GDT: 2021-22 season game 9 LA Kings vs Buffalo Sabres @1:00pm 10/31/21

[Bandit]

Happy Halloween you bunch a sickos.

 

[johnjm22]

After losing Doughty, the Kings had those two terrible games against the Blues (outscored 10-3 in two games).

But since then their team GAA is a very good 2.33. The defense has settled down.

I realize it's only been 3 games, but doesn't this kind of show that Doughty never needed to play a ludicrous 26+ minutes per night?

When you play someone that much it really neuters their game IMO.

 

[Ray Martyniuk]

What you going to do with Brown?

I could tell you but you may not like it

 

[KingsFan7824]

I am curious if this is a change going forward or if players will face discipline doing stuff like this.

On being more comfortable and noticeable offensively
I’m trying to join the rush as much as I can and trying to just play my game. [The coaches] have said to me, “be a more offensive threat” and play your game, use your skating. That’s what I’m trying to do.

On the maturity and growth in Tobias Bjornfot’s game as of late
We talked about Toby’s game getting better, night after night, and him using his legs. Early in the year, he played in between, he was just about there but not all the way there. Tonight, even last night, a few games ago, Trent Yawney talked to him and said get aggressive, get going, and we saw that from him. Great legs, both offensively and defensively, good for him.

 

[King'sPawn]

What you going to do with Brown?

So much moving things around I removed him and thought I re-added him.

I'd keep him on the 4th line for now until Byfield gets back.

 

[johnjm22]

Coming into this game the Kings lead the NHL in Shots-On-Goal-Differential per game (+5.6).

Today LA out shot Buffalo 34 to 24 (+10).

There's 13 teams in the league with a +.5 or better differential. Every single one of them has a least .500 record except the Kings.

 

[DoktorJeep]

I caught the first two periods before we went wheels from SFO -> SNA. 90 minutes later I saw the Kings had won the game. Good to see them beat teams who have less talent up front, while playing short handed on D.

They ended up 3-5-1 in their first month of games, which is higher than I predicted by 5 points. So that’s a good place to start the next set of ten or so games. The best part is seeing the younger forwards from Iafallo on down step up and support Kopitar on a multiple nights in a row.

 

[Bandit]

What you going to do with Brown?

Take him to the Super Bowl.

 

[KingsFan7824]

Coming into this game the Kings lead the NHL in Shots-On-Goal-Differential per game (+5.6).

Today LA out shot Buffalo 34 to 24 (+10).

There's 13 teams in the league with a +.5 or better differential. Every single one of them has a least .500 record except the Kings.

Not that dissimilar to how it used to be in the good old days, the Kings now(well, for a few years) just don't get that famed 3rd goal, instead they give it up. And whatever they used to do in OT has gone out the window, because now they're awful at it.

 

[KingsFan7824]

I caught the first two periods before we went wheels from SFO -> SNA. 90 minutes later I saw the Kings had won the game. Good to see them beat teams who have less talent up front, while playing short handed on D.

They ended up 3-5-1 in their first month of games, which is higher than I predicted by 5 points. So that’s a good place to start the next set of ten or so games. The best part is seeing the younger forwards from Iafallo on down step up and support Kopitar on a multiple nights in a row.

You had them equivalent to an 18pt team over 82 games after 9?

 

[Peter James Bond II]

Great win. Tobias Bjornfot is just getting better and better. Glad Yawney has told him to be aggressive.
(somewhere, Doughty yelled "that'a boy, Toby!!" when he made that play) Does anyone have a gif of that? When Toby hit someone and Drew yelled that from the bench...

Lias Andersson; the thing I love about his forechecking and winning like 75% of all puck battles...is that when you think of puck battles, it is mano y mano and the puck is up for grabs and one wins it...but half the time, the opponent has the puck and is controlling it...Lias comes in and hits them and steals it, or just takes it. It's more awesome than a mano y mano win. You have to realize how skilled he is and how great his hands are....he has the hands of a top 1st round pick, but just doing little things that are HUGE....that sick goal in preseason, Lehner is still going the wrong way this moment. That was so fun to see Lehner's 250 pound mass going the wrong way.

