Post-Game Talk: Official Kings (2) vs Soilers (3) Series talk

[Kudelski37]

I was going to post how this team was going make history by being the first Kings team to lose a series they led by two games, but then I double checked and saw they did it once. It was their inaugural season. Yay, expansion team level suckage!

 

[fivehole32]

You mean you didn't want a sequel of the 98-2002 Kings?

Sequels are 99% of the time worse. We have more talent than those years which makes the haplessness worse.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

Good luck in the off-season trying to address what this team needs.

We have a goalie, our defense is good, Kuzmenko will do just about as much as UFA Mitch Marner would.

What? You're gonna blow the team up after having the teams best regular season? Like I don't even know what this team does from here.

Yes

They're not good enough to win

Not bad enough to actually get better

AKA Nashville model so Blake is happy but everyone else in the world not involved with the Kings seems to see it for what it is

Only way for them to understand is for it to hit uncle phils wallet

 

[Herby]

I've already stated how Blake has wasted so much of our fandom. This is a long GM tenure with zero results. DL didn't get too much longer than Blake, but he delivered two Cups and a WCF.

What are we doing here? Remove the cancer.

It really is so depressing when you think about it. This has been a completely lost decade for the Kings. My daughter was 6 months old when the Kings won the Stanley Cup in 2014, she will be starting middle school next fall and the Kings have not won a playoff series or drafted and developed a franchise player since then.

And it's not going to be a quick fix. My guess is that the absolute earliest the Kings could be at the stage that Ottawa and Montreal are at now or where the Kings were in 09/10 (proper rebuild producing a playoff birth) would be around 2030, and that would probably require the cancer to be removed in a week or two, a lot of veteran assets moved for youth, the youth actually being properly evaluated, developed and deployed (yes it is possible) and probably having some lottery or draft luck as well.

If they run this back again next year and let Kempe end up like Matt Roy (and maybe Gavrikov) and more of the older players depreciate their trade value, you can easily add a few years to that number. This could very well end up being another 1993-2012 type situation for the Kings (minus the 2001 series win). And as you said, just think about the wasted fandom in a situation like that.

And yes, as GBH and Axl love to always point out in defense of Blake's blackhole strategy, there is a very real possibility that you end up being Buffalo, but trying and failing to be Tampa, Colorado, Pittsburgh or Chicago and ending up being Buffalo is better than successfully trying to be Nashville.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

Like, they can't keep their jobs after all this, right?

Never seen anything like it. Will the outside pressure be enough, since the in-town pressure has boots so far down their throats they can't say anything?

 

[Axl Rhoadz]

It really is so depressing when you think about it.

Bro, you are depressed about this team 24/7, 365 days a year. I would think you'd find ways to cope with it by now. I have some ideas for you if you'd like, PM me!

 

[KopitarGOAT420]

Kings in 7

 

[Herby]

Bro, you are depressed about this team 24/7, 365 days a year. I would think you'd find ways to cope with it by now. I have some ideas for you if you'd like, PM me!

You can't refute a single point I made, so you as usual come in with the ad-hominem angle, adding absolutely nothing to the discussion (as usual)

It's no shock at all that you are universally considered the worst poster in this community for yet another season, your streak is even more impressive than the Kings streak vs. the Oilers.

 

[Axl Rhoadz]

It's no shock at all that you are universally considered the worst poster in this community for yet another season, your streak is even more impressive than the Kings streak vs. the Oilers.

Oh no, say it's not true! Talk about a low-blow....

 

[DryIslandBartender]

It really is so depressing when you think about it. This has been a completely lost decade for the Kings. My daughter was 6 months old when the Kings won the Stanley Cup in 2014, she will be starting middle school next fall and the Kings have not won a playoff series or drafted and developed a franchise player since then.

And it's not going to be a quick fix. My guess is that the absolute earliest the Kings could be at the stage that Ottawa and Montreal are at now or where the Kings were in 09/10 (proper rebuild producing a playoff birth) would be around 2030, and that would probably require the cancer to be removed in a week or two, a lot of veteran assets moved for youth, the youth actually being properly evaluated and developed (yes it is possible) and probably having some lottery or draft luck as well.

