LA KINGS 2023/4 Regular season discussion

[KopitarGOAT420]

potential goalies kings should go after. saros. swayman/ullmark, varlamov

I like all these guys (Varlamov less so given his age but he's damn solid) - As much as I would love Swayman.... Boston is not trading a goalie unless they fall off a cliff. Goaltending is their biggest strength and they clearly aren't looking to re-tool/rebuild.

Saros mightttttt become available if Nashville starts to fall in the standings but who knows what the asking price is going to be.

The goalie market is ROUGH right now... That's my biggest concern for the Kings. I've posted a couple times about how the Kings can make a trade to improve their goaltending and try to make themselves a legit contender. But I have to admit - you look around the league and try to find guys that could be good trade targets and it's nottttttt easy. Going to be really interesting to see what they end up doing.

 

[Little Psycho]

Guy needs sessions with Kopitar and Stoll

Exactly what I was thinking, especially Stoll since that is part of his job.

 

[KopitarGOAT420]

Off topic, last night during the game, TSN was talking about PP1, and how one of the problems is there is only one right hand shot.....now...me being me....goes, well shit...that's an easy fix....change the units a bit......but that won't happen lol

What would you change?? (Not trying to come at you, just trying to have the conversation)

Both units have 4 lefty skaters and a RHD quarterback. They're both super predictable and that's why both are struggling. Teams know the main threat is either Kempe or Kaliyev on the right side and the only real threat is passes that go from the left side of the ice to the right.

Sure, you could give Laferriere a look on the PP (I wouldn't really mind it) but also - Which player's spot is he taking?? Byfield? Danault? Moore?

Maybe give Laf a shot on the 1st unit and bump PLD down to the 2nd and take Danault off the powerplay?? That seems a little crazy tho given Laf's lack of production.

Laferriere
Fiala - Kopitar - Kempe
Doughty

Byfield
Moore - PLD - Kaliyev
Spence

I guess it could be worth a shot but is the powerplay really THAT bad that it warrants doing something like this 10 games into the season???

 

[GoldenBearHockey]

What would you change?? (Not trying to come at you, just trying to have the conversation)

Both units have 4 lefty skaters and a RHD quarterback. They're both super predictable and that's why both are struggling. Teams know the main threat is either Kempe or Kaliyev on the right side and the only real threat is passes that go from the left side of the ice to the right.

Sure, you could give Laferriere a look on the PP (I wouldn't really mind it) but also - Which player's spot is he taking?? Byfield? Danault? Moore?

Maybe give Laf a shot on the 1st unit and bump PLD down to the 2nd and take Danault off the powerplay?? That seems a little crazy tho given Laf's lack of production.

Laferriere
Fiala - Kopitar - Kempe
Doughty

Byfield
Moore - PLD - Kaliyev
Spence

I guess it could be worth a shot but is the powerplay really THAT bad that it warrants doing something like this 10 games into the season???

Didn't delve that deep into it lol still playing catchup for work....

I don't know if it's the unit's themselves, but as you said predictable, teams are cheating on Kempe, so they have to find a way to exploit that, can't think right now, but they were having some looks where Kopitar would be on the left side, with Dubois down low and Fiala as the bumper, and try to work that triangle, you work that well enough, that you can maybe catch the far guy napping and quick move to Doughty, to Kempe etc....

 

[kilowatt]

What would you change?? (Not trying to come at you, just trying to have the conversation)

Both units have 4 lefty skaters and a RHD quarterback. They're both super predictable and that's why both are struggling. Teams know the main threat is either Kempe or Kaliyev on the right side and the only real threat is passes that go from the left side of the ice to the right.

Sure, you could give Laferriere a look on the PP (I wouldn't really mind it) but also - Which player's spot is he taking?? Byfield? Danault? Moore?

Maybe give Laf a shot on the 1st unit and bump PLD down to the 2nd and take Danault off the powerplay?? That seems a little crazy tho given Laf's lack of production.

