LA KINGS 2023/4 Regular season discussion

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What is it with all this Saros worship?
He is a way undersized goalie playing behind a defense first team with a more competent defense than the Kings.
He also never won a single playoff series his whole life, where this nonsense of stealing a series comes from is far beyond me.

Saros is one of the last goalies i want in the Kings net, people already complained that Pettersen looks small in the net and he was 6'2.
Dude he's like... good and stuff and also yeah most goalies are big nowadays but you don't HAVE to be big to be a good goalie and also maybe if he's not that great the Kings can get him for cheaper than we're expecting.

He's basically a guaranteed .915+ save % and he's one of like 6 goalies in the NHL you can say that about.

AND, the Kings with .915 save % goaltending would be virtually unbeatable.

Yeah this will go well with all of the draft picks and prospects you just gave away for Saros just to go back to rebuild.
This is exactly what Blake does in reality and people have their pitchforks ready
Good luck with your pitchforks bro
 
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Bottom line. Anyone who believes regime change is in order has to pin their forecasts on a significant drop in ticket sales, merch sales and tv ad sales. Ownership is treating this like a business as usual portion of the empire. For a change to come from them, they’ll have to feel pain in the pocketbook. Until then, business as usual will carry the day.

My personal hallmark is premerie tix going for $20 a seat from a homeboy ou in front of the arena. We see that and we know Dan Beckerman isn’t his great 8 hours of shut eye overnight.
 
I think it's still funny that people are still saying 'well all we need is .900 goaltending'

No, we need more than that to go deep.

And what's scary about that is given our goalies' #s is that half of our games will be UNDER that. That is why Copley's w-l was smoke and mirrors last year and why it will be our downfall this year if it's not addressed.
 
Jon Rosen released a very solid and stern write-up today that is a good read. The main point is that drafting and development is the main thing holding the team back, they are unlikely to win a Stanley Cup without developing a high-end talent, and this year is the most important year essentially. He is no longer paywalled so everyone should be able to check out the full article: Every year is really important. But this year is really important.

The heart of it:
Los Angeles is simply not getting enough out of its draft picks, and after Byfield and Clarke, their prospect pool deeply lacks skill and envisioned scoring. That began under the influence of Dean Lombardi, who justifiably attempted to pull every lever to keep a near-championship-caliber team afloat after its trajectory was thrown askew by Slava Voynov’s arrest and exit. But a great deal of it also comes from questionable drafting, development and roster construction under the Robitaille-Blake co-stewardship.

Since Adrian Kempe was deftly chosen 29th overall in 2014, the Kings have traded four first round picks and two players they’d selected with first round picks. Four first round draftees remain: Alex Turcotte, a fifth overall pick who has been held scoreless in 12 career games, is yet to earn his coach’s trust and has been included in trade discussions; Toby Bjornfot, who was drafted 22nd and has not yet defined himself as more than a third defenseman and was the focus of preseason waiver speculation; Byfield, who remains too young for a fair evaluation but ranks eighth in points among the top 10 forwards chosen in 2020 despite being drafted second overall; and Clarke, the eighth pick in 2021 who shows immense promise as an offensive defenseman.

While the jury continues to deliberate on trajectory, their suspect contribution has not been complemented at all by players chosen in the second round.

Between Tyler Toffoli’s selection in 2010 and their 2020 class, only four of 12 players chosen in the second round have played one game in the organization. It’s a group that includes Kale Clague (33 games) and Samuel Fagemo (13), who were waived and claimed, and Jaret Anderson-Dolan (97), waived earlier this week. The only second round pick since Toffoli to play more than 100 games is Arthur Kaliyev (137), who as many scouting reports foretold has not yet adapted his all-around play to match his lethal shot, and is yet to lock down the type of top-six role in which he’ll have a long enough leash to demonstrate it. He’s also too young to fairly evaluate, but their second round hits – defensemen Erik Cernak and Brock Faber, who averages nearly 23 minutes through two games – were traded before playing one game in L.A.
 
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The Kings have won three offseasons in a row!

Always do! Just like the Sens.

And OEL is actually the best dman in the league.

And Muzzin was always >>> Doughty.

