Speculation: LA Kings Offseason Thread

[King'sPawn]

Wait until Clarke gets destroyed into the boards and everyone starts clamoring for someone to stand up for him and there is no one...

Yeah, we'll definitely be missing Durzi's two fights from last year, MacEwen's broken jaw, and Lemieux's bite.

Your hero Durzi certainly did jack when this happened to Clarke last year on November 1st:


I'm sure Benn would have thought twice about letting Clarke run into him if Lemieux was mean-mugging him as he dragged his knuckles along the ice. Too bad McLellan scratched him.

 

[bland]

I forgot about Walker. And you’re right it was a contract based decision at points of the season. But it had something to do with play at other points, especially when Edler was injured and Toby was still well out of the mix. He went from 70 games to 10 games in one season. That’s not all based on contracts and waivers. The player had the track record to be an everyday player on a playoff team, and went massively backwards while the team was pretty much the same.

I do wonder if Bjornfot was one of the kids McLellan was talking about last year in that interview where he mentioned that there was some discontent in Ontario from players who considered themselves better than those with guaranteed contracts in LA.

Who knows, maybe he didn't make the gains he was supposed to in the summer. It just smacks of a bunch of frat boys running this team and demanding some sort of dues-paying system as part of their failing curriculum.

He IS a good player, and guys like him who get B+s in a variety of places, but no As really need the experience to settle in to their steady game. Its why last year made so little sense unless there was some sort of off-ice thing to sort out.

 

[Johnny Utah]

Yeah, we'll definitely be missing Durzi's two fights from last year, MacEwen's broken jaw, and Lemieux's bite.

Your hero Durzi certainly did jack when this happened to Clarke last year on November 1st:


I'm sure Benn would have thought twice about letting Clarke run into him if Lemieux was mean-mugging him as he dragged his knuckles along the ice. Too bad McLellan scratched him.

Englund would have fought Benn.

What would Bjornfot have done? Nothing.

The Kings are soft. They need tougher forwards and tougher D.

Watch - players will take cheap shots again and Blake will have to make some moves later in the year to add toughness.

 

[bland]

It's a hilarious excuse and cover for a laughably avoidable situation.

If Cal was that mentally weak then Blake horribly misjudged the player and should not have given him the big contract.

If Quick was the issue then why wasn't he traded in say 2020 ot 2021 when the issues began? Does Blake have that poor of a sense of the locker room? Does he not explain the situations to players?

It's really one of those two things and both make Blake look bad.

It just doesn't seem out of the question that Peterson was going to get the nod over Quick but maybe that wrankled some of the older feathers in the room.

Its a mistake to keep the old Cup guys around, no matter how well they play. Its the wrong kind of influence and the fact that so many kids come in without confidently expressing themselves makes you wonder how much is poor development and how much is the experience/lifestyle/stroke of the Cup winners dictating something they shouldn't. Its not like Pittsburgh were the older core keeps them relatively in the thick of things.

The Kings haven't come close to winning shit in a looooooong time - and despite the constant deferring to the Cup winners wishes, the kids know it.

 

[King'sPawn]

Englund would have fought Benn.

What would Bjornfot have done? Nothing.

The Kings are soft. They need tougher forwards and tougher D.

Watch - players will take cheap shots again and Blake will have to make some moves later in the year to add toughness.

But you're lamenting the loss of Durzi as a loss of toughness. One of your tough guys was right there and did nothing.

And maybe Englund would have. Maybe not. Englund had 8 fights last year. And he played in 47 games. Are you saying all 8 were in defense of dirty hits? And the other 39 games were devoid of dirty hits because Englund would have stepped in?

I'm under no delusion that Bjornfot would have stepped in, but you assuming that Englund would become the hero Los Angeles needs is extremely misguided.

Toughness comes from leadership and team cohesion. Having someone ready to step in helps, but it's not done by one player. Heck, even Jordan Nolan only fought three times in the NHL in 2012 (twice in regular season, once in postseason), when the Kings won the cup. And he sure as shit didn't stop Scuderi from being boarded in Game 5 versus New Jersey.

