LAK 3 : SJS 2 - A pour for my homies who couldn't be here

[Reclamation Project]

 

[KingsOfCali25]

Watching the NHL network and they showed the Standings at the end...and I don't think they knew the Kings won and guessed the Sharks held on to win

They showed...

Kings...48 games played, 61 points
Sharks...47 games played, 55 points

Actual Standings...

Kings...48 games played, 63 points
Sharks...47 games played, 54 points

 

[Holden Caulfield]

Correct, there is a player on the back side. I posted two pics on twitter. Wider angle. Still makes an utter mess of it by not even putting a stick or body on Vinny standing RIGHT in front. Regardless of the guy on backside, he has to be putting pressure on 44 there. If the passer can hit Gabby from that position on a one timer, let em have it, too good. Play your odds, Burns did not. Poor read, poor defending from Burns. At least that's my view on it, welcome to disagree on that.

Not saying this was a GOOD play. It's a mistake no doubt about. I don't pin this on Burns alone though. Couture simply CAN'T put himself in a position where his stick is way up in the air like that. Key to good defense is keeping stick free to block passing lanes is critical. Like you mentioned Hertl can stand to be lower to take away back door (although other angle does show he isn't in terrible position, just not ideal).

Like I said Burns needs to be on the strong side of Vinny here. It's not a good play by any means. But he also can't be putting himself in a position where he's tied up with his stick out of the play. He can't afford to get tied up with Vinny. He just needs to be on strong side boxing him out. Like you mention you need to eliminate the biggest threat first. That was Vinny and he needs to better positioned. The game is fast and I can see his thinking about staying free to take away backdoor passes. However he is a top flight NHL D and he needs to think that fast and get into strong side position with that stick free, it's a bad play.

Thing I disagree with is "putting pressure" on Vinny. It's not how it's done anymore. It's all about positioning. The defenders always need to be on the strong side of the puck. If Burns is standing just in front of Vinny where he should be with his stick free it's an easy pick (and he takes away back door passes as well). If Burns engages on Vinny's back Vinny still has a good chance to score.

Like I said what I find most disturbing about the play for Burns was his slow reaction time. How did Vinny get two cracks at it (and it wasn't exactly bang bang shots either). A slight positioning error sucks but ok, but he needs to be quicker reacting to a mistake in the d-zone, IMO.

 

[Jason Lewis]

Not saying this was a GOOD play. It's a mistake no doubt about. I don't pin this on Burns alone though. Couture simply CAN'T put himself in a position where his stick is way up in the air like that. Key to good defense is keeping stick free to block passing lanes is critical. Like you mentioned Hertl can stand to be lower to take away back door (although other angle does show he isn't in terrible position, just not ideal).

Like I said Burns needs to be on the strong side of Vinny here. It's not a good play by any means. But he also can't be putting himself in a position where he's tied up with his stick out of the play. He can't afford to get tied up with Vinny. He just needs to be on strong side boxing him out. Like you mention you need to eliminate the biggest threat first. That was Vinny and he needs to better positioned. The game is fast and I can see his thinking about staying free to take away backdoor passes. However he is a top flight NHL D and he needs to think that fast and get into strong side position with that stick free, it's a bad play.

Thing I disagree with is "putting pressure" on Vinny. It's not how it's done anymore. It's all about positioning. The defenders always need to be on the strong side of the puck. If Burns is standing just in front of Vinny where he should be with his stick free it's an easy pick (and he takes away back door passes as well). If Burns engages on Vinny's back Vinny still has a good chance to score.

Like I said what I find most disturbing about the play for Burns was his slow reaction time. How did Vinny get two cracks at it (and it wasn't exactly bang bang shots either). A slight positioning error sucks but ok, but he needs to be quicker reacting to a mistake in the d-zone, IMO.

You are correct on a lot of stuff here. Wasn't a good play by Burns, but there is a lot more going on than simply Burns putting pressure on Lecavalier.

Actually inspired an HB breakdown post out of me for this one

 

[kingsfan]

Correct, there is a player on the back side. I posted two pics on twitter. Wider angle. Still makes an utter mess of it by not even putting a stick or body on Vinny standing RIGHT in front. Regardless of the guy on backside, he has to be putting pressure on 44 there. If the passer can hit Gabby from that position on a one timer, let em have it, too good. Play your odds, Burns did not. Poor read, poor defending from Burns. At least that's my view on it, welcome to disagree on that.

To me the error is on 42. It's a 4-on-4 down low (unless there's a guy in the corner off the photo but even so, that guy is so far away he's not a factor) so who is 42 covering? You can say he's covering the pass to Gabby, but there's still far to much separation for that. 42 is essentially a pylon at this point.

