ARI 3 - LAK 2: Nick Nickson >>>>> Dick Dickson

[funky]

Hopefully the rest gets Ehrhoffs head screwed on straight , we need him

Yes McNabb had an off night that cost us, but has played well prior and I will let it slide

It doesn't really matter what our crappy defence does, or Quick for that matter if we only have 1 line that puts the puck in the net with any consistency.

Paging Mr Gaborik...... You are a key cog that was brought here to score.....you have been my biggest disappointment this year. If San Jose wants leadership I will drive you and Greene there and pick up Patty M. ...yes I know this will be unpopular.....I just hate floaters ( Gabby), and pylons that take penalties.

Nice to see Brown get the monkey off his back, guy usually scores in bunches so hopefully he wakes up the first line.

Like the improved play from Tanner and Shore.....still need them to trend up

Didn't mind Cliffy out there at the end, at first I was mad, then I realized no one else that was on the bench was much of an improvement last night.

Just get Kopitar signed and his mind back to 100% on the game......gotta be somewhat distracting.

Like what Lucic is bringing. Once King comes back we will have that grind a team down playoff offence

 

[YP44]

Hopefully the rest gets Ehrhoffs head screwed on straight , we need him

Yes McNabb had an off night that cost us, but has played well prior and I will let it slide

It doesn't really matter what our crappy defence does, or Quick for that matter if we only have 1 line that puts the puck in the net with any consistency.

Paging Mr Gaborik...... You are a key cog that was brought here to score.....you have been my biggest disappointment this year. If San Jose wants leadership I will drive you and Greene there and pick up Patty M. ...yes I know this will be unpopular.....I just hate floaters ( Gabby), and pylons that take penalties.

Nice to see Brown get the monkey off his back, guy usually scores in bunches so hopefully he wakes up the first line.

Like the improved play from Tanner and Shore.....still need them to trend up

Didn't mind Cliffy out there at the end, at first I was mad, then I realized no one else that was on the bench was much of an improvement last night.

Just get Kopitar signed and his mind back to 100% on the game......gotta be somewhat distracting.

Like what Lucic is bringing. Once King comes back we will have that grind a team down playoff offence

ummm not umpopluar with me. get rid of gaborik and greene's contract would allow us to re-sign kopitar plus either Marleau or Lucic

 

[Frolov 6'3]

For how much the Kings have the puck, its odd they play more minutes on the PK than on the PP.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

For how much the Kings have the puck, its odd they play more minutes on the PK than on the PP.

I agree. I think there's several components to that, but the biggest is we're literally bigger and stronger than many other teams, so they may go down easier while we get 'punished' for staying upright (except brown ). I mean, even when not playing well, look at how much abuse Kopi takes; he ate a bunch of crosschecks to the upper back last night just skating around. Last night was just crap reffing all around (yay tim peel) though. Another component is when we DO give the puck up, in games like last night where we're controlling just about everything, there's a real lack of focus on everyone's part to get back into a good defensive position (i.e. we start cheating offensively), so we have to take a penalty to compensate, i.e. Doughty's hold. It's why those low-shot-against counter games scare me, we get the majority of the play in the offensive zone so we're almost lulled into a false sense of security. Just spitballing my observations, these aren't concrete, but I know exactly what you mean and it's frustrating.

 

[YP44]

For how much the Kings have the puck, its odd they play more minutes on the PK than on the PP.

that's what happens when you take so many offensive zone penalties. Not sure where that would be tracked but I am guessing the kings are top in the league for offensive zone penalties.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

Some food for thought:



Passes the eye test, too. We're playing very well, just a couple of bad breakdowns and bad bounces that, unlike last year, I expect us to correct.

Edit: For those who are unaware, PDO is a simple shooting % + save % stat and most teams finish around 100%. We were 100.1% at the end of last year, tops was NYR at 101.9, bottom was Carolina at 97.1%. It's just one more indicator to add to advanced stats as good teams with great goaltending will be higher, bad teams struggling will be lower...Calgary was in hot water because of bad corsi but great goaltending and shooting % and here they are. If you look at this year's spread, you can draw some expectations (i.e. NYR won't be at 106% all year, they'll come down and cool off, and Calgary likewise won't be at 95%).

 

[lexlavender]

Clearly Arizona will be this year's PDO champions, possibly making the playoffs like they did in 2012 off of pure luck and steam in a bad division. Calling Tippet for the Jack Adams now.

