LA KINGS 2023/4 Regular season discussion

[Schmooley]

Yup. I feel he was over passing and I think Jim Fox may have mentioned it on a telecast.

I think Fox said the coaches told him to fire it more.


I actually think it comes from the coaches telling the players in very clear terms not to take any retaliation penalties against the vaunted Oilers players.

Obviously this NJ vs NY brawl was precipitated by the coaches selection of players of the puck drop.

If a player blatantly takes out McDavid that player would be gone for the season from the Kings lineup.

I am sure the coaches also said this to the team. Running guys leaves players out of position , another way the can make you pay.

Intentionally injuring McDavid goes against the code and I can't advocate. I can say if you get the chance for a solid legal hit and won't be caught out against him or any Oinkler for that matter, hammer away and let the chips fall where they may.


However, I do feel the Kings could use a Tom Wilson type forward for L3 or 4 that has a decent touch and can throw down.

I heard Danault was injured from a shot from a teammate?

Did I miss something?

You sound really fed up but I know how you guys are.

You will be posting more and watching the Kings tonight.

You are right nobody should intentionally hurt Mcdavid. I do think they should have taken some runs at him that last regular season game but still ones that are hockey plays. They werent winning that game from the drop of the puck so give up a goal against if you have to.
Mcdavid has his way with the Kings with the puck and physically without the puck.
They need to set a tone to at least make him look over his shoulder. Itll slow him down a split second. Also it would let him know he cant board Kings players anymore. But no I dont mean take dirty runs at him that will injure him.

 

[Surf Nutz]

You are right nobody should intentionally hurt Mcdavid. I do think they should have taken some runs at him that last regular season game but still ones that are hockey plays. They werent winning that game from the drop of the puck so give up a goal against if you have to.
Mcdavid has his way with the Kings with the puck and physically without the puck.
They need to set a tone to at least make him look over his shoulder. Itll slow him down a split second. Also it would let him know he cant board Kings players anymore. But no I dont mean take dirty runs at him that will injure him.

Ya , I get most of what you say and agree.

However, they were not winning from the puck drop is a fallacy.

Maybe e the odds are but upsets and the lesser skilled teams do win games more often compared to other sports.

I mean they came out and beat the Oilers upon Hillers debut not terribly long ago.

You gotta try to get the points and try to show a possible playoff opponent you can beat them again first and foremost.

Any chances to nail a legal hard hit on Oilers players without hurting the team would be secondary.

 

[BigKing]

My memory is that he had an injury that kept him out of the lineup.

Looking at the three seasons McNabb played with the Kings 2014-16 to 2016-17 he was paired with Doughty for 1576 minutes even strength.

That pairs underlying possession metrics were the best by a wide margin.

Doughty won the Norris trophy with McNabb as his primary partner and McNabb was rewarded with a contract extension and has gone on to have the better career between McNabb and Forbort.

McNabb has obvious "shortcomings" to his game but his impact is undeniable and so I never understand how people come to the conclusion that...


when the team was making plenty of decisions based on the salary cap

it did

Another strength of McNabbs....

After the tear down and rebuild.

McNabb and Doughty were the best pair during that stretch. I don't understand the pushback.

Never have.

What is the pushback? I'm in the highest percentile of posters on this board that value tough hockey so I didn't want to see him go, but I don't make the decisions.

I seem to remember that nobody here wanted to lose either one for free, but the draft occurred right after 1st round pick Forbort played a full 82 at 20 minutes a night and McNabb took a step back.

There was a $1MM difference in cap hits between the two and the Kings were up against it, needing to re-sign Toffoli and Pearson at the time. If you think Forbort is going to improve further, you've got a guy eating minutes for $650k so, sure, cap definitely factors in to that decision.

But then we've got an article from Hoven around that time talking about the upcoming cap crunch and various moves that could be made, with the last suggestion being to simply replace McNabb with MacDermid, which he described as "the least significant of the proposed moves" with a couple of those proposed moves being to replace Andreoff with Mersch or to replace Shore with any available player making $1.5MM or less.