If they run this back again next year and let Kempe end up like Matt Roy (and maybe Gavrikov) and more of the older players depreciate their trade value, you can easily add a few years to that number. This could very well end up being another 1993-2012 type situation for the Kings (minus the 2001 series win). And as you said, just think about the wasted fandom in a situation like that.

They’ll just keep papering over the mediocre results and focus on how they were right there.

It’s the same discussion every year for almost 10 years now. They always change the lingo and words to sell the fans on their BS. Started out as competing for Cups, then we were right there, then built for this moment, then next season it’ll be win for Kopi and Dewy and so on. Kings probably spent more time on mapping out slogans than mapping out future rosters. We used to have a real GM that mapped out future rosters and visualizes what the team will look like years down the road.

It’s not a serious organization.

 

[SettlementRichie10]

Unserious organization is the absolute best way to describe the LA Kings.

 

[kingsholygrail]

This was a swan song year for Kuemper too. Don't expect him to be a Vezina candidate next season.

 

[Herby]

They’ll just keep papering over the mediocre results and focus on how they were right there.

It’s the same discussion every year for almost 10 years now. They always change the lingo and words to sell the fans on their BS. Started out as competing for Cups, then we were right there, then built for this moment, then next season it’ll be win for Kopi and Dewy and so on. Kings probably spent more time on mapping out slogans than mapping out future rosters. We used to have a real GM that mapped out future rosters and visualizes what the team will look like years down the road.

It’s not a serious organization.

Serious Hockey, Serious Fans!

And ya, it's all reactive, there is no thought in making moves that link together to build a contender. They are all over the place with no clear plan from the moment they took over.

They tell us they drafted Byfield #2 overall and viewed him as 5/6 year project in October of 2020, ok awesome, we assume that means they plan to accumulate for a few more years and do a proper rebuild right? Nope! 7 months later Luc is telling fans that they are ready to contend again with 34 year old Kopitar and 32 year old Doughty leading the way, which completely contradicted their draft strategy with the most important pick they've had in a dozen years when they passed on a player who was clearly much closer to helping a "contending team" to draft a project who wasn't going to be impactful until Kopitar was at what is retirement age for most players.

So they are ready to contend again in a shortened window with older players? Ok, not what I wanted but if we are going to do it, lets do it right. So a franchise star 1C just entering the prime of his career comes available and the Kings pass on that player despite desperately needing a C because they didn't want to give up youth, contradicting what Luc had said months before about being ready to contend. 16 months after passing on Eichel because they didn't want to give up youth, they trade youth and picks for PLD as the final piece to their championship roster.

How does any of this make any sense?

I'm guessing there are no player/year box charts on the walls in Blake or Luc's office, that is for sure.

 

[BaileyFan]

I was going to post how this team was going make history by being the first Kings team to lose a series they led by two games, but then I double checked and saw they did it once. It was their inaugural season. Yay, expansion team level suckage!

Oh so that’s the legacy that they keep talking about that is moving us forward. Good to know.

 

[Herby]

Like, they can't keep their jobs after all this, right?

Never seen anything like it. Will the outside pressure be enough, since the in-town pressure has boots so far down their throats they can't say anything?

It really felt like it should have been 3 or 4-0 after 1. I said in the GDT I had never seen anything even close to that from the Kings all year. Rush chances from all of their lines, shifts where they were cycling and controlling the puck the entire time, Kane just dominating our defenseman in board battles, inability to clear the puck when they did have it, bad decisions going up the middle. I think it was @Sol who said in the GDT that the score being 1-1 after two felt like an act of divine intervention, and these metrics back that up.

I think they were just mentally and physically broken in Edmonton by Hiller and Byfield's monumental gaffes, and just being completely dead tired from the ridiculous usage. The over-usage is just the coach being as reactive as the GM is on roster construction. It doesn't seem like there was any thought to the consequences of how he was distributing the ice-time and how it would effect those players in not only the third period of the current game, but in the entirety of games later on in the series. And that is exactly what has happened, they fell apart in the 3rd of Games 1, 3, 4 and then were completely dead for all of Game 5. We fans have discussed this very thing in regards to the Oilers in past years, but hey, "How could Hiller have known?"

