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GDT: GM#27 LA Kings vs St. Louis Blues @5:00

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Raccoon Jesus said:
The 'problem' with Kempe as it has always been is his inconsistency. He goes full invisible when he's not scoring. But tonight I saw a dude who was willing to grind and compete for every last inch, and if he can put that together every night so that he's not a ghost when he's not on the scoresheet, then he will really be something to see.

Still obviously very young, I'm not knocking him, just saying after games like this he gets deserved recognition--but he's not getting the criticism when he's not good, which makes him look better than he is. #1 C potential? Possibly. But that's a huge leap from his projections last week.
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He clearly has the talent to be a #1 C. Skill to get there takes time.
 
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Raccoon Jesus said:
I've got something to tell you, and you might want to sit down for this...
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Don't try and be cute, you know what I meant. The bottom six the last three years has been filled with complete garbage like Andreoff, Nolan and Clifford and this year it has guys like Kempe, Jokinen, Gaborik who will be playing in those spots when the team is completely healthy. If you want to have one line of grit, toughness whatever...ok, but the last three years we had two lines of that. And it effected the top lines as well when you were getting squat every night from the bottom six.

Everything about this team from the speed, skill, morale and so forth is better with Blake/Stevens than it was with Lombardi/Sutter.
 
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Herby said:
Don't try and be cute, you know what I meant. The bottom six the last three years has been filled with complete garbage like Andreoff, Nolan and Clifford and this year it has guys like Kempe, Jokinen, Gaborik who will be playing in those spots when the team is completely healthy. If you want to have one line of grit, toughness whatever...ok, but the last three years we had two lines of that. And it effected the top lines as well when you were getting squat every night from the bottom six.

Everything about this team from the speed, skill, morale and so forth is better with Blake/Stevens than it was with Lombardi/Sutter.
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I'll be transparent since playing around with you is apparently offensive.

Shore and Clifford make 2/3 of a dominant bottom line, and they have over the last few years, so using those names recalls that "our bottom six sucks" garbage that's a flat-out lie is going to be called out. Our bottom six produced like an average bottom six did so you're still rolling out that tired line that's been disproven repeatedly. Nothing 'cute' about that.

Though I'll totally agree that sprinkling in skill players there is a nice touch, hell, blake went out of his way to trade a 'superior' offensive player in Cammalleri to get Jokinen to shore that up. And when was the last time we had three euros down there? heh.
 
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Clifford and Shore regularly played above the 4th line in previous seasons, somewhere that they had no business being. Your definition of dominant is pretty liberal to say the least.

Fact still remains, the last two times the Kings had a 3rd lines with some offensive skill they won the Stanley Cup. But Sutter and Lombardi had a bizarre infatuation with grit and toughness that destroyed the teams.
 
My definition of dominant was literally best scoring and best CF% 4th liners in the league till Clifford got hurt so if that's not dominant your bar might need some adjusting.

I think by the end of the previous regime it was less about BIG TOUGH GRIT TOUGH lineup and more about they had just purged themselves of assets so when players got hurt and such we had to move guys like King and Lewis up and down instead of having versatile guys who can score like Jokinen, I don't disagree with you about the depth having a need to be better per se, I just disagree that it was this unmitigated horror show myth.
 
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Textbook road win on a back to back night. Kuemper has been a godsend, best new NHL player signed by Blake in the offseason.

Scored first, kept a 2 goal lead the majority of the game and shut the Blueballz out at even strength. Last game we got scoring from depth players and this game it was
Kopi and TT leading the way.

Only area of concern was special teams. 0/4 on the PP and took 5 penalties giving up the lone goal. Here’s to closing out strong in Chicago!
 
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Raccoon Jesus said:
The 'problem' with Kempe as it has always been is his inconsistency. He goes full invisible when he's not scoring. But tonight I saw a dude who was willing to grind and compete for every last inch, and if he can put that together every night so that he's not a ghost when he's not on the scoresheet, then he will really be something to see.