Lias looked good with Kopi and I bet if it was Lias - Kopi - Arvidsson , you'd see even more scoring from that line. Brown is so done. There's no way he can be playing top line by January 1. It's just criminal now....so when Byfield comes back and if AA ever does, some of these guys will be forced out, or down in the lineup. So be it. This can be a good team. Really. It's like, in 7 weeks, could be adding DD and Byfield and forcing everyone to step up, or be one of the scratched ones.

#2 pick for Andersson. Blake's best deal and Lias is just getting started. Not even TMac can stop him.

My favorite Lias play tonight: he was knocked to his knees and he still managed a pretty hard, 40 foot pass back to the point, right on the tape. Freaking sweet. He needs to move up a line or 3.
Conversely, Brown cannot make 15 foot, easy passes anymore...unless it's to an opponents stick.
Lias would get pucks for Arvy and Kopi and would become the best King line in years. Does TMac have what it takes, to do that?

 

[Peter James Bond II]

Disagree on Moore, the guy was all over the ice today.

I agree, Moore is playing better, the last 2 days...BUT, when Kupari had the puck on the PP and could have shot, he slid it to Moore, who was cutting in
and he passed it again to the front! He had some open net and should have buried it. No reason, not to shoot. Arvy and Arty would have buried that.
He's got to start shooting.

 

[Ollie Weeks]

Brown at the end - wtf was he thinking?

He didn’t put that in because I am losing my fantasy matchup by about a goal’s worth of points.

 

[kingsholygrail]

Lemieux brings the energy. Glad to have him back.

 

[Trash Panda]

It’s a shame we can’t send brown and kempe into outer space for the season, because I really think we could change the entire makeup of this team with just a little shakeup.

Arvidsson-Kopitar-Andersson
Iafallo-Danault-Arty
Moore-Kupari-Vilardi
Grundstrom-JAD-Lemieux

Each line has a little jam, a little skill, and most importantly brown is nowhere near this roster to flub empty net 1 on 1’s.

 

[Ollie Weeks]

Euphemistic way of looking at it.

Kaliyev got benched/demoted, let's see if he's scratched next game. Andersson, to his credit, looked like a beast. Him moving UP was a good move.

There should be no reason for guys to have 7 minutes in this game and Kopitar to have nearly 25 on a back to back. That's the load management thing we were complaining about last year. The offseason sold us on rolling all lines, aggressive forecheck philosophy.

You would think Lemieux at least had earned more icetime, but whatevs.

It's hard to complain because as you say ultimately it's the first b2b wins of the season (and on afternoon weekend games, none the less!), but the same TM issues are there, they didn't patch themselves and I still have an issue with it. I guess to be fair special teams time threw everything out of whack, too.

As far as the players out there--I'm much happier with the efforts top to bottom.

I don’t think anyone seriously expects Kaliyev to get scratched next game. Vilardi has kinda earned a break- expectations for him are rightfully higher, BUT he does need to draw back in. Like I said, tinkering and rotating.

Kopi’s 25 minutes I can live with on a rare night where we are chasing a lead early in a bleak season, and his minutes were largely on the attack and inflated by the PP. I’m also cool with it because we’ve got Danault spotting him with 18 minutes of his own. With Danault supporting him him I’d argue Kopi doing 25 minutes this year is far easier than 25 minutes from the last couple years.

I do expect these to be outliers. I’ll get back to you in a month though if it’s still happening for no reason other than coaching habit.

 

[lumbergh]

Lemieux brings the energy. Glad to have him back.

Are you posting the Kings' record under your avatar? A week ago the Kings' record was 1-3-1, which matched their defensive system last season.

