GDT: GM#51 LA Kings vs Nashville Predators @5:30

[Sol]

How do you figure when I specifially mentioned moving Pearson or Toffoli for one of Carolinas defensemen?

I think the Kings need a far better defenseman than either of those can fetch imo. Was that in your original post though? I might have missed it. I apologize.

As bad as they're both performing i don't think we can get rid of either unless its for a winger, so it'd be a bit redundant.


Only player who is expendable right now is Carter because of Vilardi. And that will be a big risk but also a big reward if Vilardi ends up being really good and we get a great defenseman back for Carter. We'd get younger as well while filling a hole..

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Never said you were. Simply pointing out that LaDue and his late arrival to the pros is far more similar than the similarly aged Forbort. I can admkt he's a mess...this season. Where the defense as a whole is a mess. We've seen him play at a top 4 level. With or without Doughty. Some of you are the biggest drama queens around here. The team is what it is. BLACK HOLE BOUND. That's what most of us thought at the start of the season. Guys are underperforming and the team shows but does that negate their play previously? Are you going to tell me no one thought Kopitar was a number 1 center in the league anymore because of his ****ty season last season?

LOL, Kopitar has history of performance. What history has Forbort shown us that proves he's a top 4 defenseman? I wish he was one. The Kings badly need another top 4 defenseman. But Forbort is not one. Sorry to disappoint you.

I ask once again, what does Forbort do that is "top 4" quality? And nobody in here is being dramatic, with the exception of you.

 

[Reaper45]

LOL, Kopitar has history of performance. What history has Forbort shown us that proves he's a top 4 defenseman? I wish he was one. The Kings badly need another top 4 defenseman. But Forbort is not one. Sorry to disappoint you.

I ask once again, what does Forbort do that is "top 4" quality? And nobody in here is being dramatic, with the exception of you.

How am I being dramatic exactly? I wasn't even remotely but am going to be now. Maybe you need to take a break from the Kings and step outside for a minute since you come off as such a snide prick all of time with your holier than thou attitude. Everything is the end of the world with you and it's no wonder people don't want to have discussions on this board with you.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

Very few people believe hes easily he's top 4.

There was a lot of Forbort hype this season and a lot of love cause he started okay. His game then fell off the map and people realized hes pretty useless and the dick riding stopped.

He's a high 5th, regular 6th.

I still think the bigger problem is a large amount of roster redundancy with SAH d-men. Our only real puckmoves are Drew, Muzzin 50% of the time when his brain is functioning, and Martinez who unfortunately has to play on his backhand/wrong side because of these redundancies. Then you have a whole slew of guys like Folin, Gravel, Forbort, MacDermid, etc. who are depth SAH types who are exposed in higher roles. So, the problem is our puckmovers are our #1-3s, and our SAHs are our #4-50s. Need a better distribution of that and LH/RH in the lineup. If LaDue can keep up, that's a problem he begins to solve. But it's bad having a Doughty-Muzzin pairing when behind them is a bunch of guys who can't get out of their own zone effectively, and it's bad having a Muzzin-Martinez pairing because then Doughty gets an anchor so opponents can just double him (not to say anything of the muzzin-martinez dumpster fire).

In other words, bad roster composition rather than bad talent, and I think a guy like Forbort gets made to look worse because of it.

LOL, Kopitar has history of performance. What history has Forbort shown us that proves he's a top 4 defenseman? I wish he was one. The Kings badly need another top 4 defenseman. But Forbort is not one. Sorry to disappoint you.

I ask once again, what does Forbort do that is "top 4" quality? And nobody in here is being dramatic, with the exception of you.

Not that it really supports that he's a top 4 d-man but to be fair to Forbort he's got abysmal usage. He's getting the Vlasic-style set up to fail deployment. Granted, some of that is because he's terrible on offense, but he is a defensive d-man that could hold down the #4 spot if we had a Voynov-type #3 imo. I wouldn't begrudge anyone for thinking otherwise and ideally, like Martinez, he's on a third pairing.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

Aaaaand we can knock off the personal shots, there are plenty of Kings to direct vitriol at

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Not that it really supports that he's a top 4 d-man but to be fair to Forbort he's got abysmal usage. He's getting the Vlasic-style set up to fail deployment. Granted, some of that is because he's terrible on offense, but he is a defensive d-man that could hold down the #4 spot if we had a Voynov-type #3 imo. I wouldn't begrudge anyone for thinking otherwise and ideally, like Martinez, he's on a third pairing.