If replacing McNabb with MacDermid is of lesser significance than anything involving Andreoff or Shore, then that means McNabb wasn't too highly thought of at the time. This is why I do think that Blake and Co. preferred Forbort even if all things were equal between the two.

If the pushback you are talking about is people arguing with you that McNabb totally sucked then I get it; however, if the pushback is that Management loved him but they were 100% captive to the salary cap concerns, I pushback on the pushback.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

Random flashback but I liked Christian Folin

 

[King'sPawn]

It's not about stopping Rempe from being physical, it is about sticking up for yourself. If it was just about Rempe, the only fight would have been MacD/Rempe. That was a team, against a rival, letting the other team know they aren't going to take it anymore. If Rempe, while still being physical, crosses the line again, the Devils next step might not be so gentlemanly as evening things up with a fight.

The Kings taking it to the Oilers instead of continually turning the other cheek would do wonders. It wouldn't stop a physical player from looking for hits but it would take the rest of the their team down a notch. Right now, the biggest puss on the Oilers knows he can be right in Talbot's grill and nothing will happen. Everyone on that team thinks they can go anywhere on the ice and do anything they want.

Someone on the ice last night should have taken an instigator in response to that cheap crosscheck on Arvidsson into the back of the net. Team is mostly hopeless anyways but they can pack it in if he is hurt again. Guy is writhing on the ice and, as always, we just get some guys skating over because they know they are supposed to do something but, unfortunately, 95% of this team doesn't want to be the guy to actually do something. I even think Englund was on the ice for it as well, which is disappointing: especially when icing seven defensemen.

I agree with this.

One value that I remember reading was very similar to Lambardi's statement about being hurt versus being injured.

A similar quote (possibly from Lombardi, but not 100% sure) was in reference to hitting to hurt and hitting to injure being an important distinction.

I don't advocate trying to end a career or to ruin someone's life, but a team should have enough assertiveness to get in the face and inflict pain on opponents who hurt teammates. It elevates the pace of the team and brings everyone together more.

I acknowledge Kopitar has shortcomings as a captain, but Lombardi also knew to bring in players like Richards, Mitchell, Lucic, Williams, Greene, etc to provide extra toughness and testosterone to push the team in ways Doughty, Kopitar, and Brown didn't do on a regular basis.

Who are the players Blake brought in? Englund? Fiala? Dubois? I know Danault brings grit and character, but he's not much of a hitter.

Granted, he has also drafted some players recently to add some meanness, like Sparkes, Ziemmer, and Helenius. Byfield has shoved some people, and Laferriere has shown flashes as well, but it still feels like toughness is more of an afterthought than a goal.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

We are right back to the golden era of "our powerplay is our enforcer"

of course it doesn't do that either

crap

well we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas. what was blake supposed to do

 

[All The Kings Men]

Hiller goes with 11F and plays Kayilev only a few minutes.

Blake couldn’t have picked up a Duhaine, Dewar, Trenin or Maroon to play those invisible or three minutes?

For the umpteenth time...

No. He could not have.

 

[All The Kings Men]

What is the pushback? I'm in the highest percentile of posters on this board that value tough hockey so I didn't want to see him go, but I don't make the decisions.

Sorry. You're taking the place in my imaginary argument with a bunch of people I can't remember from back in 2018-19ish.

Just the idea that McNabb and/or Forbort were equivalent or that Doughty somehow doesn't have a good track record with a more "physical" partner like Scuderi, McNabb or Anderson.

It just feels like a conversation I've been having for a decade and whenever it comes up again I just lose perspective.

I seem to remember that nobody here wanted to lose either one for free, but the draft occurred right after 1st round pick Forbort played a full 82 at 20 minutes a night and McNabb took a step back.