 

[AbsentMojo]

What you guys think of this handshake between DS and TM.. seemed weird (cued up to the end of game)



What I noticed in this game was how damn aggressive the PK was.. holy shit SJ had no space - couldnt do shit. Of course Richards is prob one of the best ever PK guys and Lewis is up there

 

[Johnny Utah]

But you're lamenting the loss of Durzi as a loss of toughness. One of your tough guys was right there and did nothing.

And maybe Englund would have. Maybe not. Englund had 8 fights last year. And he played in 47 games. Are you saying all 8 were in defense of dirty hits? And the other 39 games were devoid of dirty hits because Englund would have stepped in?

I'm under no delusion that Bjornfot would have stepped in, but you assuming that Englund would become the hero Los Angeles needs is extremely misguided.

Toughness comes from leadership and team cohesion. Having someone ready to step in helps, but it's not done by one player. Heck, even Jordan Nolan only fought three times in the NHL in 2012 (twice in regular season, once in postseason), when the Kings won the cup. And he sure as shit didn't stop Scuderi from being boarded in Game 5 versus New Jersey.

In the 2011-2012 season the Kings also had Westgarth, Clifford, Mitchell, Greene, Fraser along with Nolan and King. All had more than 1 fighting major that year.

Who do we have now? Kempe? PLD? Danault? Why should the Kings 5-8 million dollar players be fighting?

With Biornfot on D the Kings might have the softest D in the entire league.

The only fighting major between the top 6 D without Englund is Doughty’s beating from Joe Thornton.

That’s not exactly Hague, McNabb, Petro, and Whitecloud who gave the Oilers fits.

The Ducks picked up Gudas, the Sharks picked up Burroughs. The Kraken have Dunn and Oleksiak. Who do the Kings have back there? Anyone?

 

[AbsentMojo]

Yeah, we'll definitely be missing Durzi's two fights from last year, MacEwen's broken jaw, and Lemieux's bite.

Your hero Durzi certainly did jack when this happened to Clarke last year on November 1st:


I'm sure Benn would have thought twice about letting Clarke run into him if Lemieux was mean-mugging him as he dragged his knuckles along the ice. Too bad McLellan scratched him.

Looking at the again, Benn did that on purpose and made it look like an accident.. asshole

 

[King'sPawn]

Who do we have now? Kempe? PLD? Danault? Why should the Kings 5-8 million dollar players be fighting?

I thought the issue was team toughness. Now you're lamenting that the higher paid players are dropping the gloves?

Would you also be upset if the Kings got Matthew Tkachuk? He'd be the third-highest paid player on the team and no doubt he'd fight.

So is your issue now that the Kings don't have enough low-cost players to drop the gloves?

 

[Johnny Utah]

The issue is team toughness, toughness at forward and on the 4th line and toughness on D.

All the above.

 

[Sol]

As an aside, I know people know I wasn’t the biggest Quick fan. But what really annoyed me about him was that I felt he had this reputation among fans as a bad ass but the guys gloves were GLUED on his entire career. The fake tough guy act annoyed me a lot. Mike Smith of all people has fought in the NHL but Quick hasn’t.

 

[Sol]

If Englund doesn't play, who is protecting Clarke, Spence, Fiala, etc...?

If Blake cared about protecting he wouldn’t have brought MacEwen with a f***ing face shield on lmao

 

[Sol]

If you think Lemiuex, McEwen, or Durzi gave the Kings toughness then you’re mistaken. None of those players have the balls to take out anyone.

As Junior once said, come heavy or don’t come at all.

Kings don’t need a little bitch like Lemiuex. If you want toughness I would have been more than happy to have Ryan Reaves smoking people. Do you think people look at Kolesar badly for taking out Tkachuk? Nah. You need players who are willing to ice someone. Not some little dudes who can’t do shit.

No one tried to hit Draisaitl or McDavid hard. If they had the balls and strength that Kolesar had the Kings probably win that series.