Defensively he still has so much to learn. He seldom uses his body. His one advantage is his reach.

A big problem hampering Forbort, and by extension, most of the team, is decision making.

Not many players are precise nor do they think and react quickly. Everything is slow moving, from passes from defenseman to defenseman to breakouts and zone entries. It's like they're following a script, and it's all mundane.

 

[BigKing]

Aaaaand we can knock off the personal shots, there are plenty of Kings to direct vitriol at

Like the Bottom 6 and the #5 & 6 defensemen!!!

Best players win games. Kings best players have been garbage during this abysmal stretch.

Where is Toffoli?
Pearson?
Brown?
Quick?
Kempe?
Doughty with the solid game last night.
Kopitar had 2 goals in January and has continued that into February.

But these are the guys that we have an emotional attachment with because of their history with the team so let's just keep hammering the guys that get paid the least and contribute to wins/losses the least because many on here don't want to face the reality that the core just isn't very consistent.

When they are all playing well, they can play with anyone. But man do they ever go on cold streaks. Did the same during the golden years but were able to turn it on in the home stretch...the "flip the switch" Kings.

They haven't flipped the switch for three straight seasons now. Can they do it this year? Maybe Carter 2.0 acts as the "Carter 1.0/Gaborik" trade deadline acquisition that pushed those teams to flip the switch but, if not, Management finally needs to bury the nostalgia and whatnot and break this thing up.

We were telling Ducks fans that 2007 was a long time ago back in 2011 and especially after winning in 2012. Well, 2012 was a long time ago and 2014 is pretty much in the same boat at this point. We can keep trashing the plumbers of this team but the best players can't get run out of the rink like they did last night or last week against f***ing Vancouver. Vancouver hahaha! Give me a break.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

Yeah last night was more 'acceptable' in the scope that it was Nashville rather than Vancouver.

The next two games will tell me a lot more. And a lot of must wins coming up. Home vs. Arizona on Saturday, then a 5 day break before home at Edmonton. Those are 4 MUST points. After that it's ugly...but...

@FLA on the 9th, @TBL on the 10th. That's 3 in 4 nights counting edmonton. Two days off, then 5 in 9 on the road @car, @pit, @Buf, @CHI, @WPG back to back at the end.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

The best players have been getting hammered a lot. Kopitar faced tons of criticism last season, as has Brown since 2014.

This season, many of us are really down on the performances of Pearson and Toffoli, both of whom signed multi-year extensions and have disappointed us for the most part.

There are a lot of players not pulling their weight, and that does include the role guys as well. I'd say of the bottom six forwards, the lone consistent performer has been Trevor Lewis. Besides him, I can't really say anything positive about anyone else.

Same goes for the blueline with the exception of Doughty, who also has his ups and downs, but a lot of guys on the blueline go through wild swings of being good, average, to Charlie Huddy.

There's a reason why none of the pairings have really been consistent and stuck together. It wasn't like that in years past when the team did have success and barely gave up any scoring chances. Now, they're the polar opposite of that.

 

[Sol]

I still think the bigger problem is a large amount of roster redundancy with SAH d-men. Our only real puckmoves are Drew, Muzzin 50% of the time when his brain is functioning, and Martinez who unfortunately has to play on his backhand/wrong side because of these redundancies. Then you have a whole slew of guys like Folin, Gravel, Forbort, MacDermid, etc. who are depth SAH types who are exposed in higher roles. So, the problem is our puckmovers are our #1-3s, and our SAHs are our #4-50s. Need a better distribution of that and LH/RH in the lineup. If LaDue can keep up, that's a problem he begins to solve. But it's bad having a Doughty-Muzzin pairing when behind them is a bunch of guys who can't get out of their own zone effectively, and it's bad having a Muzzin-Martinez pairing because then Doughty gets an anchor so opponents can just double him (not to say anything of the muzzin-martinez dumpster fire).