McNabb signed a $1.7M extension in 2016 and then was injured in the 2016-17 season (as were a lot of Kings) he would have been a UFA at the end of the 2017-18 season where as Forbort was RFA at the end of 2018 and was making $650,000

There was a $1MM difference in cap hits between the two and the Kings were up against it, needing to re-sign Toffoli and Pearson at the time. If you think Forbort is going to improve further, you've got a guy eating minutes for $650k so, sure, cap definitely factors in to that decision.

But then we've got an article from Hoven around that time talking about the upcoming cap crunch and various moves that could be made, with the last suggestion being to simply replace McNabb with MacDermid, which he described as "the least significant of the proposed moves" with a couple of those proposed moves being to replace Andreoff with Mersch or to replace Shore with any available player making $1.5MM or less.

You lost me with the first sentence of the second paragraph.

Hoven does his legwork and talks to people but replacing McNabb with MacDermid? In what world?

If replacing McNabb with MacDermid is of lesser significance than anything involving Andreoff or Shore, then that means McNabb wasn't too highly thought of at the time. This is why I do think that Blake and Co. preferred Forbort even if all things were equal between the two.

Sure... and the way things have played out shows that the wrong decision was made for (I believe) financial reasons.

If the pushback you are talking about is people arguing with you that McNabb totally sucked then I get it; however, if the pushback is that Management loved him but they were 100% captive to the salary cap concerns, I pushback on the pushback.

Now I'm totally cross eyed.

At this point alls I'm saying is McNabb was great, they made the wrong choice, it's perfectly clear in retrospect that they made the wrong choice and I understand why they made it but AT THE TIME the choice came a surprise to a number of people that I knew and spoke to regularly in the organization.

 

[BigKing]

Sorry. You're taking the place in my imaginary argument with a bunch of people I can't remember from back in 2018-19ish.

Just the idea that McNabb and/or Forbort were equivalent or that Doughty somehow doesn't have a good track record with a more "physical" partner like Scuderi, McNabb or Anderson.

It just feels like a conversation I've been having for a decade and whenever it comes up again I just lose perspective.

McNabb signed a $1.7M extension in 2016 and then was injured in the 2016-17 season (as were a lot of Kings) he would have been a UFA at the end of the 2017-18 season where as Forbort was RFA at the end of 2018 and was making $650,000

You lost me with the first sentence of the second paragraph.

Hoven does his legwork and talks to people but replacing McNabb with MacDermid? In what world?

Sure... and the way things have played out shows that the wrong decision was made for (I believe) financial reasons.

Now I'm totally cross eyed.

At this point alls I'm saying is McNabb was great, they made the wrong choice, it's perfectly clear in retrospect that they made the wrong choice and I understand why they made it but AT THE TIME the choice came a surprise to a number of people that I knew and spoke to regularly in the organization.

Haha. Fair enough. Everyone knows--or should know--that it was the wrong decision now but that's the usual outcome for Blake once enough time has passed to analyze things.

As for the article of Hoven's, it legit says that replacing McNabb with MacDermid was the least impactful of the potential moves he listed. Less of an impact than dumping Shore for any other forward making $1.5MM or less!

I love MacD but yikes. Of course, they didn't protect McNabb and did, in fact, start the next season with MacDermid on the roster so it actually turned out that way. Appears that he may have already been carrying water for he Blake regime since he completely nailed the outcome.

 

[BigKing]

I agree with this.

One value that I remember reading was very similar to Lambardi's statement about being hurt versus being injured.

A similar quote (possibly from Lombardi, but not 100% sure) was in reference to hitting to hurt and hitting to injure being an important distinction.

I don't advocate trying to end a career or to ruin someone's life, but a team should have enough assertiveness to get in the face and inflict pain on opponents who hurt teammates. It elevates the pace of the team and brings everyone together more.

I acknowledge Kopitar has shortcomings as a captain, but Lombardi also knew to bring in players like Richards, Mitchell, Lucic, Williams, Greene, etc to provide extra toughness and testosterone to push the team in ways Doughty, Kopitar, and Brown didn't do on a regular basis.