 

[johnjm22]

Kings in 7

KopitarGOAT420 the eternal optimist.

I appreciate your sentiment, and I hope your right, but last night felt like one of those capitulation moments. The outcome of this series now feels inevitable.

 

[KopitarGOAT420]

KopitarGOAT420 the eternal optimist.

I appreciate your sentiment, and I hope your right, but last night felt like one of those capitulation moments. The outcome of this series now feels inevitable.

Definitely agree

If the Kings are able to salvage this series it will be the ultimate triumph over past and current demons.

Down 3-2 to a team that has defeated you 3 years in a row going into EDM for Game 6 in a series that has been incredibly frustrating - Blown leads, bad coaching decisions, poor execution, etc... Would be absolutely so epic to overcome all of that and still come out on top.

If they somehow end up pulling it off, they could make a deep cup run just off vibes and momentum alone. I really hope it happens. But I'd be lying if I said I felt great about their chances. Clinging to the last bit if hope I have left lol

 

[johnjm22]

I think they were just mentally and physically broken in Edmonton by Hiller and Byfield's monumental gaffes, and just being completely dead tired from the ridiculous usage. The over-usage is just the coach being as reactive as the GM is on roster construction. It doesn't seem like there was any thought to the consequences of how he was distributing the ice-time.

I agree (minus the Byfield comment).

Posters are being hard on a lot of our players, but I felt the boys played with a lot of heart in the first 4 games.

I think the two losses in Edmonton were emotionally back breaking. Combine that with Hiller's insane style/usage and you've got a recipe for a team falling flat.

Even Fiala, who's usually a little spark plug, looked dead last night.

They say momentum in a series doesn't transfer game-to-game. I think this series shows otherwise.

 

[Matt13]

The Kings sucked me back in for the playoffs and I bought tickets to game 2, having not been to a game in 2 seasons.

I watched the pathetic coaching hack job of game 3 and 4. I chose not to even turn on the TV last night and didn't see a second of the game as I just knew.

 

[LeftKinger]

They need to remove the championship decor from the locker room. Is that normal for a team to keep that stuff up a decade later?

 

[Herby]

I agree (minus the Byfield comment).

Posters are being hard on a lot of our players, but I felt the boys played with a lot of heart in the first 4 games.

I think the two losses in Edmonton were emotionally back breaking. Combine that with Hiller's insane style/usage and you've got a recipe for a team falling flat.

Even Fiala, who's usually a little spark plug, looked dead last night.

They say momentum in a series doesn't transfer game-to-game. I think this series shows otherwise.

Well the Byfield gaffe was pretty big, your margin for error at 3-1 is just so much different than 2-2. Although I don't think the Kings would have been able to muster the adrenaline to win last night even with the momentum a split in Edmonton would have generated, and I'd even be moderately concerned with it at 3-2 and going back to EDM assuming last night had played out the same way, but with it being 2-3 and going there and them having all the momentum and the Kings looking dead on the ice it's obviously existential now for the Kings.

I don't blame the players, I think for the most part in the first four games everybody did a good job of pulling their weight, but there is a reason NHL teams dress four lines and three defensive pairs and only shorten their benches when the situation calls for it. But hey, this is the Kings, and we all know by now they don't operate the way most teams around the league do. I do wonder how much autonomy Hiller has when it comes to lineups and player usage, I have gathered from my years following the league that it can vary widely from team to team, with some managers having a larger say and others giving the coach full autonomy to set the lineups and strategies as he pleases.

 

[tbrown33]

Well the Byfield gaffe was pretty big, your margin for error at 3-1 is just so much different than 2-2. Although I don't think the Kings would have been able to muster the adrenaline to win last night even with the momentum a split in Edmonton would have generated, and I'd even be moderately concerned with it at 3-2 and going back to EDM assuming last night had played out the same way, but with it being 2-3 and going there and them having all the momentum and the Kings looking dead on the ice it's obviously existential now for the Kings.

