Game 12: Kings Win in Regulation!!! Kings 5 - Flames 0

[The Tikkanen]

How well are Forbort and Gravel playing? Havent been able to watch any games this season yet

Well enough that Scuderi and Greene should be logging heavy minutes in Ontario for the rest of the season. It's the mobility that is key to me.

 

[Omni Owl]

I'm critical of Greene playing, but he's looked fine out there.

 

[The Tikkanen]

I'm critical of Greene playing, but he's looked fine out there.

The ice time being HANDED to Greene and King is astounding. We've seen this from Sutter before when he gave Stoll and Richards PP time at the end of their tenures. King with 17:10 compared to Pearson with 13:55.

 

[damacles1156]

The ice time being HANDED to Greene and King is astounding. We've seen this from Sutter before when he gave Stoll and Richards PP time at the end of their tenures. King with 17:10 compared to Pearson with 13:55.

Do you want Doughty playing 30 mins a night ? Doughty only played 23:18 last night.

Then Greene's pairing has to play. Gravel looked great with Greene, let them play.

Same with King, he is paired with Kopitar, you have to play that line.

Pearson is paired with Carter, and missed some shifts, he may have been banged up for all anyone knows.

Toffoli played 18:31, and has not been very good, so there is that.

 

[damacles1156]

Also why are people so eager to screw up the bottom six now, it's finally tilting the ice, and scoring.

Simply need Carter/Kopitar/Pearson/Toffoli to start playing better. You can't blame there lack of production, all on Dwight King.

 

[The Tikkanen]

Also why are people so eager to screw up the bottom six now, it's finally tilting the ice, and scoring.

Simply need Carter/Kopitar/Pearson/Toffoli to start playing better. You can't blame there lack of production, all on Dwight King.

Dwight King is playing top 6 minutes.

 

[damacles1156]

Dwight King is playing top 6 minutes.

Moving Dwight King, causes you to elevate a bottom player. Thus messing with, the bottom six.

Someone has to play next to Kopitar, Lewis/Clifford finally look good in the right place, next to Shore.

Brown/Dowd/Seto, no way you want to break that up.

I guess Sutter could scratch King, and insert Nolan. But everyone would be complaining about that.

 

[Omni Owl]

I'm glad Forbort and Gravel are both getting shots, they're adjusting well to the pace of the league, and we still have LaDue in Ontario. Dowd has almost singlehandedly sparked the bottom 6, I hope we don't lose him to expansion. Its been a rough year so far, but there have been some bright spots, I'm still not expecting much though.

 

[Basilisk]

Forbort/Gravel are keepers.

Brown has 7 points in 12 games...DAhell

He's auditioning for Captain of the Vegas Knights.

 

[kingsholygrail]

Was checking the score regularly at Blizzcon. Glad to see the Kings can take advantage of the Flames like everyone else has. Also love seeing those points from the 3rd line.

 

[Trolfoli]

Also why are people so eager to screw up the bottom six now, it's finally tilting the ice, and scoring.

Simply need Carter/Kopitar/Pearson/Toffoli to start playing better. You can't blame there lack of production, all on Dwight King.

Yes you can. We know those players can hit a higher level if they're given guys on their lines that can make plays. Dwight King made a play in the last game and it ended up in the net. The problem is King only makes a play every couple of games vs multiple plays per game. I wouldn't expect much more out of the top 6 going up against other teams top shutdown guys while dragging someone like Purcell around.

It's great having depth scoring that can exploit other teams weak 3rd pairing since few teams have a complete 6D. Lots of teams have a D that they shelter. The problem is Brown's 6M in the bottom 6 keeps this team from having a good top6.

Edit: You know I feel pretty good about this team. It probably won't be ready to do anything in the playoffs due to all the young D, but should be a good year.

 

[KingsFan7824]

The ice time being HANDED to Greene and King is astounding. We've seen this from Sutter before when he gave Stoll and Richards PP time at the end of their tenures. King with 17:10 compared to Pearson with 13:55.

King played ok though. Pearson had 0 shots all game, and played 2 minutes on the PP. King didn't, had a couple shots, and had a nice little pass to Carter on the goal. Of the 2 scoring lines, the one King played on actually scored.