Laferriere
Fiala - Kopitar - Kempe
Doughty

Byfield
Moore - PLD - Kaliyev
Spence

I guess it could be worth a shot but is the powerplay really THAT bad that it warrants doing something like this 10 games into the season???

We had Vilardi and Arvidsson last year and it really seems to have made a difference. Not sure how to fix it at this point, although I do wish Byfield was on PP1 right now.

 

[All The Kings Men]

yeah, maybe, but i think you're gonna need more than 9 games to prove that vs a career

sometimes inconsistent is the same as bad, accuracy vs precision yknow

sure but honestly I just thought it was funny that he said "isnt workin yet" when I knew the last few games were much better than the first few games

As usual my decision to become involved in the conversation spiraled into an area I had no intention of wandering into

 

[tny760]

2nd unit needs reps

way too often 1st unit is out there playing catch for a minute, have to reenter then finally get off the ice at like 30s left in the PP and it leaves the 2nd unit with no time but for a one and done. clearly kaliyev is capable of lasering a corner if he has any kind of time, can't develop that space with a 30 second rep

kopitar and kempe take way too long of shifts in general imo but that's another story

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

Problem is, Turcotte is another left shot. Laf is one of the few right shot forwards we have.

Laf does look like a guy who's going to hit that rookie wall soon though.

Thought about this last night--they mentioned on the telecast something to the effect of he had only been on a plane for hockey once (at Harvard--as far as I can tell the USHL actually requires bus travel)? does that ring a bell for anyone? Versus the schedule in the Pacific with 3 hour flights all the time.

Anyway, the most games he's played in a season is 49 in Des Moines, so wouldn't be surprising if the travel, NHL physical wear and tear gets to him.

sure but honestly I just thought it was funny that he said "isnt workin yet" when I knew the last few games were much better than the first few games

As usual my decision to become involved in the conversation spiraled into an area I had no intention of wandering into

It was a pretty funny note honestly

but when you mentioned 'sample size and context' it was like welllll

the sample size is enormous and the context is 'not good, Bob'

 

[King'sPawn]

Thought about this last night--they mentioned on the telecast something to the effect of he had only been on a plane for hockey once (at Harvard--as far as I can tell the USHL actually requires bus travel)? does that ring a bell for anyone? Versus the schedule in the Pacific with 3 hour flights all the time.

Never looked into it specifically but it makes sense. The biggest distance between two cities (Fargo, ND and Youngstown, OH) is a little over 1000 miles. Which is far, but they only play each other twice and both games are back-to-back in Youngstown. So, even the biggest distance traveled seems to minimize it as much as possible.

 

[FSL KINGS]

Anyone seen Björnfot? Time to put him on a milk carton?

 

[BaileyFan]

The goalie market is ROUGH right now... That's my biggest concern for the Kings. I've posted a couple times about how the Kings can make a trade to improve their goaltending and try to make themselves a legit contender. But I have to admit - you look around the league and try to find guys that could be good trade targets and it's nottttttt easy. Going to be really interesting to see what they end up doing.

The goalie market is rough every year which is why going into a season with the attitude of "well ****, we'll just solve this at the deadline" is a thing that almost no one ever does. You can count on one hand the number of bona fide starters that have been traded midseason in the past decade.

 

[YP44]

potential goalies kings should go after. saros. swayman/ullmark, varlamov

I would add Hart and Markstrom there depending on Team Canada investigation and cost

 

[KopitarGOAT420]

The goalie market is rough every year which is why going into a season with the attitude of "well ****, we'll just solve this at the deadline" is a thing that almost no one ever does. You can count on one hand the number of bona fide starters that have been traded midseason in the past decade.

I agree... But I'd counter with - What goalies were available last offseason that we should've targeted?

I ask that because I'm looking at the top preforming goalies so far this year and I'm just not really seeing anyone that sticks out as "dang, really should've traded for/signed that guy in the offseason".

Even a guy like Varlamov - Yeah he's off to a great start but he's played 2 games and for all we know he wasn't interested in signing with LA.