Who are the players Blake brought in? Englund? Fiala? Dubois? I know Danault brings grit and character, but he's not much of a hitter.

Granted, he has also drafted some players recently to add some meanness, like Sparkes, Ziemmer, and Helenius. Byfield has shoved some people, and Laferriere has shown flashes as well, but it still feels like toughness is more of an afterthought than a goal.

1000% this.

I mean, we are actually talking about how Byfield has shoved some guys this season because the act of shoving someone is like going full Randy Holt when compared to most of the roster.

It's not about being the 70s Flyers but, again, this franchise isn't winning a damn thing ever again until they become killers. The 2012 - 14 era was full of them. Meek teams don't win the Cup.

 

[Schmooley]

Ya , I get most of what you say and agree.

However, they were not winning from the puck drop is a fallacy.

Maybe e the odds are but upsets and the lesser skilled teams do win games more often compared to other sports.

I mean they came out and beat the Oilers upon Hillers debut not terribly long ago.

You gotta try to get the points and try to show a possible playoff opponent you can beat them again first and foremost.

Any chances to nail a legal hard hit on Oilers players without hurting the team would be secondary.

I didnt mean literally from puck drop but early on in that game it was clear their legs werent there and it was going to be an uphill battle.

 

[kingsfan28]

Sorry. You're taking the place in my imaginary argument with a bunch of people I can't remember from back in 2018-19ish.

Just the idea that McNabb and/or Forbort were equivalent or that Doughty somehow doesn't have a good track record with a more "physical" partner like Scuderi, McNabb or Anderson.

It just feels like a conversation I've been having for a decade and whenever it comes up again I just lose perspective.

McNabb signed a $1.7M extension in 2016 and then was injured in the 2016-17 season (as were a lot of Kings) he would have been a UFA at the end of the 2017-18 season where as Forbort was RFA at the end of 2018 and was making $650,000

You lost me with the first sentence of the second paragraph.

Hoven does his legwork and talks to people but replacing McNabb with MacDermid? In what world?

Sure... and the way things have played out shows that the wrong decision was made for (I believe) financial reasons.

Now I'm totally cross eyed.

At this point alls I'm saying is McNabb was great, they made the wrong choice, it's perfectly clear in retrospect that they made the wrong choice and I understand why they made it but AT THE TIME the choice came a surprise to a number of people that I knew and spoke to regularly in the organization.

The way this place overreacts to guys getting waive, if Forbort ,the 15th overall pick, was lost to the expansion draft, there would still be an active thread today. McNabb was still the better choice to keep, even with his "McBadd" nickname around here.

 

[lexlavender]

For fun I rewatched some of the old 2012 Cup Games, not much but just some of the game to get a feel for how they played back then.

One thing I noticed is how similar they played back then to now, in the sense that the D zone and O zone strategy is still largely the same: Man on Man, force to the walls, retrieve the puck to cycle or remove from the zone.

But the big difference is that the size and strength of that team is so much larger than what we have now. Our D, top to bottom, could pin anyone on the wall and strip the puck. They weren't afraid of aggressively pursuing puck carriers because they knew all men were covered, and they knew they had the strength and size not to get burnt.

The Neutral zone strategy was quite different, aggressive man on man that forced turn overs because of aggression and not through Neutral trap play.

Finally, the forecheck was simply incredible, because of the size of that team. They also rarely carried the puck, so forecheckers could KNOW with advance notice that they'd be entering the zone to forecheck, and thus it just seems like the players appeared on top of the defenders.

Comparing all of this to now, I can't help feel like the system is chasing this high. We want to pin and defend but ultimately cannot because of size. We want to forecheck and cannot because of size.

Sutter's ways went stale fast of course, but the team was successful because the system and team comp worked in harmony.

Our current make-up does really well entering the zone 5-5, but can't win a forecheck to save it's life. Why are we still forechecking, besides "good ole boy hockey"? Why do we have a d systems that encourages dump ins when we can't physically win board battles. "Good ole boy hockey"?