It was a 5-0 game. From what I see, King had the most ES minutes of any forward from either team. In a blowout, there's nothing wrong with that. Did King get more time when it was still close, or did it increase as it got to 3-0, 4-0, 5-0?

 

[MsMeow]

That was the first game I saw so far this season. I went to bed at 4-0 figuring I was safe. The last 2 minutes of the first broke the back of the Flames, hopefully there will be more of this as the season goes.

 

[Trolfoli]

Wait! I just realized! First REGULATION WIN!!!!!!

 

[KingsFan7824]

Yes you can. We know those players can hit a higher level if they're given guys on their lines that can make plays.

Of the guys on the roster, not who people wish were on the roster, or who aren't able to play yet, what else are you going to do? Dowd/Brown/Setoguchi played well together. If you take out Brown and Setoguchi, what wingers is Sutter left with, other than Toffoli and Pearson? King, Purcell, Clifford, Lewis, and Nolan. Purcell played with Kopitar. Do you want Clifford, Lewis, or Nolan instead of King? 6 of one at that point, although King has put up double digits in goals and assists over the years.

There's the cap, there's a certain limits of young guys and vets that can play in the AHL, and the Kings have some injuries.

 

[damacles1156]

Of the guys on the roster, not who people wish were on the roster, or who aren't able to play yet, what else are you going to do? Dowd/Brown/Setoguchi played well together. If you take out Brown and Setoguchi, what wingers is Sutter left with, other than Toffoli and Pearson? King, Purcell, Clifford, Lewis, and Nolan. Purcell played with Kopitar. Do you want Clifford, Lewis, or Nolan instead of King? 6 of one at that point, although King has put up double digits in goals and assists over the years.

There's the cap, there's a certain limits of young guys and vets that can play in the AHL, and the Kings have some injuries.

Been trying to explain this, people simply gloss over it.

 

[Papa Mocha 15]

Well whaddya know, you play Forbort and Gravel instead of the retirement home, and your D is suddenly competent.

LOL About fricking time. Sad that it takes injuries for Sutter to take a chance on young D though.

 

[ADifferentTim]

LOL About fricking time. Sad that it takes injuries for Sutter to take a chance on young D though.

I'm beginning to receive the impression that Coach Sutter would rather burn out the veterans to the point of injury, just for a young D to join Kings from the Reign.

Sigh, I am getting more and more confused who is more likely to emulate the late George Steinbrenner's mistake of not taking a chance on young players from the farm between Coach Sutter and GM Lombardi.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

I'm beginning to receive the impression that Coach Sutter would rather burn out the veterans to the point of injury, just for a young D to join Kings from the Reign.

Sigh, I am getting more and more confused who is more likely to emulate the late George Steinbrenner's mistake of not taking a chance on young players from the farm between Coach Sutter and GM Lombardi.

Do we really need to go through the exercise of dispelling this notion yet again?

 

[damacles1156]

Cause,
Pearson/Toffoli/King/Nolan/Muzzin/Andy/Shore/Dowd/Gravel/Forbort/McNabb/Slava/A-Mart/Clifford/Doughty (was 22 yrs old). Were all never young/Rookie players under Sutter. I just named more than half the roster.

Some other coach, was coaching the Kings from December 2012 till now.

 

[KingCanadain1976]

nice to see a few of you are off the ledge for now. Also nice to see a few more on the king out of the top 6 bandwagon. I wouldn't get to happy about this win It was a good showing but it was against the flames people not exactly a powerhouse. I like the youth in the lineup (forbort and gravel) We need to do something about our pp It has been really bad With the talent we have there's no excuse for how bad its been. This win is a good start but we have a lot of room to improve

 

[Trolfoli]

Of the guys on the roster, not who people wish were on the roster, or who aren't able to play yet, what else are you going to do? Dowd/Brown/Setoguchi played well together. If you take out Brown and Setoguchi, what wingers is Sutter left with, other than Toffoli and Pearson? King, Purcell, Clifford, Lewis, and Nolan. Purcell played with Kopitar. Do you want Clifford, Lewis, or Nolan instead of King? 6 of one at that point, although King has put up double digits in goals and assists over the years.