Burns may well be compensating for this, leaving him a stride away from Lecavalier. I agree with Holden, Burns' slow reaction to the puck going to Vinny is the only issue with Burns here. Considering the angle of the pass and the fact that the pass to Vinny has to go through three bodies -two of which are Sharks players- I can understand Burns positioning here.

I'm not familiar with Sharks numbers, so whomever 42 is is simply in no mans land. I have no clue what he's doing there.

And when the pucks low in your end with an extra attacker on the ice, how is there only one D-man in front of the net? Which one is the other D; the guy in the corner on the Kings player or the guy in no mans land?

Looks like a total bust on coverage by SJ and Burns is getting scapegoated to me.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

Yeah Burns is probably in decent enough initial position but NO reaction doomed him. Would have been easy to even overdo it by tying up vinny's stick from the back left and be ready for a spinoff to deflect any pass to gabby. But I agree it's not all on him until he does absolutely nothing but enjoy his front row seat

Good god that was enjoyable. GUTS. 6th game in 9 nights? I've never even heard of that. All heart to get this one, and arguably the most important and timely one. Especially with all the odds stacked against in every way.

 

[damacles1156]

The schedule has been crazy, Kings got no favors from the NHL, that's for damn sure.

 

[Reclamation Project]

Yeah Burns is probably in decent enough initial position but NO reaction doomed him. Would have been easy to even overdo it by tying up vinny's stick from the back left and be ready for a spinoff to deflect any pass to gabby. But I agree it's not all on him until he does absolutely nothing but enjoy his front row seat

Good god that was enjoyable. GUTS. 6th game in 9 nights? I've never even heard of that. All heart to get this one, and arguably the most important and timely one. Especially with all the odds stacked against in every way.

"Backs to the wall, I’m stacking up all them odds."

 

[kingsfan]

Yeah Burns is probably in decent enough initial position but NO reaction doomed him. Would have been easy to even overdo it by tying up vinny's stick from the back left and be ready for a spinoff to deflect any pass to gabby. But I agree it's not all on him until he does absolutely nothing but enjoy his front row seat

Good god that was enjoyable. GUTS. 6th game in 9 nights? I've never even heard of that. All heart to get this one, and arguably the most important and timely one. Especially with all the odds stacked against in every way.

And no Looch either.

Suck it SJ. Suck it like a vacuum cleaner convention.

 

[Holden Caulfield]

To me the error is on 42. It's a 4-on-4 down low (unless there's a guy in the corner off the photo but even so, that guy is so far away he's not a factor) so who is 42 covering? You can say he's covering the pass to Gabby, but there's still far to much separation for that. 42 is essentially a pylon at this point.

Burns may well be compensating for this, leaving him a stride away from Lecavalier. I agree with Holden, Burns' slow reaction to the puck going to Vinny is the only issue with Burns here. Considering the angle of the pass and the fact that the pass to Vinny has to go through three bodies -two of which are Sharks players- I can understand Burns positioning here.

I'm not familiar with Sharks numbers, so whomever 42 is is simply in no mans land. I have no clue what he's doing there.

And when the pucks low in your end with an extra attacker on the ice, how is there only one D-man in front of the net? Which one is the other D; the guy in the corner on the Kings player or the guy in no mans land?

Looks like a total bust on coverage by SJ and Burns is getting scapegoated to me.

42 is Hertl. Not just 6v5, but most situations you expect the weak side winger to be sliding down to help in the slot. As this was 6v5 even moreso so yes he should be lower. The wide side angle shows he is not in brutal position as he still would have had a chance at disrupting the pass, but ideally he is lower to completely take away the pass. He cannot at all however move out towards Gaborik. The second he does that he will open the slot back up for the d-man to walk straight down into. He needs take away Gaborik by taking away the passing lane, not actually covering him himself.

There should only be one D out front. The strong side D is engaging the guy in the corner. The guy engaged with the Kings player around the goalline is Couture, the centerman. His positioning in reality isn't bad, but the problems come that he has dumbly engaged the Kings player with his stick so it's way above his head. This is what opens the passing lane to the net.

It's key to remember here that this is not man v man defense (at least it shouldn't be 6v5 because well, I think everyone here can figure that out). The key to defense, particularly 6v5, is to box out and take away the passing lanes. So sticks have to be free and defenders need to be positioned on the strong side of the puck from attackers.

Ok, last post so here is my summary. Bad plays: Burns is positioned on wrong side of Vinny (but he has stick free just needs to get to strong side). Hertl a little too high, which likely contributes to Burns' poor position. Couture has his stick way up in the air. Burns reaction time to pass to tie up Vinny.

Moral of the story is that goals are very very rarely one person's fault. Hell you can go the fact that that pass even gets through the original defender, as it seems like he could have gotten his stick on it if you were being picky.