My overall point here is that its easy to say "They should've fixed their goaltending last offseason" but it's very possible (I'd say likely) that they took a look at the goalie market and didn't feel all that great about the options that were out there so decided to make the team as deep as possible and go the cheap route in net. And it's kinda hard to fault them for that IMO - Just looking around the league there's quite a few goaltenders making $4+ million, $5+ million and struggling to maintain a .900 save % - Hell, we had two of them last season lol. Idk, not trying to be super argumentative - Just saying it's tough. Like you said, the goalie market is always rough and wasn't much better last offseason.

 

[KopitarGOAT420]

Goalies are so tough in general man... Even if we traded for a guy like say Carter Hart and he had an amazing year for us.

You'd then have to pay him what maybe $5 million AAV minimum?? Maybe $6 million?? And if he has a couple down years over the course of that contract (which goalies almost always do) - you're kind of screwed those years.

We were pretty spoiled with Quick for a while there lol

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

I agree... But I'd counter with - What goalies were available last offseason that we should've targeted?

I ask that because I'm looking at the top preforming goalies so far this year and I'm just not really seeing anyone that sticks out as "dang, really should've traded for/signed that guy in the offseason".

Even a guy like Varlamov - Yeah he's off to a great start but he's played 2 games and for all we know he wasn't interested in signing with LA.

My overall point here is that its easy to say "They should've fixed their goaltending last offseason" but it's very possible (I'd say likely) that they took a look at the goalie market and didn't feel all that great about the options that were out there so decided to make the team as deep as possible and go the cheap route in net. And it's kinda hard to fault them for that IMO - Just looking around the league there's quite a few goaltenders making $4+ million, $5+ million and struggling to maintain a .900 save % - Hell, we had two of them last season lol. Idk, not trying to be super argumentative - Just saying it's tough. Like you said, the goalie market is always rough and wasn't much better last offseason.

We are not seriously doing this again.

"What is Rob Blake supposed to do?"

Goaltending has been an upcoming concern for literally years. He and many advisors are getting paid literally millions to analyze this. They didn't address it and NOW they're painted into a corner. Like LHD last year--this isn't a sudden 'oh no,' it just got expedited because they literally put all their eggs in one basket that didn't pan out rather than doing anything at all to bolster the position for their entire tenures. It just looks like a sudden emergency because Cal didnt work.

"well, we TRIED to get Wallstedt and failed" is the extent of their addressing the G position.

 

[KopitarGOAT420]

We are not seriously doing this again.

"What is Rob Blake supposed to do?"

Goaltending has been an upcoming concern for literally years. He and many advisors are getting paid literally millions to analyze this. They didn't address it and NOW they're painted into a corner. Like LHD last year--this isn't a sudden 'oh no,' it just got expedited because they literally put all their eggs in one basket that didn't pan out rather than doing anything at all to bolster the position for their entire tenures. It just looks like a sudden emergency because Cal didnt work.

"well, we TRIED to get Wallstedt and failed" is the extent of their addressing the G position.

I'm not exactly saying "what was Blake supposed to do?"

I'm more saying - goaltending is a problem for like half the league and the goalie market is always pretty terrible. We've been drafting goalies consistently - None have worked out. We thought we had our next starter in Petersen - he sucks. We traded for Portillo - he's not ready yet/might suck too for all we know.

Could/should they have been more aggressive in trying to address the goaltending situation and could/should they have planned better long term when it comes to goaltending??? ABSOLUTELY.

My point is... it's REALLY hard to do that. Goaltending is kind of a crap shoot in this league. Even teams with elite goalies struggle with goaltending at times. Hellebuyck - a guy myself and many others hoped the Kings would pick up in the offseason - has under a .900 save % and he's consistently been considered a top 5 goalie in the world over the last 5 years.

Bro even guys like Wallstedt, Askarov, etc... There's no guarantee they end up being really good starting goalies in this league. Or if your trade for a big name goalie - a guy who's seen as a legit #1... There's plenty of times that guy suck 1-2 years later.