When I see this team at it's best, I see it entering the zone, breaking up attack through east west movement and passing, throwing a dangerous chance on goal to cause confusion, and then building up the cycle. Yet half of our system and ethos encourages the opposite (North south play, gaining possession through board battles).

Maybe I'm talking out of my ass, but it seems our systems today are nonsensical ghosts of what happened before, with some "tricky stuff" (hail mary passes, set plays) to make it "modern".

 

[All The Kings Men]

Sutter's ways went stale fast of course, but the team was successful because the system and team comp worked in harmony.

Not to harp on you personally but I have always disagreed with the idea that Sutter wore out his welcome (not sure you're even saying that)

The team was 100% doing what he wanted them to do in 2016-17 by my recollection they just lost their starting goalie for 60 games, had injuries to Kopitar, Toffoli, Gaborik, King, McNabb, Greene and if I'm not mistaken that was the bizarro season for Muzzin and Martinez where despite shining in "AnAlYtIcS" they allowed what felt like every goal ever scored in the history of organized hockey.

Not to mention the slow and steady loss of players from the 2012-2014 teams.
Williams, Mitchell, Richards, Voynov, Stoll, Scuderi etc

all of that AAAAAND that was the season they made Kopitar captain over Brown which may or may not have had some impact on "the vibe" of the team as Lombardi has since revealed that he hoped it would have an impact that it did not have....

I find it diffucult to pin the blame for that season on Sutter and I put very little stock in the evidence people present like the Tampa garbage can locker room story (since it happened in the 2014-15 season anyway)

 

[BigKing]

The Cup teams were not as slow as people commented on at the time: they were a big boy team that could skate. Of course, the puck moves faster than one can skate and they were great at knowing that as well.

Breakouts get mentioned here from time-to-time and that was something that seemed to improve greatly when Sutter came over and the roster fell into place. It's not too great on this team which is married to the idea of having to have an almost purely stay at home guy paired with the offensive guy. Of course, Roy/Gavrikov is two stay at home types together and then Spence hasn't scored as much as you'd like as the only other "offensive" defenseman seeing regular time.

Kings defensemen have 140 total points this season: Doughty has 33% of those. Is it unfair to pick Vancouver as a comparison? Well, they are in first place so here we go. 193 points from defensemen. Hughes has 45% of them but Hronek has 24% with that 24% representing one more point than Doughty (47 v. 46). They have a revelation in Hughes but their #2 scorer would be #1 on this team.

Clarke needs to hit. But now we are back to the whole premise of Blake's plan not working: to win with 11/8 while they are still relevant means that the team's best prospects need to hit their potential sooner rather than later while the ELCs are in place. Well, that's already done with for Byfield and they get two more seasons of Clarke after this year with nothing else of immediate impact in the pipeline. They needed this Byfield to be last year's version and for Clarke to be an immediate thing last season.

Shit is depressing, man.

 

[johnjm22]

If any of you watched that recent Jason Allison interview, he talked a lot about "team toughness" and how important it is. And the need for "gamers".

The 2012 and 2014 teams I actually don't think of as being super tough, but I think of them as having tons of gamers. Guys who battle hard in the face of adversity and come up big when it matters most. Guys who love to play.

 

[johnjm22]

 

[BigKing]

Not to harp on you personally but I have always disagreed with the idea that Sutter wore out his welcome (not sure you're even saying that)

The team was 100% doing what he wanted them to do in 2016-17 by my recollection they just lost their starting goalie for 60 games, had injuries to Kopitar, Toffoli, Gaborik, King, McNabb, Greene and if I'm not mistaken that was the bizarro season for Muzzin and Martinez where despite shining in "AnAlYtIcS" they allowed what felt like every goal ever scored in the history of organized hockey.

Not to mention the slow and steady loss of players from the 2012-2014 teams.
Williams, Mitchell, Richards, Voynov, Stoll, Scuderi etc

all of that AAAAAND that was the season they made Kopitar captain over Brown which may or may not have had some impact on "the vibe" of the team as Lombardi has since revealed that he hoped it would have an impact that it did not have....