 

[Chazz Reinhold]

Ten times analytics were wrong about NHL players and the lessons learned

Harman Dayal highlights 10 cases where analytics were misleading about a player’s true value.

theathletic.com

NHL analytics have exploded in popularity over the last decade.

Teams are investing in staff and building departments for the sole purpose of analyzing data and in the public sphere, it’s significantly enhanced the information and knowledge that fans and media have about players and teams.

The majority of the hockey world now agrees that data has some value as a tool that can offer objective insights into player performance. The old days of intense analytics versus eye test debates are mostly gone because people understand that it’s not an either-or proposition, you should be using both the eye test and data.

Hockey fans have a more sophisticated understanding of players around the NHL — especially players from teams they don’t watch — because of how accessible public analytics are.

That, of course, should be celebrated.

But if we’re going to rely on these tools, we should also be aware of their limitations and the cases where stats can be misleading.

I’ve been diving into analytical tools like shot shares, expected goals and PDO; types of microstats like zone exits, zone entries and passing data that Corey Sznajder tracks; powerful tools like Dom Luszczyszyn’s excellent Net Rating model and more for years now. Today, I wanted to highlight examples where analytics were misleading about a player’s true value.

The purpose of this exercise isn’t to blame analytics. These are often situations where I was personally wrong in putting too much stock in the data and not considering other factors.

Experience over time has made me handle analytics with more scrutiny.

Instead of drawing conclusions at face value because a model feels strongly about a player, I try and find the holes, blind spots and possible ways I could be wrong. When a player I need to offer deep analysis on is acquired, I’ll watch hours of game film and dissect those observations to add a new perspective. I weigh a lot more qualitative factors now. And honestly, it all helps paint a clearer, more nuanced understanding of players.

Here are 10 players that analytics were misleading about, and some of the lessons I’ve learned as a result.

Vladislav Gavrikov​

Vladislav Gavrikov caught my eye two or three ago.

It was cool seeing this unheralded, hulking defender use his long reach and solid skating to disrupt plays, win battles down low and excel as a defensive-minded presence. But by the time the trade deadline rolled around and Gavrikov had emerged as a trade candidate, it seemed like somebody was at risk of overpaying based on all the hype around him.

Many stats-based analysts were dumping on Gavrikov, pointing to his putrid underlying numbers in Columbus. From experience, I wasn’t too worried about that because he was being thrown to the wolves as a No. 1 defenseman on a bad team as a result of Zach Werenski’s injury, defending top players, playing with a subpar partner and starting a ton of his shifts in the defensive zone.

It was easy to see him bouncing back once slotted into a more appropriate role on a better roster. I’d been wrong enough times and seen Gavrikov play enough to be less scathing, but a fair chunk of the public discourse characterized him as the next Ben Chiarot because of his analytical profile.

Gavrikov turned out to be the perfect fit for the Kings. He was a stud on the second pair, posted dominant play-driving results and drove a 14-6 five-on-five goal differential in L.A.’s favor. Once again, context and team situation play a huge role in determining an individual player’s numbers.

I should caution that not every high-profile defenseman ends up following this arc. I don’t want people to read about all these positive examples and assume every high-profile defender with bad numbers on a terrible club will end up with an enormously positive ending.

Oliver Ekman-Larsson is an example of a player with poor advanced stats on a terrible Coyotes roster — with tons of legitimate reasons to believe in a bounce back with a fresh start — who turned out to be a disastrous acquisition for the Canucks. Jeff Petry is another case — he never rebounded to his peak form when he moved from Montreal to Pittsburgh last season.

So yes, stats aren’t close to the be-all, end-all for evaluating defenders on bad teams, but they shouldn’t be totally ignored either.

Drew Doughty​

Drew Doughty is the second-highest-paid defenseman in the NHL. It’s pretty widely accepted he isn’t quite worth the full freight of his $11 million cap hit. But two or three years ago, we reached a point where many in the analytics community weren’t just arguing Doughty was overpaid. Many were arguing he was washed up.