To re-iterate, ultimately I agree with you - They should've planned better and been more aggressive. But it's tough man. Goalies are SUPER unpredictable.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

I'm not exactly saying "what was Blake supposed to do?"

I'm more saying - goaltending is a problem for like half the league and the goalie market is always pretty terrible. We've been drafting goalies consistently - None have worked out. We thought we had our next starter in Petersen - he sucks. We traded for Portillo - he's not ready yet/might suck too for all we know.

Could/should they have been more aggressive in trying to address the goaltending situation and could/should they have planned better long term when it comes to goaltending??? ABSOLUTELY.

My point is... it's REALLY hard to do that. Goaltending is kind of a crap shoot in this league. Even teams with elite goalies struggle with goaltending at times. Hellebuyck - a guy myself and many others hoped the Kings would pick up in the offseason - has under a .900 save % and he's consistently been considered a top 5 goalie in the world over the last 5 years.

Bro even guys like Wallstedt, Askarov, etc... There's no guarantee they end up being really good starting goalies in this league. Or if your trade for a big name goalie - a guy who's seen as a legit #1... There's plenty of times that guy suck 1-2 years later.

To re-iterate, ultimately I agree with you - They should've planned better and been more aggressive. But it's tough man. Goalies are SUPER unpredictable.

I'm more just saying this isn't a 'sudden' issue.

Dean Lombardi built from the net, thru the D, down the middle.

Blake seems to have built from the wings in, from the forwards to the D finally landing on G.

Yes goalies are voodoo, but when your 15 year starter is clearly winding down, putting all your eggs in one basket with no real depth of note behind him is foolish. It might be worst case scenario how it turned out, but no contingencies? really? People get fired in every career for that.

He started with a team that had Quick, Kuemper, Campbell and immediately started dismantling that but without refilling the pipeline.

 

[Fishhead]

The Kings have been woeful in identifying goaltenders for quite a long time now. It's just Karma for hitting on practically every goalie for a stretch there, along with bringing along any journeyman goalie and making them look like Jaques Plante.

 

[KopitarGOAT420]

The Kings have been woeful in identifying goaltenders for quite a long time now. It's just Karma for hitting on practically every goalie for a stretch there, along with bringing along any journeyman goalie and making them look like Jaques Plante.

Yeah true - and in a way the Kings were 'lucky' to an extent with Quick. I mean he was a 3rd round pick that ended up being a Hall of Famer / one of the best American goalies of all time. Obviously there's scouting / development that goes into it but at a certain point there's definitely a level of 'hitting the jackpot' there.

I'm more just saying this isn't a 'sudden' issue.

Dean Lombardi built from the net, thru the D, down the middle.

Blake seems to have built from the wings in, from the forwards to the D finally landing on G.

Yes goalies are voodoo, but when your 15 year starter is clearly winding down, putting all your eggs in one basket with no real depth of note behind him is foolish. It might be worst case scenario how it turned out, but no contingencies? really? People get fired in every career for that.

He started with a team that had Quick, Kuemper, Campbell and immediately started dismantling that but without refilling the pipeline.

Yeah, I hear you. But Dean 'building through the net' was also pretty dependent on one player (Quick) turning out like he did... Which like I mentioned above, is sort of a wildcard IMO.

I disagree slightly on the building from the wings point - They knew they still had Kopitar. They signed Danault. And now they're traded for PLD. It's hard to say the focus has been building from the wing inward about a team with arguable the best center depth in the NHL. They've also focused heavily on drafting centers even if none of those drafter centers have panned out at the NHL level yet. This team clearly values strength down the middle above pretty much everything else.

You're right though - the goaltending situation definitely could've been handled a lot better and I see your point. Mine is just: it's incredibly hard to find that 'goalie of the future' / a high end (and consistent) #1 netminder - Some teams have been trying to do so for 10+ years. So it's not exactly a problem that you can just fix with the snap of your fingers. But yes, they should've done more to try to address goaltending.