In other words, bad roster composition rather than bad talent, and I think a guy like Forbort gets made to look worse because of it.



Not that it really supports that he's a top 4 d-man but to be fair to Forbort he's got abysmal usage. He's getting the Vlasic-style set up to fail deployment. Granted, some of that is because he's terrible on offense, but he is a defensive d-man that could hold down the #4 spot if we had a Voynov-type #3 imo. I wouldn't begrudge anyone for thinking otherwise and ideally, like Martinez, he's on a third pairing.

There's a lot of redundancy in this line up i understand. But heres the thing. Whether or not forbort is being set up for failure the fact is the guy is a huge liability and destroys transition out there with his poor passing and puck handling. What's even worse is that he has a bad shot. Theres a reason why two way defenseman are such a huge draw. There's no Willie Mitchells in the NHL. Id be more than happy with a Willie Mitchell Archetype. The fact here is that LaDue is the player outside of our top 3 dmen,, that I want to see grow the most. He has the qualities the Kings desperately need on defense. No one else has it.

 

[BigKing]

The best players have been getting hammered a lot. Kopitar faced tons of criticism last season, as has Brown since 2014.

This season, many of us are really down on the performances of Pearson and Toffoli, both of whom signed multi-year extensions and have disappointed us for the most part.

There are a lot of players not pulling their weight, and that does include the role guys as well. I'd say of the bottom six forwards, the lone consistent performer has been Trevor Lewis. Besides him, I can't really say anything positive about anyone else.

Same goes for the blueline with the exception of Doughty, who also has his ups and downs, but a lot of guys on the blueline go through wild swings of being good, average, to Charlie Huddy.

There's a reason why none of the pairings have really been consistent and stuck together. It wasn't like that in years past when the team did have success and barely gave up any scoring chances. Now, they're the polar opposite of that.

Kopitar got hammered last year and Brown has been hammered until this season, agree.

While people are down on Toff/Pearson, they aren't getting whipped like they should be. It's just easier to whip on guys that haven't meant one thing to Kings history, like Forbort, Andreoff etc.

The numbers of the team's best players were either posted in this thread or the rumors thread, but the proof is in the pudding.

If they were winning games in spite of Andreoff/Forbort/et al., what's changed? It's rhetorical since I understand you know the answer, but this team's best players have gone into the tank for an entire month like they do every year, save for 2013 due to the lockout. It's f***ing tiresome since other teams seem to avoid such prolonged stretches of suck but is is these guys M.O.

Can Carter save it? Does he slot guys in to proper positions? That's all they can hope for at this point. Blake was given a free pass this season to see what the existing team looked like with a coach they like. If they wind up doing nothing, it's time to move some "made men".

 

[Herby]

Why is anyone surprised that Stevens switched up the lineup despite the team winning 2 in a row.

He inserted Clifford into the lineup even though the team had won 8 in a row and was well into a playoff spot. Since then the team has gone 6-11-2 and fallen out of a spot.

He is completely clueless and I was unfortunately dead wrong about him. He’s not the type of coach you want in today’s NHL.

 

[kingsfan28]

Why is anyone surprised that Stevens switched up the lineup despite the team winning 2 in a row.

He inserted Clifford into the lineup even though the team had won 8 in a row and was well into a playoff spot. Since then the team has gone 6-11-2 and fallen out of a spot.

He is completely clueless and I was unfortunately dead wrong about him. He’s not the type of coach you want in today’s NHL.

Reminded me of the time Murray took out Quick during a 3 or 4 game shutout streak because he said it was the backups turn. The Kings lost 5 straight.

 

[deaderhead28]

Surprised when I look at Kings news that Stevens is still the coach or a trade isn't been made.

 

[deaderhead28]

Why is anyone surprised that Stevens switched up the lineup despite the team winning 2 in a row.