There's the cap, there's a certain limits of young guys and vets that can play in the AHL, and the Kings have some injuries.

Been trying to explain this, people simply gloss over it.

You're missing the point. You were talking about the best players needing to play better and were saying they need to play better. It's really easy. Cater/Toffoli play a ton better with someone like Pearson then with King. End of story.

Sutter has had the option to run a line with 3 top 6 players on it and has decided not to. Now it may not be a better solution to cut down to one top end line, but if the alternative is no top end lines then it should have been tried.

I'll also add that Sutter doesn't like the kind of hockey that happens when you put 70/77/73 together or it would happen more often. It doesn't fit Sutter's belief that grinding it out and making the safe play 100% of the time is how to win Hockey games. This gets back to Sutter doesn't understand offense and doesn't know how to get a high end line going. He knows, he just detests it.

Also the depth scoring is nice, but I have doubts as to it continuing. Pens are not a great defensive team and were on the second night of the back to back, with a goalie that has a problem with bad bounces. The Flames are just garbage. Neither of those teams concerns me. What does, is can this team beat the Ducks/Sharks/Oilers. If they can't beat those teams in the head to head it'll be hard to get in the playoffs.

 

[sinister6000]

I'm happy to see Forbort, and Gravel getting to kill penalties. These guys will help the team buy allowing Muzzin, and Doughty to play a little less.

 

[theMajor]

Do we really need to go through the exercise of dispelling this notion yet again?

some people never learn!

 

[KingsFan7824]

You're missing the point. You were talking about the best players needing to play better and were saying they need to play better. It's really easy. Cater/Toffoli play a ton better with someone like Pearson then with King. End of story.

Sutter has had the option to run a line with 3 top 6 players on it and has decided not to. Now it may not be a better solution to cut down to one top end line, but if the alternative is no top end lines then it should have been tried.

I'll also add that Sutter doesn't like the kind of hockey that happens when you put 70/77/73 together or it would happen more often. It doesn't fit Sutter's belief that grinding it out and making the safe play 100% of the time is how to win Hockey games. This gets back to Sutter doesn't understand offense and doesn't know how to get a high end line going. He knows, he just detests it.

So Kopitar with King and Purcell is good? Teams can then load up on the 70's line? Kopitar has the highest salary in the league, and 3rd largest cap hit. Time to score.

Sutter ended up with the 70's line together for a Cup. That line started together in the 14-15 season, and stayed together for a while despite not scoring a ton. Then Pearson got hurt. King was put with Carter and Toffoli, and that line scored enough that people called it the 70's line too. That line carried the Kings offensively for a couple weeks late in the year. In 15-16, I'm sure the 70/77/73 line played together at some point, but then Gaborik wasn't doing anything in the first half, Pearson was still coming back from the knee, and Lucic was in there.

Purcell has been with Kopitar for a few games. Purcell is not in any way a Sutter grind it out type player. King is going to be somewhere, because there aren't a whole bunch of options at this point in time. Whether it's with Kopitar or Carter, what difference does it make?

I'm sick of them living by the 3v3 OT point, but Sutter hasn't coached the team out of the race yet.

Also the depth scoring is nice, but I have doubts as to it continuing. Pens are not a great defensive team and were on the second night of the back to back, with a goalie that has a problem with bad bounces. The Flames are just garbage. Neither of those teams concerns me. What does, is can this team beat the Ducks/Sharks/Oilers. If they can't beat those teams in the head to head it'll be hard to get in the playoffs.

Yeah, it's going to be difficult if the big guys aren't scoring at some point. Wingers don't make a line though. Kopitar and Carter both need to be better. They've been outplayed too much this season by a 26 year old rookie from Alabama. Doughty needs to be better. Muzzin has 0 ES points in 12 games so far. Carter has 0 PP points. He's out there with Kopitar and Toffoli all the time. Dowd and Brown(1g, 3a) have the same combined PP points as Carter, Kopitar, Doughty, Toffoli, and Muzzin(2g, 2a). One of those two groups isn't doing enough.

Complaining about King is a luxury.