 

[johnjm22]

It’s a shame we can’t send brown and kempe into outer space for the season, because I really think we could change the entire makeup of this team with just a little shakeup.

Arvidsson-Kopitar-Andersson
Iafallo-Danault-Arty
Moore-Kupari-Vilardi
Grundstrom-JAD-Lemieux

Each line has a little jam, a little skill, and most importantly brown is nowhere near this roster to flub empty net 1 on 1’s.

Kempe and Brown are our 2 leading goal scorers last year.

Let's take them out, and put in Vilardi; who's probably been the absolute worst forward on the team this season with his abysmal -18.4 CF% REL. It's not a coincidence he's a team worst -5.

 

[Trash Panda]

Kempe and Brown are our 2 leading goal scorers last year.

Let's take them out, and put in Vilardi; who's probably been the absolute worst forward on the team this season with his abysmal -18.4 CF% REL. It's not a coincidence he's a team worst -5.

Not only did you make an argument for Brown and Kempe being keepers after a game like tonight where it’s clear as day what they are, but you followed it by using +\- as a reason to not give a young & developing skilled center ice time.

So much wrong, packed into such a small space.

 

[kilowatt]

Kempe and Brown are our 2 leading goal scorers last year.

Let's take them out, and put in Vilardi; who's probably been the absolute worst forward on the team this season with his abysmal -18.4 CF% REL. It's not a coincidence he's a team worst -5.

Vilardi and Tkachev played pretty poorly, I agree. I think at this point it certainly looks like Kupari is the better third line center at least. And obviously Gabe's in COVID protocol, but I hope that when he is back he's given a chance to play wing somewhere. Give him a shot with Iafallo and Danault. He's got a lethal shot and is super creative. But he needs guys like Danault and Iafallo (or Andersson).

Andersson - Kopitar - Arvidsson
Iafallo - Danault - Vilardi
Kempe - Kupari - Kaliyev
Lemieux - Moore - Brown

 

[kingsfan]

Love reading these threads afterward. Team plays well with heart, rallies for a 3-2 win and gives us a winning streak finally, and while there is a lot of praise, we still see people complaining about things like bench management and being upset Tmac played some guys to much and others -young guys- not enough. We won, so the choices Tmac made resulted in that win. Maybe that was luck, maybe it was smart choices, likely it was a combo, but either way we won. I don't care if Kaliyev ended up losing some ice time today and Kopitar and Brown ate 20+ minutes, they were also two of the best players and we are a bubble team to make the postseason. I'm not worried about managing their workload for games down the stretch, two points today matters just as much as two points in three months.

Btw, Kaliyev still got 13:29 of ice time tonight and Tmac did play the kids on defense. Contrary to commenters beliefs as well, yeah, he did have an option to not play them. He ended up giving Edler just 15 minutes and Maatta 14:33. Edler has averaged 18:44 a night so far and Maatta 17:03, so they each got several minutes below their norm so far, minutes that went to the kids.

 

[Ghetty Green]

As good as Kupari and Kaliyev have been playing, I must again talk about Bjornfot. Another stellar performance. This guy's our #2 d man going forward after DD.

Mikey Anderson is our most overrated prospect.

 

[Ghetty Green]

To be fair to Clague, he has always looked at the very least competent when given a chance, garbage preseason notwithstanding. Nobody on the active roster right now makes his break out passes. When it's time, cut Maatta and keep Clague up. Especially since he can play right or left side. I think he and Mikey were a pairing in Ontario once upon a time.

Agreed.

Also, Clague>>> Mikey

 

[Ghetty Green]

Preseason is everything. It really matters.

Right ? The nerve of Kopitar tearing it up, as if we forgot his shitty preseason

 

[Ghetty Green]

Man this board was better pre cups, now we still complain even after finally winning 2 in a row that a rookie got some ice time reduced.
The board went to hell after Terry Murray got fired. So weird considering we won 2 cups right after
I miss the fun self hatred/loathing, not the just angry at everything.