And why is Jonathan Quick even nominated for the Vezina

And Kopitar can't even hold Toews' jockstrap

And I can't believe the Kings gave no-name Matt Roy 3m

The Kings play a hard and heavy grinding defensive style

And my personal favorite, you can just get Vilardi on waivers
 
I think it's still funny that people are still saying 'well all we need is .900 goaltending'

No, we need more than that to go deep.

And what's scary about that is given our goalies' #s is that half of our games will be UNDER that. That is why Copley's w-l was smoke and mirrors last year and why it will be our downfall this year if it's not addressed.
.900 for the regular season. .930 for the playoffs.
 
Jon Rosen released a very solid and stern write-up today that is a good read. The main point is that drafting and development is the main thing holding the team back, they are unlikely to win a Stanley Cup without developing a high-end talent, and this year is the most important year essentially. He is no longer paywalled so everyone should be able to check out the full article: Every year is really important. But this year is really important.

The heart of it:
Rosen is just a hater who needs to put his XBox controller away.
 
Jon Rosen released a very solid and stern write-up today that is a good read. The main point is that drafting and development is the main thing holding the team back, they are unlikely to win a Stanley Cup without developing a high-end talent, and this year is the most important year essentially. He is no longer paywalled so everyone should be able to check out the full article: Every year is really important. But this year is really important.

The heart of it:
“Cheli in some sense was a pioneer in what he did as far as training goes, and Drew is not necessarily a pioneer, but he does do the training." -todd

jesus
 
I know we all want the media to ask hard-hitting questions, but outside of groups like message boards and the more hardcore fans, who actually digests that content? We all care. Hell, I'm still waiting for that Lombardi book. But the normal So. Cal fan?

The Kings will never have that following, it's just not on the radar. Whether Murray or Yanetti lied is never going to register on the care scale for most people, I would say less than 1% of all Angelinos even know who they are. Asking specifics about those topics when limited time would really only interest a tiny fraction of the sports landscape in LA.

There is always room for improvement, but I'm pretty happy with the coverage overall. I would definitely say the percentage of coverage is higher than the demographics would dictate. Most surveys will indicate that the Galaxy (and now LAFC) are likely more popular than the Kings. Yet I see substantially more hockey coverage from the general media (ESPN, Athletic, etc) than those two teams. Some of that might be that I typically read things in English, which limits sources. And when looking online search engines are always going to target you with content you normally read, so there is that.
This may be true when discussing why sports radio doesn’t discuss or ask these things.

But these podcasts are geared towards diehard fans. Casual fans aren’t downloading KOTP or ATKM, these are hardcore fans, and yes, if I had to guess the hardcore fans would like to see more difficult questions asked of members of the organization.

When one of the guys was on, there were questions you could submit to have asked. I sent two questions in the same post.

1. Why was Alex Turcotte pulled from college after 1 disappointing season when most similar prospects always return to school?

2. What are your favorite arenas to visit in North America?

One of those questions was asked on the show. Again, maybe there aren’t any kind of restrictions and everything is open, but as a Kings fan what question would you want answered?

And I only suggested that question because we have literally never gotten an answer to this question, 3.5 years after the move happened, so I figured maybe the “most transparent and open” guy would be able to chime in. Same thing with the handling of QB, both were very untraditional and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect to have some kind of explanation from the powers that be.
 
This may be true when discussing why sports radio doesn’t discuss or ask these things.

But these podcasts are geared towards diehard fans. Casual fans aren’t downloading KOTP or ATKM, these are hardcore fans, and yes, if I had to guess the hardcore fans would like to see more difficult questions asked of members of the organization.

When one of the guys was on, there were questions you could submit to have asked. I sent two questions in the same post.

1. Why was Alex Turcotte pulled from college after 1 disappointing season when most similar prospects always return to school?

2. What are your favorite arenas to visit in North America?

One of those questions was asked on the show. Again, maybe there aren’t any kind of restrictions and everything is open, but as a Kings fan what question would you want answered?

And I only suggested that question because we have literally never gotten an answer to this question, 3.5 years after the move happened, so I figured maybe the “most transparent and open” guy would be able to chime in. Same thing with the handling of QB, both were very untraditional and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect to have some kind of explanation from the powers that be.
I would like to see their reasoning on that too. At the time I wasn't against it, but obviously I was way off the mark. If Turcotte continues to improve and become a solid player I bet they would be much more likely to address it. While I agree that more pressing questions like that would be far more interesting, I don't think there is a franchise in the league that would answer that unless the timing was absolutely right.

