they should be roughly even across the board frankly. Kopitar getting nearly twice the icetime of Lizotte and Kaliyev and co. absolutely does not sit well with me when looking at how tonight went down.

Two tiers of effort on this team right now, guys going balls out every shift and guys playing out the string in conserve mode.

Koala prob afraid to embarrass the captain.. but Kopi is definitely hurting the team as a player and as a leader

 

[Herby]

They really talked up Frk on the broadcast quite a bit for 27 year old AAAA player. But he did score and overall looked decent, I'd like to see him up because we just have so few natural finishers. He provides nothing but goal-scoring, but for this team that is a major need.

Durzi has to let it rip from the middle of the ice instead of trying to give it back to Kempe, which ultimately lead to Kempe's penalty that took 2 minutes off the clock for a potential comeback with about 10 mins left in the 3rd. If there is no shooting lane he has to get it in deep behind the goal. Durzi has a lot of Joe Corvo in his game, and you have to take the good with the bad I guess.

The Kings play hard and give an honest effort most nights, usually teams have to earn the 2 points, but this teams lack of offensive finishers continues to define the struggles of the Kings since 2014. It's just hard to win games when you can't score 3 goals. 34 games played now, only 3+ goals in regulation in 13 of those (10-3 record).

Of all the teams in the NHL right now I'm not sure there is a squad with less of a gap between any of their lines. The Kings have what amounts to four pretty good 3rd lines third lines.

 

[bouncesonly]

At least we got to see Brown score the slowest breakaway ever.

It was a nice breakaway. Got a good jump on Josi and finished with a great fake back to the right. Reminds me of the game 4 breakaway against the Rangers:

 

[King'sPawn]

Good job by the third, wait, fourth line. Which is it tonight?
Brown - 13:50
Kaliyev - 12:51
Kupari - 12:18
Lemieux - 11:23
Lizotte - 11:09
Andersson - 10:42

 

[Live in the Now]

The Kings play hard and give an honest effort most nights, usually teams have to earn the 2 points, but this teams lack of offensive finishers continues to define the struggles of the Kings since 2014. It's just hard to win games when you can't score 3 goals. 34 games played now, only 3+ goals in regulation in 13 of those (10-3 record).

Of all the teams in the NHL right now I'm not sure there is a squad with less of a gap between any of their lines. The Kings have what amounts to four pretty good 3rd lines third lines.

That's the other crazy thing about their record since their horrible start. It's a good record but they aren't scoring at all. If someone could put a couple pucks in the net that would be nice. They have as many regulation losses as Vegas but the Kings also have 40 less goals. At some point it seems like the team will crater if it keeps going on like this.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

That's the other crazy thing about their record since their horrible start. It's a good record but they aren't scoring at all. If someone could put a couple pucks in the net that would be nice. They have as many regulation losses as Vegas but the Kings also have 40 less goals. At some point it seems like the team will crater if it keeps going on like this.

That's kind of my worry, like I want to think this season is better and by gosh there are a lot of indicators pointing up--but it wasn't so much game 30-40 that broke the last few years of the Kings, it was the last half of the season, the real grind, where they would just break.

Guys working this hard to lose takes a psychological toll after a certain amount of time. They really need to have either an even strength actual scoring or a special teams (PK, PP, EN) breakthrough sometime soon or it's probably gonna take a turn for the worse. And it would be a shame for a team that works this hard and frankly is top 10 in MOST indicators to miss the playoffs just because they can't figure out an extra half a goal per game on either end (mostly due to special teams).

Edit:
17.3% on the PP (24th)--tied for first with 6 shorthanded goals against
74.2% on the PK (27th)
No empty net man advantage goals for since December 2019

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

Honestly at this point I'd probably rip Kopitar off the PP altogether. If for no other reason than this team needs to remove a safety blanket of predictability but will also lower his/even out the others minutes. Change something, anything. Funny how much better it looked at times tonight when they had to play honest by cheating to Frk; they know otherwise they can just sit on guys elsewhere.

 

[kingsfan28]

he has a good one but he also loves to wait a second too long and then throw wristers into shinpads instead

Its good when he open his eyes and actually looks where he's shooting. Unfortunately, that's not very often. He probably has the slowest release out of any of the top dmen in the league. If you compare Duzi and Doughty it's not even close. With Durzi, it's off of his stick as soon as he gets it, where Doughty has a built in 2 second delay, just long enough for a defender to get in the way.