I remember coming across Jack Han’s fantastic article in the middle of the Doughty wars. Han broke down some game film and had a fascinating theory that changed my perspective at the time. He showed many revealing video clips and concluded that Doughty still has “elite tools and ability to take over a game, but seems to lack the motivation or inspiration to do hard things every shift in order to help his team control play.”

The takeaway was that Doughty still had the skill set to be a strong top-pair player but perhaps lacked intensity because he was on a losing, rebuilding team. Sure enough, the Kings have made the playoffs the last two years, and in that meaningful environment, Doughty is playing excellent hockey again. He wasn’t washed up after all.

Conclusion​

Analytics are useful for telling you what results are happening when a player is on the ice (e.g. the team dominates opponents in terms of possession and scoring chances when Player X is on the ice, or the club gets caved in and bleeds a lot defensively when Player Y is on the ice). It provides objective data and helps account for biases. The eye test — and other contextual and qualitative factors — tell you why those results happened and what it actually reveals about the player’s ability, skill set and value.

Analytical models have often been right when they’ve suggested this player is overrated or that player is underrated. I truly hope people don’t take this article as an opportunity to bash analytics or the work of a smart, talented colleague like Luszczyszyn because the hockey public’s overall knowledge and conversations around players are sharper and more sophisticated due to these tools.

The point is that the numbers alone sometimes point you in the wrong direction.

Anytime we evaluate a player, we should accept their statistical profile as valuable information but then dive deeper into the possible ways it might not be telling the entire story. That’d be much better than drawing rash, immediate conclusions when a player’s analytical profile card goes viral on Twitter.

 

[Trash Panda]

Ten times analytics were wrong about NHL players and the lessons learned

Harman Dayal highlights 10 cases where analytics were misleading about a player’s true value.

theathletic.com

I’ll fully admit, I have had to eat some crow on Vladdy, as he was a great addition to the team (Though I won’t get into the efficacy of forcing deadline additions to a stagnant roster).

The blurb on Doughty is pretty much his MO clear back to his days in Guelph. The dude never has been able to get up for games when he feels they don’t matter, and always seems to have another gear when they do. He may not be a great value at 11M, but he is still one of the best in the game when the games get big.

Gonna need Clarke to step into some mighty large shoes here when drew finally drops off or this is gonna be an expensive black hole team here shortly.

 

[kinghock]

I do wonder if Bjornfot was one of the kids McLellan was talking about last year in that interview where he mentioned that there was some discontent in Ontario from players who considered themselves better than those with guaranteed contracts in LA.

Who knows, maybe he didn't make the gains he was supposed to in the summer. It just smacks of a bunch of frat boys running this team and demanding some sort of dues-paying system as part of their failing curriculum.

He IS a good player, and guys like him who get B+s in a variety of places, but no As really need the experience to settle in to their steady game. Its why last year made so little sense unless there was some sort of off-ice thing to sort out.

I had very high expectations about Bjornfot and have watched his play in AHL all last year.

Unfortunately, I came away with opinion that he is not very good for playing in NHL.

Not physical at all and not very good at reading how to react on other team’s actions.

Very good skater, but do not have good shooting or passing abilities.

 

[Johnny Utah]

I had very high expectations about Bjornfot and have watched his play in AHL all last year.

Unfortunately, I came away with opinion that he is not very good for playing in NHL.

Not physical at all and not very good at reading how to react on other team’s actions.

Very good skater, but do not have good shooting or passing abilities.

There you have it folks.

 

[Maynard]

As an aside, I know people know I wasn’t the biggest Quick fan. But what really annoyed me about him was that I felt he had this reputation among fans as a bad ass but the guys gloves were GLUED on his entire career. The fake tough guy act annoyed me a lot. Mike Smith of all people has fought in the NHL but Quick hasn’t.

You’re so right. Quick was never tough when the refs weren’t around. Little cheap shots, spearing guys in the balls when he knows the pile up in the crease will protect him, etc. It’s fine, goalies don’t have to fight but so many fans consider Quick to be tough or dangerous for no reason at all.