EDIT: Just for context, I'm looking at this from a coaches perspective. Positioning? We can correct that going over the video and learning from the mistake. A non-reaction to a prime scoring event? That's on the player. Which is why I'd be more concerned about that. Player either doesn't have the reaction time/hockey sense or just doesn't want it enough. You can't coach that.

 

[Legionnaire]

Well, thank God we came back to get two points in that one. A very exciting ending for sure. I still does irk me that we didn't show up for the second period and gave them a point. We also need to start locking things down after we score a goal. There have been far too many instances where the opposing team has come right back and scored this season and that brings back bad memories of really crappy Kings teams.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

I so hope those jackals who were cheering for Brown going down enjoyed that loss. Once a choker, always a choker.

That was a gutsy effort, despite the fact that this Kings team had numerous defensive breakdowns. It's one thing to see a pylon like Ehrhoff to get abused on the ice, but this Kings team depends on guys like Doughty, Muzzin and Martinez to be sharp in their own end of the ice, especially given how many minutes they log.

McNabb, Schenn and whichever one of the plugs (Ehrhoff/McBain) all need to be sheltered because their decision making can be highly questionable, mostly because their reaction times are a step behind or they just panic when facing pressure.

The Kings also desperately need consistent production from guys not named Kopitar, Toffoli and Lucic. They've gotten increment production out of others but they need a little bit more out of Pearson and Gaborik and Brown and Lewis and so forth.

Onto Colorado where they need to avenge that embarrassing loss which also happened to be on NBCSN. I felt like that loss snowballed into their poor performances against Minnesota and Arizona (despite the win against Dallas on Tuesday).

 

[Steve Zissou]

Sharks should know by now that Doughty plays BIG when he's gets mad. Nice try, stache.

 

[kingsfan]

42 is Hertl. Not just 6v5, but most situations you expect the weak side winger to be sliding down to help in the slot. As this was 6v5 even moreso so yes he should be lower. The wide side angle shows he is not in brutal position as he still would have had a chance at disrupting the pass, but ideally he is lower to completely take away the pass. He cannot at all however move out towards Gaborik. The second he does that he will open the slot back up for the d-man to walk straight down into. He needs take away Gaborik by taking away the passing lane, not actually covering him himself.

There should only be one D out front. The strong side D is engaging the guy in the corner. The guy engaged with the Kings player around the goalline is Couture, the centerman. His positioning in reality isn't bad, but the problems come that he has dumbly engaged the Kings player with his stick so it's way above his head. This is what opens the passing lane to the net.

It's key to remember here that this is not man v man defense (at least it shouldn't be 6v5 because well, I think everyone here can figure that out). The key to defense, particularly 6v5, is to box out and take away the passing lanes. So sticks have to be free and defenders need to be positioned on the strong side of the puck from attackers.

Ok, last post so here is my summary. Bad plays: Burns is positioned on wrong side of Vinny (but he has stick free just needs to get to strong side). Hertl a little too high, which likely contributes to Burns' poor position. Couture has his stick way up in the air. Burns reaction time to pass to tie up Vinny.

Moral of the story is that goals are very very rarely one person's fault. Hell you can go the fact that that pass even gets through the original defender, as it seems like he could have gotten his stick on it if you were being picky.

I'm not saying Hertl should be all the way over by Gabby. He should be about in line with where Lecavlier is (essentially move him until his stick is touching Burns' stick). The point is not in play here, the far point man, if there is one, is so far back that he's not an issue and the near side point man is being covered off by the high forward. Moving over a few feet though would put Hertl in the play. Sitting where he is he's of no use to any play that the puck carrier makes and isn't covering anyone that isn't already covered.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

The schedule has been crazy, Kings got no favors from the NHL, that's for damn sure.

I'm worried about the Feb road trip too. 3 in 4 nights on the east coast...and the 4th game in 6 is at 930am pacific then several more games after that.

Might be good for the team but we saw how tired they looked the last 3 in four across the country...

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

And I'll say it too, Doughty has been mostly terrible lately and he's also being dragged down by McNabb.

 

[tsanuri]

I'm worried about the Feb road trip too. 3 in 4 nights on the east coast...and the 4th game in 6 is at 930am pacific then several more games after that.

Might be good for the team but we saw how tired they looked the last 3 in four across the country...

So you're saying almost a 4 in 5?
But perform on this trip and there's no looking back, they are in the playoffs almost without question. Would take a meltdown of a magnitude that's not been seen in a very long time.

 

[KingsOfCali25]

42 is Hertl. Not just 6v5, but most situations you expect the weak side winger to be sliding down to help in the slot. As this was 6v5 even moreso so yes he should be lower. The wide side angle shows he is not in brutal position as he still would have had a chance at disrupting the pass, but ideally he is lower to completely take away the pass. He cannot at all however move out towards Gaborik. The second he does that he will open the slot back up for the d-man to walk straight down into. He needs take away Gaborik by taking away the passing lane, not actually covering him himself.