I find it diffucult to pin the blame for that season on Sutter and I put very little stock in the evidence people present like the Tampa garbage can locker room story (since it happened in the 2014-15 season anyway)

But it was, and remained, his M.O.

Quick results, high highs and then the team is over it once they aren't winning as much. Seems like everyone is happy when winning but they can't take his style once it doesn't come with winning.

As for that season, I'm petty sure Kopitar wasn't hurt but everyone thought he must have been since he had a poor season. Regardless, they played the next season like a bunch of happy players so I buy that the players were tired of him, at least some of the players including ones that will have their jerseys in the rafters when they are done and one that already has it up there.

I mean, "doing what he wanted them to do" doesn't mean they weren't tired of him. We also had the Tkachuk elbow on Doughty that year that led to nothing immediately happening on the ice, something that never would have happened in the Cup era under Sutter but happened on a Sutter team. A soon to retire Iginla should not look like the player that cares the most on that team but he sure looked that way.

 

[All The Kings Men]

But it was, and remained, his M.O.

Quick results, high highs and then the team is over it once they aren't winning as much. Seems like everyone is happy when winning but they can't take his style once it doesn't come with winning.

As for that season, I'm petty sure Kopitar wasn't hurt but everyone thought he must have been since he had a poor season. Regardless, they played the next season like a bunch of happy players so I buy that the players were tired of him, at least some of the players including ones that will have their jerseys in the rafters when they are done and one that already has it up there.

My memory is that they denied it mid-season and then admitted it at the end of the season and he missed 6 games.

I remember this because during the season I was one of the people screaming that he was obviously dealing with an arm/wrist/hand injury and then went insane when it was sort of casually acknowldged at the end of the season but none of the narrative pushers every made the change in their story.

I mean, "doing what he wanted them to do" doesn't mean they weren't tired of him. We also had the Tkachuk elbow on Doughty that year that led to nothing immediately happening on the ice, something that never would have happened in the Cup era under Sutter but happened on a Sutter team. A soon to retire Iginla should not look like the player that cares the most on that team but he sure looked that way.

Oh I'm sure many of them were "tired of him" but in a season where they lost Quick for 60 games and replaced him with an AHL goalie in Budaj, the entire team focused up on playing defence in order to protect Budaj and maximize his talents.

I used to have more compelling arguments than that at the ready to support that claim but time passes and priorities change.


EDIT: AND yes they played like happy players in 2017-18 but then the wheels utterly and completely fell off in 2018-19 and I have never once heard an argument that explained it that satisfied me.

So... ya know... there's that.

 

[BigKing]

If any of you watched that recent Jason Allison interview, he talked a lot about "team toughness" and how important it is. And the need for "gamers".

The 2012 and 2014 teams I actually don't think of as being super tough, but I think of them as having tons of gamers. Guys who battle hard in the face of adversity and come up big when it matters most. Guys who love to play.

I has typed out a thing on "team toughness" in an earlier response but deleted it. That used to be short hand for "this team isn't actually tough and has no fighters" but the game has changed where you can have Trent Frederic as your best fighter and be considered one of the tougher teams in the league because everyone has bought in and, honestly, it doesn't take close to what it used to when being considered a "tough" team.

Englund is maybe top three in fighting majors this year but the Kings are super soft anyways. I mentioned the Doughty/Tkachuk incident in the post above and we're still in a place where this team allows itself to get injured with dirty hits with no retribution. I've put the laundry list of incidents out there previously and it's disgusting. Huge indictment of Blake's roster construction.

As for 2012-14, Nolan could go with anyone and Clifford was always game. Dwight King had zero issues in a fight against Reaves and nobody thinks of Dwight King as a fighter but he was huge and his brother was a legit HW. Greene would drop the gloves against anyone and immediately fall down if he was lucky but he's probably the best example of what I'm talking about: a guy that obviously sucks at fighting and doesn't like it is going to step in regardless.