If they ever do a fan Q & A with the GM you should fly out for it.
 
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If ownership, or management, or anyone else wants to get the pulse of the fans, they can hop on a slew of websites and read their raw, unfiltered takes. If they don't want to hear what fans have to say, they won't - having someone like Jesse ask pointed questions isn't going to make much of a difference.
Soooo….don’t ask tough questions because ownership can go online?
 
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lol, you are adorable...never change
I mean definitely thanks but also..... Am I really wrong??

The Kings are insanely deep and can dominate most teams most nights with their depth. My statement was that IF they could consistently get around .915 save % goaltending - they'd be unbelievably hard to beat.

I just don't see that as a crazy statement at all. They're a top 10 team right now with arguably the worst goaltending in the league.

Obviously it's a huge 'if' - But just saying.
 
I mean definitely thanks but also..... Am I really wrong??

The Kings are insanely deep and can dominate most teams most nights with their depth. My statement was that IF they could consistently get around .915 save % goaltending - they'd be unbelievably hard to beat.

I just don't see that as a crazy statement at all. They're a top 10 team right now with arguably the worst goaltending in the league.

Obviously it's a huge 'if' - But just saying.
Goaltending will go a long way but the teams standing in their way are ones that play heavy and physical like Vegas/Dallas and the teams that can match their speed and are equal to or slightly more physical like Colorado, Carolina, Tampa, Edmonton.
The best proof would be to beat one of them in the playoffs to show that they are in the same conversation as these teams.
 
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Minus goaltending, sure, the Kings are in the top quarter of teams at the very worst, I think even the most pessimistic of us can agree with that.

However goaltending is part of the team and these constant attempts to separate it are getting tiring. It's not just bad luck, goaltending is bad construction. Hope isn't a strategy. Head to head vs. any of the other top teams--the other top team will be favored because theyr'e all getting at least league average goaltending while we're getting bottom rung. "if we just got" okay, please stop that. These guys have averaged .900 last year, I have to keep saying it because people keep ignoring it. Theres not some great average to hope for regression to. These guys are ALL journeymen.

Goaltending is the great equalizer. There's a reason Quick was a HUGE part of those championship teams. He won games outright sometimes, but the others, he kept us hanging on til the team could respond.

Great, Talbot had a renaissance game. Does anyone think we can COUNT on any of our goalies to get us thru one round? Does anyone realize they're all in the last years of their careers? None of them are going to be able to give us more than 40 games at any level. And the closer they get to 40 games, the worse they get.

I think there's being optimistic and there's being blindly optimistic. Hoping one of these goalies can carry the team is absolutely blindly optimistic.
 
Pretty much. I am happy for Talbot and hope he can continue, but I wouldn't even put faith in our goaltending to easily get us into the playoffs, let alone win a round against Edmonton and their powerplay.
 
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Oh yeah we definitely need a better #1 option going into the playoffs, I agree.

I guess I just HIGHLY doubt that the Kings will go into the playoffs with a tandem of Talbot / Copley. If they do, I'll be severely disappointed and would be very surprised if we'd be able to win a round.

I think our goaltending might be fine for the regular season given how good the rest of the team is but IMO they definitely need to make a move between now and the deadline.

And is it great management to put yourself in that situation to begin with?? Nah, definitely not. But hopefully they can address the problem without giving up too much.


Edit: AND I don't think that's just crazy / blind to assume that. Goaltending (and LHD) sucked last year. We traded Quick and brought in Korpisalo (and Gavrikov) to try to address that. It'll likely suck this year again and if/when it does, they'll almost definitely make a move to try to change that too.

Hence why I keep saying "if we just got good goaltending" - Because making a trade at some point during this season to make that a possibility should be very doable. And I believe they'll do it. You can be pessimistic and think they won't - But I disagree. And again, sure you can say it's bad management to be in this situation in the first place but for all we know they DID try to improve it further in the offseason and a deal just didn't materialize. Like I've been saying, in a month or two we'll know more about what goalies might be available and might be good upgrades and can hopefully go out and snag someone. Is it the best approach in the world??? No. But ultimately things can change between now and trade deadline / start of playoffs.
 
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would a Talbot - Vladar pairing appease the masses or do we need to place the bar even higher?

I personally like Saros but that is one expensive dream.
 
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