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Game #2 : Kings @ Jets - 10/4/13 - 3-5L

Sounds good on Martinez. I thought he just got absolutely wrecked one of those last preseason games and hadn't seen him since.

And i'm still thinking that scheduling was awful. Back to back on the road for two home openers? I'll take the two points and ignore everything else for now.
 
Bandit said:
He wasn't? Did you see his Pejorative Slured read on the 4th goal? Pointing for Carter to take the guy he should have been forcing to the outside. Derp derp derp.
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By the 4th goal I was pretty numb to the game and turned it off. Its either that or stuff gets broken or I get an infraction here usually. But uhh yea, more Martinez.
 
WhatTheFox said:
...
Outside of Doughty and Voynov, the defense couldn't connect on an outlet pass to save their lives. I don't know if the forwards aren't getting to where they need to be fast enough or our defensemen just suck at passing, but there were numerous times when passes out of the zone were too far ahead of the forward it was suppose to be going to. That really killed any transition out of the zone.
...
Regehr and Greene are slower than dirt. I can't believe Regehr cost us 2x 2nd round picks and we have to watch him for two more seasons. Greene took some bad penalties, but I still like what he brings to the table. Led the team with 4 hits.
...
Another issue I've noticed is that our defensemen don't pinch along the boards like they used to. I remember during the Cup run, they pinched like crazy and it led to tons of offensive zone time. I recall Hayward saying that LA pinched with reckless abandon and that they had so much confidence in one another. Don Cherry even pointed out how well LA cycled because the D would pinch in and a forward would cover, and it would just keep turning like a well oiled machine. I remember in last years PO run the 2 games that we dominated STL and SJ, the defensemen were aggressive along the boards. I think it was Gm 5 vs SJ, Matt Greene was an animal along the boards. What happened to all of that?
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All of these things are connected. Half of our defense is simply too slow to be effective. They don't have the footspeed to get themselves the space in the defensive zone to make good outlet passes, but the bigger issue is that they don't have the speed to effectively participate in a five-man attack. They play with their heels on the redline, always backing off. Thus, our forwards are on their own, always playing three-on-five on the attack; notice how frequently our forwards get outnumbered and turn the puck over? We don't attack as a five-man unit, and consequently we cannot dominate possession they way we used to.

At the same time the defense cannot close the gaps quickly because they're too slow. They back off through the neutral zone, give up a lot of space, and get burned.

Mitchell, Regher, and Greene are now all effectively the same player: decent enough down low in their own zone, but simply not fast enough to be big-minute guys in the modern game.
 
agentfouser said:
All of these things are connected. Half of our defense is simply too slow to be effective. They don't have the footspeed to get themselves the space in the defensive zone to make good outlet passes, but the bigger issue is that they don't have the speed to effectively participate in a five-man attack. They play with their heels on the redline, always backing off. Thus, our forwards are on their own, always playing three-on-five on the attack; notice how frequently our forwards get outnumbered and turn the puck over? We don't attack as a five-man unit, and consequently we cannot dominate possession they way we used to.

At the same time the defense cannot close the gaps quickly because they're too slow. They back off through the neutral zone, give up a lot of space, and get burned.

Mitchell, Regher, and Greene are now all effectively the same player: decent enough down low in their own zone, but simply not fast enough to be big-minute guys in the modern game.
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Well said.I don't agree with you entirely yet but over the first two games I think your assessment is right on. It is just too soon to say that each of our Vet D will remain as slow as they are now or that at least one or maybe even two of them might regain their timing but if things remain the same then you can be dead right.
 
I know one thing: Regehr ain't getting any better. Mitchell may turn things around, hell, Greene may even adjust to increased responsibility. But the player we see right now in Regehr is the player we're stuck with. He's a shell of the player he was 8 years ago and at this point just standing in the way of younger players' development.

I can't fathom why we don't revisit the Muzzin-Doughty pairing. Drew was Muzzin's primary partner in his RotM March last year. They compliment each other extremely well. Doughty gets double and triple teamed and Muzzin has all the space in the world to utilize the skills he does have - his shot, skating, etc. It would be good for his development to play with a guy like Doughty and watch how he plays the defensive side of the game.

Muzzin-Doughty
Mitchell-Voynov
Martinez-Greene
Regehr

Do it Darryl.
 
Richie10 said:
I know one thing: Regehr ain't getting any better. Mitchell may turn things around, hell, Greene may even adjust to increased responsibility. But the player we see right now in Regehr is the player we're stuck with. He's a shell of the player he was 8 years ago and at this point just standing in the way of younger players' development.

I can't fathom why we don't revisit the Muzzin-Doughty pairing. Drew was Muzzin's primary partner in his RotM March last year. They compliment each other extremely well. Doughty gets double and triple teamed and Muzzin has all the space in the world to utilize the skills he does have - his shot, skating, etc. It would be good for his development to play with a guy like Doughty and watch how he plays the defensive side of the game.

Muzzin-Doughty
Mitchell-Voynov
Martinez-Greene
Regehr

Do it Darryl.
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I'm not as harsh on Regehr, but I do agree that Muzzin/Doughty and Greene/Martinez pairing would be an improvement over current pairings.
 
All coaches have favorites and unfortunately Regehr is one of Sutter's boys going way back to their days together in Calgary. He may have been an effective dman in the old clutch and grab era of hockey but in today's game Regehr's lack of foot speed is easily exposed.

In addition to Regehr, it seems that Muzzin is getting preferential treatment only because of his size, because it is evident that this guy has nothing going on upstairs and is lacking in smarts when it comes to decision making and anticipation. Poorly times pinches, questionable passes, unaware of what's happening around or behind him (ever heard the term head on a swivel?). The tools are there but there just isn't any toolbox to work with. He has to have the lowest hockey IQ in the organization.