I don't blame the players, I think for the most part in the first four games everybody did a good job of pulling their weight, but there is a reason NHL teams dress four lines and three defensive pairs and only shorten their benches when the situation calls for it. But hey, this is the Kings, and we all know by now they don't operate the way most teams around the league do. I do wonder how much autonomy Hiller has when it comes to lineups and player usage, I have gathered from my years following the league that it can vary widely from team to team, with some managers having a larger say and others giving the coach full autonomy to set the lineups and strategies as he pleases.

I think the McLellan quotes from last year and the product on the ice is a good indicator of who is running the show. Hiller was hired because they felt comfortable that they could tell him what to do.

 

[DryIslandBartender]

Serious Hockey, Serious Fans!

And ya, it's all reactive, there is no thought in making moves that link together to build a contender. They are all over the place with no clear plan from the moment they took over. They tell us they drafted Byfield #2 overall and viewed him as 5/6 year project in October of 2020, ok awesome, we assume that means they plan to accumulate for a few more years and do a proper rebuild right? Nope! 7 months later Luc is telling fans that they are ready to contend again with 34 year old Kopitar and 32 year old Doughty leading the way, which completely contradicted their draft strategy with the most important pick they've had in a dozen years a mere 9 months before when they passed on a player who was clearly much closer to helping a "contending team". So they are ready to contend again in a shortened window with older players? Ok, not what I wanted but if we are going to do it, lets do it right. So a franchise star 1C just entering the prime of his career comes available and the Kings pass on that player despite desperately needing a C because they didn't want to give up youth, contradicting what Luc had said months before about being ready to contend. 16 months after passing on Eichel because they didn't want to give up youth, they trade youth and picks for PLD as the final piece to their championship roster.

How does any of this make any sense?

I'm guessing there are no player/year box charts on the walls in Blake or Luc's office, that is for sure.

Specifically with the drafting, they used up all their premium draft capital on centers, despite being able to draft very capable wingers. So to recap they give Kopitar a giant extension, draft Vilardi at 11, sign Danualt to a big contract, draft Kupari at 20, draft Turcotte at #5, Byfield at #2.

They do the same thing with goaltending, throwing money, wasting assets, on retreads every season.

 

[shuchukfan]

I was more optimistic than last year going into this series, but the lackluster road record gave me little faith in Hiller's ability to adjust if things got tough. This series has just cemented my belief this guy is the same as Tmac. Tmac did say that some of the coaching decision were actually dictated by BLuc, so maybe that is still the case and that is why he was pissy during the post-game interviews. Maybe he doesn't like being judged on stupid decisions that weren't his. Just speculation. I mean, this is at least 3 playoffs in a row where EVERYONE wonders what the hell the Kings are doing. Just complete incompetence all around. I wish this embarrassment would lead to something good (like the whole front office being fired), but we know that won't happen. What is going to be their excuse this year?

Edit: As I was typing this up, I see others expressed the same sentiment regarding Hiller.

 

[KopitarGOAT420]

I was more optimistic than last year going into this series, but the lackluster road record gave me little faith in Hiller's ability to adjust if things got tough. This series has just cemented my belief this guy is the same as Tmac. Tmac did say that some of the coaching decision were actually dictated by BLuc, so maybe that is still the case and that is why he was pissy during the post-game interviews. Maybe he doesn't like being judged on stupid decisions that weren't his. Just speculation. I mean, this is at least 3 playoffs in a row where EVERYONE wonders what the hell the Kings are doing. Just complete incompetence all around. I wish this embarrassment would lead to something good (like the whole front office being fired), but we know that won't happen. What is going to be their excuse this year?

If they lose this series, significant changes HAVE to be made... It's not up for discussion. Either they make significant changes that show they understand this team needs a different direction or we boycott the team.

And I mean that very seriously. If they lose this series and DON'T fire a couple people AND make a couple big trades... We literally band together as a fanbase (across here, Twitter, etc etc) and refuse to support this team until that changes.

No buying jerseys, no buying season tickets, no buying tickets in general... nothing.

This fan base deserves better.