As we all know from our woes with Calgary last year, PDO champs are our worst enemy because no matter how many shots we limit them to, the lucky ones still go in. Being lucky completely destroys our system .

Despite my talk of luck, we still did play poorly last night. Though the Kopi line is coming around imo, I see them start producing soon.

 

[YP44]

Some food for thought:



Passes the eye test, too. We're playing very well, just a couple of bad breakdowns and bad bounces that, unlike last year, I expect us to correct.

Edit: For those who are unaware, PDO is a simple shooting % + save % stat and most teams finish around 100%. We were 100.1% at the end of last year, tops was NYR at 101.9, bottom was Carolina at 97.1%. It's just one more indicator to add to advanced stats as good teams with great goaltending will be higher, bad teams struggling will be lower...Calgary was in hot water because of bad corsi but great goaltending and shooting % and here they are. If you look at this year's spread, you can draw some expectations (i.e. NYR won't be at 106% all year, they'll come down and cool off, and Calgary likewise won't be at 95%).

the 2nd period against Columbus probably is solely responsible for bumping them to left of that line.

 

[tsanuri]

Some food for thought:



Passes the eye test, too. We're playing very well, just a couple of bad breakdowns and bad bounces that, unlike last year, I expect us to correct.

Edit: For those who are unaware, PDO is a simple shooting % + save % stat and most teams finish around 100%. We were 100.1% at the end of last year, tops was NYR at 101.9, bottom was Carolina at 97.1%. It's just one more indicator to add to advanced stats as good teams with great goaltending will be higher, bad teams struggling will be lower...Calgary was in hot water because of bad corsi but great goaltending and shooting % and here they are. If you look at this year's spread, you can draw some expectations (i.e. NYR won't be at 106% all year, they'll come down and cool off, and Calgary likewise won't be at 95%).

Really outside of games 1 and 3 to start the year the team hasn't played all that bad. Can argue the game in Chicago as well. They have had some bad stretches in game. But as you are pointing out has had some terrible luck. It really seams as if every bad play, pass, and bad bounce end up in the back of the net. I know that's not the case but that's the feel.

 

[deeshamrock]

I love Sutter but he always his this odd obsession with putting Clifford in offensive roles. A couple years ago he was given chances with Richards-Carter and Kopitar-Williams and this isn't the first time he's been used as an extra attacker.

I wonder if Sutter spent some time in Ayr, Ontario in the early 90's.



He hasn't scored a goal in 31 games.

Look, I understand sending a message, but you also need to try and get points, and putting out the guy with the longest goal drought on the team just seems really dumb. Obviously this is a minor complaint, but it's still ridiculous to have Kyle Clifford on the ice in any kind of offensive role.

I do too and Sutter does crap like that a lot ,but it wasn't the right time, not with 2 pts on the line to a divisional opponent.

From LA Kings INisder, Sutter comments, no love for Brown

On whether it was good to see Dustin Brown score:
Hopefully he remembers how he did it. He’s got to play a power game. I’m not sure that was a part of his game tonight. The goal didn’t mean anything at the end.

On losing twice to Arizona:
Yeah, it’s disappointing. A division team, and we’ve had some guys who haven’t played very well against Phoenix for a long time, not just one or two games.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

I do too and Sutter does crap like that a lot ,but it wasn't the right time, not with 2 pts on the line to a divisional opponent.

From LA Kings INisder, Sutter comments, no love for Brown

Can't say he isn't right though. Brown had a pretty quiet night besides netting his goal.

In fact, aside from a hit from Doughty in the 2nd period, I can't recall the Kings doing much physically. When this team isn't playing a physical game, I find that they get trapped into playing to the opponents game.

Given their 2-3-0 start for November, I'm not very comfortable in the way this team has performed in those losses. These weren't necessarily games I'd look at and say it was close or they had a chance to win because of how flat they were in the 3rd period.

 

[YP44]

Really did not understand Clifford as the extra man when the goalie was pulled.

 

[losingsand]

The last 3 minutes saw no stoppages and I remember thinking... "dang we need a stoppage or we will be forced to put our bottom 6 out there." Sure enough clifford jumping over the boards seemed part of the normal flow of things...

just couldn't get a stoppage of any kind.

Sure Andreoff and Shore haven't really made a big impact but it seems of late that andreoff is starting to eclipse shore in being a factor. I'm a big Weal fan so at some point i'd like to see Weal out there to get some g-dang creativity happening in our bottom 6.