 

[GoldenBearHockey]

Yeah true - and for all we know they just got 'lucky' to an extent with Quick. I mean he was a 3rd round pick that ended up being a Hall of Famer / one of the best American goalies of all time. Obviously there's scouting / development that goes into it but at a certain point there's a level of 'hitting the jackpot' there.


Yeah, I hear you. But Dean 'building through the net' was also pretty dependent on one player (Quick) turning out like he did... Which like I mentioned above, is sort of a wildcard IMO.

I disagree slightly on the building from the wings point - They knew they still had Kopitar. They signed Danault. And now they're traded for PLD. It's hard to say the focus has been building from the wing inward about a team with arguable the best center depth in the NHL. They've also focused heavily on drafting centers even if none of those drafter centers have panned out at the NHL level yet. This team clearly values strength down the middle above pretty much everything else.

You're right though - the goaltending situation definitely could've been handled a lot better and I see your point. Mine is just: it's incredibly hard to find that 'goalie of the future' / a high end (and consistent) #1 netminder - Some teams have been trying to do so for 10+ years. So it's not exactly a problem that you can just fix with the snap of your fingers. But yes, they should've done more to try to address goaltending.

Bud, it doesn't matter if more than half the league can't do it, if Blake can't do it, he's garbage and has to go

 

[psych3man]

Since PLD entered the league, of the 211 guys who have taken at least 1000 faceoffs, Pierre Luc Dubois is 177th.

He's bad, he's been bad.

The vast majority that are worse are centers like Hughes and Zegras that are kids or guys playing out of position like Marchessault.

I don't understand why we can't just call a spade a spade sometimes.

NBA players who can’t shoot free throws drive me crazy…just like tall centers who suck at the face off dot

 

[psych3man]

Since PLD entered the league, of the 211 guys who have taken at least 1000 faceoffs, Pierre Luc Dubois is 177th.

How the hell do you locate this statistical stuff?!?
Kudos!
It would have taken me three weeks to figure out how to secure that stat.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

Yeah true - and in a way the Kings were 'lucky' to an extent with Quick. I mean he was a 3rd round pick that ended up being a Hall of Famer / one of the best American goalies of all time. Obviously there's scouting / development that goes into it but at a certain point there's definitely a level of 'hitting the jackpot' there.


Yeah, I hear you. But Dean 'building through the net' was also pretty dependent on one player (Quick) turning out like he did... Which like I mentioned above, is sort of a wildcard IMO.

I disagree slightly on the building from the wings point - They knew they still had Kopitar. They signed Danault. And now they're traded for PLD. It's hard to say the focus has been building from the wing inward about a team with arguable the best center depth in the NHL. They've also focused heavily on drafting centers even if none of those drafter centers have panned out at the NHL level yet. This team clearly values strength down the middle above pretty much everything else.

You're right though - the goaltending situation definitely could've been handled a lot better and I see your point. Mine is just: it's incredibly hard to find that 'goalie of the future' / a high end (and consistent) #1 netminder - Some teams have been trying to do so for 10+ years. So it's not exactly a problem that you can just fix with the snap of your fingers. But yes, they should've done more to try to address goaltending.

I don't disagree with that. Similar to Quick, we're likely to go another 30 years before finding a D man as good as Doughty, C as good as Kopitar, G as good as Quick.

I think it's less about "SOLVING" the issue and more about attempts.

Even when Quick was balling out, Jones bailed us out when he was hurt. Bernier was a very solid backup. Budaj came in and saved us. Campbell put up numbers. There was almost always a guy on deck ready to go. Right now? We're one injury away from a .750 starting goaltender and Calgary's former backup.

I don't expect him to pull Quick out of a deck. I DO expect him to find SOME semblance of stability over the course of more than a half decade. Right now we're month to month on goalies.

 

[AbsentMojo]

Heard Cal Pete called up.. and looks like he will get start v LAK tomorrow

 

[Fishhead]

Heard Cal Pete called up.. and looks like he will get start v LAK tomorrow

Cal's struggles are largely mental so I think we will see a good game out of him if we don't score right off the bat.