He inserted Clifford into the lineup even though the team had won 8 in a row and was well into a playoff spot. Since then the team has gone 6-11-2 and fallen out of a spot.

He is completely clueless and I was unfortunately dead wrong about him. He’s not the type of coach you want in today’s NHL.

Cause you think he was competent enough not to change what was working when you just had a long losing streak.Stevens isn't a NHL head coach,he's a AHL head coach.Granted Stevens best at being only a assist coach.You saw how great he was in Philadelphia.

 

[The Tikkanen]

I've never seen Forbort play a game of hockey where I thought to myself man he's a great shut down defenseman. Nor do I think the Kings drafted him in the 1st round hoping he becomes a 5-6 dman who can't shoot, pass or put up points. MacDermid has a 5.3 shooting percentage by the way.

 

[Ollie Weeks]

Shooting percentage. My f***.

 

[bob77]

Forbort is fine defensively. And gets a lot of D zone starts and faces top competition when paired with DD. A lot of teams would love to have him. Imo

 

[KingsFan7824]

This season, many of us are really down on the performances of Pearson and Toffoli, both of whom signed multi-year extensions and have disappointed us for the most part.

Moral of the story, don't sign guys. Or, just sign them to 1 year deals.

 

[bob77]

The severely lack any secondary scoring, and don't really have primary scoring either. This team was playing loose, fun, uninhibited hockey to start the year. It led to wins. Then Stevens comes along and starts to button down the hatch.. Big mistake. So there were going to be games that were a complete mess playing this way. So what? The opposite is trying to think D so much that there is no offense. Players are complimented and rewarded more for good D play. You start hearing things like board play, right side of the puck, 5 man tight units, etc. and more. Sometimes you need to convince players to go for it. The so called "new" system and thinking has left the station. It's back to last year. It's about dwelling on mistakes rather than taking risks and making creative plays. Granted you can win a few games trying to play real tight D hockey, but you're on your heels the whole time. And, it's no fun.

 

[bob77]

Moral of the story, don't sign guys. Or, just sign them to 1 year deals.

They won't sign 1 year deals. That is simple. There is a market out there.

 

[Butch 19]

Surprised when I look at Kings news that Stevens is still the coach or a trade isn't been made.

I would think that any coach coming in to take over this below-average team with several (many!!) non-performing high-salary players would get at least 2 years to see what kind of performance he can get out of them.

 

[KINGS17]

The severely lack any secondary scoring, and don't really have primary scoring either. This team was playing loose, fun, uninhibited hockey to start the year. It led to wins. Then Stevens comes along and starts to button down the hatch.. Big mistake. So there were going to be games that were a complete mess playing this way. So what? The opposite is trying to think D so much that there is no offense. Players are complimented and rewarded more for good D play. You start hearing things like board play, right side of the puck, 5 man tight units, etc. and more. Sometimes you need to convince players to go for it. The so called "new" system and thinking has left the station. It's back to last year. It's about dwelling on mistakes rather than taking risks and making creative plays. Granted you can win a few games trying to play real tight D hockey, but you're on your heels the whole time. And, it's no fun.

I see no real evidence of Stevens doing this. Every coach talks about being on the right side of the puck, because if you're not the out numbered attacks pile up. Quick was playing extremely well during the winning streaks, now he isn't so the team has to play better defense.

This team doesn't have the player personnel to play the style you want to see.

 

[KINGS17]

I would think that any coach coming in to take over this below-average team with several (many!!) non-performing high-salary players would get at least 2 years to see what kind of performance he can get out of them.

I agree with this. Some of these guys have permanent cup hangover, or simply aren't the leaders the team needs to be competitive at the highest level. The Kings lost a big chunk of their leadership core when guys like Mitchell, Greene, Williams, Stoll, and Richards no longer fit into their plans.

Those five players actually could flip a switch and turn up their games a notch or two. The Kings still have a few players like this who do it from time to time, but they just don't have enough of them.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Moral of the story, don't sign guys. Or, just sign them to 1 year deals.

Or hope they perform up to their standards.