There should only be one D out front. The strong side D is engaging the guy in the corner. The guy engaged with the Kings player around the goalline is Couture, the centerman. His positioning in reality isn't bad, but the problems come that he has dumbly engaged the Kings player with his stick so it's way above his head. This is what opens the passing lane to the net.

It's key to remember here that this is not man v man defense (at least it shouldn't be 6v5 because well, I think everyone here can figure that out). The key to defense, particularly 6v5, is to box out and take away the passing lanes. So sticks have to be free and defenders need to be positioned on the strong side of the puck from attackers.

Ok, last post so here is my summary. Bad plays: Burns is positioned on wrong side of Vinny (but he has stick free just needs to get to strong side). Hertl a little too high, which likely contributes to Burns' poor position. Couture has his stick way up in the air. Burns reaction time to pass to tie up Vinny.

Moral of the story is that goals are very very rarely one person's fault. Hell you can go the fact that that pass even gets through the original defender, as it seems like he could have gotten his stick on it if you were being picky.

EDIT: Just for context, I'm looking at this from a coaches perspective. Positioning? We can correct that going over the video and learning from the mistake. A non-reaction to a prime scoring event? That's on the player. Which is why I'd be more concerned about that. Player either doesn't have the reaction time/hockey sense or just doesn't want it enough. You can't coach that.

42 is Joel Ward!

Hertl is 48.

 

[Captain Mittens*]

42 is Joel Ward!

Hertl is 48.

Holden doesn't see color. Neither should any one else.
We are all god's children

 

[kingsfan28]

Sutter's reaction is great. Haven't seen him this emotional in a long while.
Lol and I just noticed Kopi looking back for someone (Sutter?) and no one's there.

Not to nitpick, but that person really need to calibrate their tv. The Kings were in white tonight.

 

[Captain Mittens*]

Not to nitpick, but that person really need to calibrate their tv. The Kings were in white tonight.

The TV is fine. It was a laundry malfunction. A new pair of jeans was thrown in the washer with their jerseys

 

[Reclamation Project]

Not to nitpick, but that person really need to calibrate their tv. The Kings were in white tonight.

That's how the world looks through my polarized sunglasses and tinted windows, lol.

And they're recording it by holding their phone up to the TV. Not a direct feed.

 

[Legionnaire]

I'm worried about the Feb road trip too. 3 in 4 nights on the east coast...and the 4th game in 6 is at 930am pacific then several more games after that.

Might be good for the team but we saw how tired they looked the last 3 in four across the country...

Road trip February worries me as well. At least we've been pretty good on the road this year.

 

[The Night King]

Funny, I thought the Kings would win this one since all signs pointed to a loss, because **** logic. I can't stop smiling at how Vinny was left alone in front of net.

 

[PJ Kings Hockey]

42 is Hertl. Not just 6v5, but most situations you expect the weak side winger to be sliding down to help in the slot. As this was 6v5 even moreso so yes he should be lower. The wide side angle shows he is not in brutal position as he still would have had a chance at disrupting the pass, but ideally he is lower to completely take away the pass. He cannot at all however move out towards Gaborik. The second he does that he will open the slot back up for the d-man to walk straight down into. He needs take away Gaborik by taking away the passing lane, not actually covering him himself.

There should only be one D out front. The strong side D is engaging the guy in the corner. The guy engaged with the Kings player around the goalline is Couture, the centerman. His positioning in reality isn't bad, but the problems come that he has dumbly engaged the Kings player with his stick so it's way above his head. This is what opens the passing lane to the net.

It's key to remember here that this is not man v man defense (at least it shouldn't be 6v5 because well, I think everyone here can figure that out). The key to defense, particularly 6v5, is to box out and take away the passing lanes. So sticks have to be free and defenders need to be positioned on the strong side of the puck from attackers.

Ok, last post so here is my summary. Bad plays: Burns is positioned on wrong side of Vinny (but he has stick free just needs to get to strong side). Hertl a little too high, which likely contributes to Burns' poor position. Couture has his stick way up in the air. Burns reaction time to pass to tie up Vinny.

Moral of the story is that goals are very very rarely one person's fault. Hell you can go the fact that that pass even gets through the original defender, as it seems like he could have gotten his stick on it if you were being picky.

EDIT: Just for context, I'm looking at this from a coaches perspective. Positioning? We can correct that going over the video and learning from the mistake. A non-reaction to a prime scoring event? That's on the player. Which is why I'd be more concerned about that. Player either doesn't have the reaction time/hockey sense or just doesn't want it enough. You can't coach that.

Really enjoying this discussion with Jason and Kingsfan.

Also gotta laugh from Mittens.