#freewealy

 

[YP44]

The last 3 minutes saw no stoppages and I remember thinking... "dang we need a stoppage or we will be forced to put our bottom 6 out there." Sure enough clifford jumping over the boards seemed part of the normal flow of things...

just couldn't get a stoppage of any kind.

Sure Andreoff and Shore haven't really made a big impact but it seems of late that andreoff is starting to eclipse shore in being a factor. I'm a big Weal fan so at some point i'd like to see Weal out there to get some g-dang creativity happening in our bottom 6.

#freewealy

Weal should be packaged with someone while he still has some value. He is not going to do well in Sutter's system. And Sutter is not going anywhere anytime soon.

 

[Riposte!]

On the plus side, Shore looked good and Forbort was real good out there.

I mean, other than not being able to connect on an of his breakout passes, sure.

 

[Trolfoli]

As we all know from our woes with Calgary last year, PDO champs are our worst enemy because no matter how many shots we limit them to, the lucky ones still go in. Being lucky completely destroys our system .

It isn't luck. The Kings don't have the personnel to play a perfect game defensively. They are going to give up good opportunities against. It doesn't matter if they spend half the period ripping low % shots at the opponents net if they give up a couple of odd make breaks due to breakdowns. The Calgary games from the last couple of years was just Calgary bunkering then when the Kings took chance to generate offense they counter punched... You don't need high volumes of shots to score goals. You need high quality chances and the ability to bury them.

From a statistical point of view... if the high volume low % chance shots actually generated goals on a consistent basis then there should be a fairly even distribution of goals across the lines, with adjustments for time played, PP, and slight skill. It would be very unprobable to have 1 line with 54% of the goals.

From LA Kings INisder, Sutter comments, no love for Brown

Watch Brown's game. Watch what he does when he has the puck. He holds on to it, skates around (that's if he didn't fumble the pass or fall over). Brown doesn't look for a pass. Most of the time he skates himself into a corner where he only has a bad shot as an option. Repeat... it isn't working. Either he needs to be moved to the 3rd line so he can skate around all he wants with the puck, or he needs to work on using the rest of his line and generating higher quality chances, or take the body and create chances by physical knocking defenders out of position.

He has 1 goal from standing in the crease and swinging away while leading the team in shots taken. Every shot Brown takes at this point is taking away an opportunity from someone that can hit the net.

 

[damacles1156]

The Pacific Division is really bad. It's shocking the Kings are playing so poorly within it.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

http://lakingsinsider.com/2015/11/11/sutter-credits-mcbain-reflects-on-defense/

“We need a lot,†Sutter said. “I was talking to Willie Mitchell the other night. That’s another guy you forget about. You take those guys out of our last Cup team – Willie, Robyn, Slava. Who else played a little bit there? Even the year we went to the conference finals, until we got Robyn, all the defensemen we used, I think we had Davis, Scuds, we got Keaton. If you look, if you get to that point, that’s a hell of a job to do that, and look at all the guys we had.â€

That the Kings are finding some success with a younger defense is one of the narratives that will travel with the team for as long as they do so.

“Now all that experience is gone,†Sutter said. “Now these guys can’t be in and out, can’t be making plays that are losing games for you.â€

Sutter with some praise for McBain and clearly a comment at the end directed towards McNabb.

Man it would be nice to have a guy like Mitchell in the top 4 again...

 

[kingsfan28]

The Pacific Division is really bad. It's shocking the Kings are playing so poorly within it.

Losing to Arizona twice at home just sucks. As with the Lumbus game, the Kings not getting the extra goal when they had the lead hurt them again. Smith was on the ropes in the 1st and had they gotten a few more when the chances were there , different game. It's been a theme the last two loses against weak teams.

 

[Frolov 6'3]

Losing to Phoenix and Columbus is bad. I also hate losing to any Eastern team because I think that conference is just weak. Losing to elite teams in the West also hurts and then people will complain the Kings are just not good enough to keep up with the absolute best.

What do we expect ?

The thing that annoys me and dont read much about...we have lost a truckload of games @ home already + have played twice as many games @ home.

 

[Frolov 6'3]

Weal should be packaged with someone while he still has some value. He is not going to do well in Sutter's system. And Sutter is not going anywhere anytime soon.

and this annoys me too.

You draft a player you knew has skill but isnt very big. Than you develop him for years in the system. Everybody happy. Than things are getting even more interesting, this same player leads the farm team to the Calder Cup win. He is getting better and better. People talk about him even more and agree he's one of the better prospects.

Than after two games and 14 minutes of TOI.

"Weal should be packaged with someone while he still has some value."


Ugh..