The old adage of "it's not about who wins or loses a fight: it's about showing up" is 100% on point. The Kings have a bunch of guys that are afraid. It is still a man's game and this roster isn't up to the challenge. It might be constructed to win a Cup in 2044 once everything is banned and it is all about forechecking with poke checks and playing nice, but it isn't winning anytime soon until there is a complete change in mindset.

 

[BigKing]

My memory is that they denied it mid-season and then admitted it at the end of the season and he missed 6 games.

I remember this because during the season I was one of the people screaming that he was obviously dealing with an arm/wrist/hand injury and then went insane when it was sort of casually acknowldged at the end of the season but none of the narrative pushers every made the change in their story.



Oh I'm sure many of them were "tired of him" but in a season where they lost Quick for 60 games and replaced him with an AHL goalie in Budaj, the entire team focused up on playing defence in order to protect Budaj and maximize his talents.

I used to have more compelling arguments than that at the ready to support that claim but time passes and priorities change.


EDIT: AND yes they played like happy players in 2017-18 but then the wheels utterly and completely fell off in 2018-19 and I have never once heard an argument that explained it that satisfied me.

So... ya know... there's that.

I thought Kopitar said he wasn't hurt, but maybe he didn't want to make an excuse.

They played worse once Quick came back, if I remember correctly. Some people blame Carter getting punched in the face by Kesler since he fell off a bit afterwards.

But that team just wasn't going to be as good. They replaced Williams with Lucic but then they replaced Lucic with nobody.

As for the wheels falling off in 2019, the answer for me is that they weren't that good in 2018 to begin with. Outlier Kopitar season and the back-up goalies went a combined 12-1-5. Trevor Lewis, he of the stonehands moniker, had 14 goals in only 68 games, a career high. Felt like they pulled out goals with the goalie pulled more often than you'd expect. Think that was the year of the Toffoli OT goal in Boston.

Vegas had their over/under for points that season at 89.5 so they overachieved at 98. The next season, when all they needed was scoring and added Kovy, Vegas only bumped them up to 93.5 which, @Herby can confirm, to me means that the oddsmakers weren't so sold on them being a playoff team and they were right.

 

[Surf Nutz]

I would move on from Lizotte or pay him a lot less, if he takes it.

A + intangibles but he is usually beat up later in the seasons and into the playoffs due to hi physical stature against his hard nose playing style.

Looks like his analytics are down, and his injuries may be therefore, up.

He has over performed as undrafted and may have peaked career wise.

 

[Sol]

You are right nobody should intentionally hurt Mcdavid. I do think they should have taken some runs at him that last regular season game but still ones that are hockey plays. They werent winning that game from the drop of the puck so give up a goal against if you have to.
Mcdavid has his way with the Kings with the puck and physically without the puck.
They need to set a tone to at least make him look over his shoulder. Itll slow him down a split second. Also it would let him know he cant board Kings players anymore. But no I dont mean take dirty runs at him that will injure him.

With the context of what he's done to this team with him intentionally headhunting Kings, do you still think people shouldn't be intending to injure him whether with a cheapshot or hitting with intent to injure? Can you explain to me why this is off the table?

Missing context as usual ay Johnny boy, Lizotte was never the same this season after he got injured. He was amazing this season before he got injured. Also, Kempe sucked this season as well, but he was lights out before he got injured in the pre-season. He never rebounded.

Include context.

 

[KingsHockey24]

Random flashback but I liked Christian Folin

I liked Kyle Quincey.

 

[KingsOfCali25]

No one in this Kings organization knows what they are doing. From the management to the coaches, to the players, to the media people. It's become a horribly run organization.

How do you go from the best/deepest pipeline of prospects to only playing less than a handful of prospects in the NHL? What kind of useless ownership lets that happen?

The Kings are only gonna end up with Byfield, Clarke or Spence (if they resign Roy), and Lafreniere. That's a f***ing joke!