Still obviously very young, I'm not knocking him, just saying after games like this he gets deserved recognition--but he's not getting the criticism when he's not good, which makes him look better than he is. #1 C potential? Possibly. But that's a huge leap from his projections last week.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I think we need a couple of new prescriptions on those rose-colored glasses.

Kempe is still young and can add quite a bit of muscle and strength, but I am not convince he has the size the Kings generally look for in a 1C.
 
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Clifford didn;t play 3rd line mins regularly
28 games under 10 mins Yup diffidently played 3rd line mins there
16 games 10- 10;59 Yup 3 line there as well
10 game 11 - 11 59 mins
that 54 games out of 72 game under 12 mins
So 18 possible games that clifford may have got 3rd line mins Now how many of those games was there a player injured ? So 18 game when or how is playing 18 ganes playing 3rd line regularly ?
 
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Herby said:
Clifford and Shore regularly played above the 4th line in previous seasons, somewhere that they had no business being. Your definition of dominant is pretty liberal to say the least.

Fact still remains, the last two times the Kings had a 3rd lines with some offensive skill they won the Stanley Cup. But Sutter and Lombardi had a bizarre infatuation with grit and toughness that destroyed the teams.
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You want to reunite the King-Stoll-Lewis Line or the 2017 equivalent? That screams 3rd line with offensive skill??

Hell, if we can win a cup with Colin F'in Fraser, Nolan, and the corpse of Gagne on the 4th line, we should be able to do just about anything...

Which just goes to show.... We're only going as far as Kopitar, Doughty, Quick, Carter, and Voynov, errrr, Muzzin takes us.
 
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Kempe has the shot of a #1 center, and really good vision, but I don't think he has the complete package that those players typically do. Taking nothing away from him, I'm really excited as it looked like he was going to be a solid 3rd liner for quite a while there and now he's breaking out. I'm not expecting him to be a guy who is going to go out there and produce night after night against other teams top players.

All that really doesn't matter though, what does matter is the Kings will have

Kopitar
Carter
Kempe
Shore

Down the middle. That's damn deep, and a problem for other teams. Especially if Gaborik plays like he has been.
 
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Don't forget Mitchell, Kings are undefeated since " the trade".
I didn't think much of it at the time, but can't argue with the results.


;)
 
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Herby said:
Don't try and be cute, you know what I meant. The bottom six the last three years has been filled with complete garbage like Andreoff, Nolan and Clifford and this year it has guys like Kempe, Jokinen, Gaborik who will be playing in those spots when the team is completely healthy. If you want to have one line of grit, toughness whatever...ok, but the last three years we had two lines of that. And it effected the top lines as well when you were getting squat every night from the bottom six.

Everything about this team from the speed, skill, morale and so forth is better with Blake/Stevens than it was with Lombardi/Sutter.
Click to expand...

C'mon now Herby...that last line is pretty hyperbolic. None of that is true unless you want to put a qualifier on the particular seasons as opposed to implying that all those things are better with this team than the 2012-14 teams. Better than the last three years? Sure, but not all of it.

Who are the new guys that Blake brought in with all of this speed? Iafallo? Love the guy and I'll give Blake credit for closing the deal but, again, Blake didn't walk in the door and let the existing scouting staff in on this secret kid he'd been scouting. Folin had long been linked to the Kings. I will give credit for Keumper over the uninspired Zatkoff move from last season and for correcting his first mistake which was to sign MC.

I know you are extremely happy that Lombardi is gone and I understand that; however, this is a Sutter being gone thing much more than a Blake/Stevens thing. Hell, Andreoff needed to be KO'd before Stevens stopped trotting him out there all the time.

Blake has done very little to the current team on the ice. It was up to the guys who were already here to play better and they are. If we are going to point out that Brown/Kopitar/Quick were Taylor draft picks, I'm not going to praise Blake yet. Now that I said that, maybe we should be singing the praises of Al Murray and Dave Taylor since those three guys are crushing it this year.
 
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