 

[tigermask48]

It just doesn't seem out of the question that Peterson was going to get the nod over Quick but maybe that wrankled some of the older feathers in the room.

Its a mistake to keep the old Cup guys around, no matter how well they play. Its the wrong kind of influence and the fact that so many kids come in without confidently expressing themselves makes you wonder how much is poor development and how much is the experience/lifestyle/stroke of the Cup winners dictating something they shouldn't. Its not like Pittsburgh were the older core keeps them relatively in the thick of things.

The Kings haven't come close to winning shit in a looooooong time - and despite the constant deferring to the Cup winners wishes, the kids know it.

I said it either here or over on the subreddit when that Yanetti interview came out. The last time the Kings didn't take a slowburn approach with development, they ended up seeing the emergence of Kopitar, Doughty, Quick, Simmonds, and Brown into top line players. Heck even Pearson and Tofolli spent a little more than a season in the AHL before they made key contributions to a cup team.

Current management can talk all they want about slowburn development, but unless Byfield, Bjornfot, Kaliev, Clarke, Turcotte start becoming key contributors to this team soon we'll look back in 5 years and probably talk about what it looks like to some of us right now on the tin, poor development and asset management.

 

[chris kontos]

As an aside, I know people know I wasn’t the biggest Quick fan. But what really annoyed me about him was that I felt he had this reputation among fans as a bad ass but the guys gloves were GLUED on his entire career. The fake tough guy act annoyed me a lot. Mike Smith of all people has fought in the NHL but Quick hasn’t.

spoken like a guy thats never been hit in the neck by the leading edge of a blocker. man sol, for for as much as you run down players, you must have been one helluva hockey player at some point because of course, to be THAT critical of players play, you must have achieved better at some point. please enlighten us all as to your invention of and overall supremacy in the game.
you even take your cynicism to levels that are pathological. like criticizing korpisalo's visual blinking tic. what the f*** kind of a person makes fun of physical handicaps?
you're shits f***ing tired, dude.
and yeah, you can consider me baited.

 

[KingsHockey24]

Nuke Carl Grundstrom and sign Tarasenko to league min.

Byfield - Kopi - Kempe
Fiala - PLD - Tarasenko
Kaliyev - Danault - Arvidsson
Moore - Lizotte - Lewis

 

[Kurrilino]

Englund would have fought Benn.

What would Bjornfot have done? Nothing.

The Kings are soft. They need tougher forwards and tougher D.

Watch - players will take cheap shots again and Blake will have to make some moves later in the year to add toughness.

This is pure nonsense, people run our players because we field no skill players on the PP.
If we would run a 30-40% PP, nobody would even touch a Kings player.

 

[Chazz Reinhold]

This is pure nonsense, people run our players because we field no skill players on the PP.
If we would run a 30-40% PP, nobody would even touch a Kings player.

A) No teams run a 40% power play, and it took a historic Oilers power play to even crack 30%; and B) the Kings had the 4th best power play in the NHL last season so I have no idea what the f*** you're talking about.

 

[Kurrilino]

I had very high expectations about Bjornfot and have watched his play in AHL all last year.

Unfortunately, I came away with opinion that he is not very good for playing in NHL.

Not physical at all and not very good at reading how to react on other team’s actions.

Very good skater, but do not have good shooting or passing abilities.

All this has nothing to do with being a defender.
Bjornfot is a defensive minded defender and there is great evidence that he does his job.
Whenever Bjornfot is on the the ice, absolutely nothing happens and you wouldn't even remember him on the ice.
This is exactly what you want because it means that nothing special happened in the D-Zone.
I prefer that way over highlight reel defense saves.

 

[Kurrilino]

A) No teams run a 40% power play, and it took a historic Oilers power play to even crack 30%; and B) the Kings had the 4th best power play in the NHL last season so I have no idea what the f*** you're talking about.

Again, we play in an AHL division, the stats are highly inflated. Our PP is not scary at all.