So we have three sluggish dmen, two of who missed an entire season, and a clueless defenseman with poor instincts, and that's going to lead to tons of scoring opportunities for opponents, which we've seen an abundance of in the first two games.
 
Those are easily the best lines Richie

Another option is

Doughty-Mitchell
Voynov-Muzzin
Martinez-Greene

and give Doughty-Mitchell all the defensive zone starts and tough matchups. Voynov-Muzzin the soft minutes to pile up the points, and the middling minutes for the other 2

Or we could keep playing Regehr and voluntarily handicap ourselves
 
I think the reason Muzzin/Doughty works so well is Drew reads the play incredibly well and can make up for things that Jake misses.

Muzzin is great in the O-zone, wonderful instincts, but in his own zone he's shaky 50% of the time, which isn't good. I don't think he is that much ahead of Martinez offensively to make up for how much better Martinez is at getting back on D and reading the play. Hell, after this pre-season I wouldn't even say Muzzin is ahead of Martinez offensively. I'm not a Muzzin hater at all, I just feel Martinez was leaps and bounds ahead of him in camp. After watching the confidence Alec had in camp and the fact that Muzzin has been on the ice for 4 out of the 5 ES goals against, it would be foolish not to get Martinez in there next game.

One other thing I've noticed is that Greene plays much better when he is paired with Alec. They have a nice synergy which results in that pairing looking much better on the ice than it does on paper.

And if Regehr looks slow at there, at least he is getting the job done. He hasn't been out there for an ES goal yet, despite getting more minutes than Muzzin. Taking him out of the lineup and leaving Muzzin in would just result in more pucks in our net.
 
I'd say Muzzin in any lineup is asking for trouble.

And I would give my right arm (or Toffoli+) to have a LW like Evander Kane on the Kings. Seemed like any time the puck came to him he created scoring chances.
 
On the bright side of losing last night hopefully they've learned they can't coast every game and win by only trying at the end.
 
Ziggy Stardust said:
I'd say Muzzin in any lineup is asking for trouble.

And I would give my right arm (or Toffoli+) to have a LW like Evander Kane on the Kings. Seemed like any time the puck came to him he created scoring chances.
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He was just 1 pick away from becoming a King. Assuming, the kings would have drafted him of course.
 
Ziggy Stardust said:
I'd say Muzzin in any lineup is asking for trouble.
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He is a good player, but he is being asked to play as a PMD, which he just isn't. His transition game is really very poor. He is good once the puck reaches the other zone, but he is no better than our old guys at getting the puck there. He should be paired with a guy who can move the puck.

Martinez on the other hand, is just as good as Doughty and Voynov at the transition game, and its god damn criminal that he is scratched when he is our 3rd best overall defenceman at the moment
 
CowMix said:
On the bright side of losing last night hopefully they've learned they can't coast every game and win by only trying at the end.
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That's been the Kings MO for the majority of their games in the last five years, why would it stop now?
 
You guys are dreaming, if you guys think we'll land Kane for Toffoli ++. He's their franchise player. It would take someone like Kopitar or Doughty to get them interested, which isn't happening. But hey, it's fun to dream about it though.
 
agentfouser said:
All of these things are connected. Half of our defense is simply too slow to be effective. They don't have the footspeed to get themselves the space in the defensive zone to make good outlet passes, but the bigger issue is that they don't have the speed to effectively participate in a five-man attack. They play with their heels on the redline, always backing off. Thus, our forwards are on their own, always playing three-on-five on the attack; notice how frequently our forwards get outnumbered and turn the puck over? We don't attack as a five-man unit, and consequently we cannot dominate possession they way we used to.

At the same time the defense cannot close the gaps quickly because they're too slow. They back off through the neutral zone, give up a lot of space, and get burned.

Mitchell, Regher, and Greene are now all effectively the same player: decent enough down low in their own zone, but simply not fast enough to be big-minute guys in the modern game.
Click to expand...

Very much agree, and it seems like this is a bigger issue than the bottom six not being productive. LA's bread and butter is the cycle, and much of its success is based on playing as a 5 man unit.

I know it's only two games in, but this problem goes back to last years playoffs starting with STL. Hopefully things will start to improve in that regards once Mitchell and Greene get more games under there belts. I think people forget that Greene played only 14 games total last year and I'm sure has a bit of rust as well. Regehr, I honestly have no hope for.
 
Ziggy Stardust said:
All coaches have favorites and unfortunately Regehr is one of Sutter's boys going way back to their days together in Calgary. He may have been an effective dman in the old clutch and grab era of hockey but in today's game Regehr's lack of foot speed is easily exposed.

In addition to Regehr, it seems that Muzzin is getting preferential treatment only because of his size, because it is evident that this guy has nothing going on upstairs and is lacking in smarts when it comes to decision making and anticipation. Poorly times pinches, questionable passes, unaware of what's happening around or behind him (ever heard the term head on a swivel?). The tools are there but there just isn't any toolbox to work with. He has to have the lowest hockey IQ in the organization.

So we have three sluggish dmen, two of who missed an entire season, and a clueless defenseman with poor instincts, and that's going to lead to tons of scoring opportunities for opponents, which we've seen an abundance of in the first two games.
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Great points and I very much agree. I think though, if Muzzin is used correctly, he can be effective. However, when Sutter is giving him 19+ minutes like last night, there's going to be trouble. That being said, I agree with those who are baffled as to why he's in over Martinez.

I also agree with Richie10 about those defensive pairings. Based on the options available, that would be the best lineup choices. Regehr needs to go.
 
Sounds like the love affair between Sutter and Kings fans may end sooner rather than later.
 
Can we really save the debate for some extensive really bad stretch of games rather than back-to-back on the road in which we got 2pts?
 
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