GDT: Preseason games 2024-25

[King'sPawn]

I'm not sure how many people knew why the cartoons were airing.

I did.

Again... it's an issue with communication and that could have been handled better.

And I genuinely appreciate you coming here to clear the air. By you coming on here, surely you know why it was offputting.

The insults that I'll ignore was a direct reference to the people that will always accuse me of being a shill... which I get. It was tongue in cheek and no it wasnt sympathetic it was my attempt at humor after a long day.

Understood. Like Schrute, it sounded more defensive. So, my apologies for making more of that than you intended.

Once again.... it's an issue of communication.

MOST things in life are about communication.

It was an issue of communication. Execution wise everything worked fairly well beyond the audio issue and since I wasn't there in Quebec I can't speak directly too but they did fix it fairly quickly.

Me saying everything went "completely right" is (perhaps) a poor attempt on my part to tone police and try and instill my own (admittedly biased) perspective into the narrative.

That's fair. As you mentioned, the issue was with communication. I live near Seattle now. Many other hardcore Kings fans still live outside the LA area, so we wouldn't have had a preferrable method to dink around to check it out. We can really only see what we see.

And I get it - I provide support for SaaS and telling people "it's working as expected" doesn't resonate well in some circumstances. Maybe some of the frustrations I hear rubbed off on me.

Had we simply NOT streamed the game there would have been complaints about it
We chose to stream the game on multiple platforms and to overlay the english audio onto the French TV broadcast.

It was incredibly complicated and took a bunch of work from a bunch of people to pull off and generally speaking I thought it worked fantastically.

I'm not familiar with broadcasting technology and I'll take your word for it. Maybe this is unreasonable, though, but when a team 'plans' to do something (e.g. stream a game), things get prepared and set up ahead of time. I'm not saying this is the case (as again, this stems back to communication), this is what it looks like from the outside:
- team tries to stream the game
- They have the option to have a looping video of "Game Starting Shortly", stream the game without audio so the fans see there's a ceremony, add audio so fans can enjoy it, or have a banner explain there is a ceremony and to stand by. Of all the different options, the decision was made to stream a channel (of which apparently there were people who didn't know what was on that channel).
- the stream begins, but then there's no audio.

That looks sloppy and unprepared. I fully believe there are plenty of factors in play that can't be communicated, but as a layman, and seeing how other streams go, I struggle to reconcile that it went well. You had people recover well, but with better preparation, do you honestly think that it was planned as well as it could have been?

Again, I'm admittedly ignorant of broadcasting technologies. But as a well-seasoned couch potato, I also don't see what happened last night happen with other streams.

So from my perspective it went completely right outside of us not knowing or telling anyone that the first 14 minutes would be a cartoon.


Which is a perfect example of why communication is so important and a perfect demonstration of why I wish we had communicated better.

I appreciate you updating us and expressing this. I just feel there were other decisions and issues aside from communication, though that appears to be the biggest.

@johnjm22 @King'sPawn
I was saying this about QB back during that WJC and for his start in the LA: he defers to vets.

He was still a young guy at that WJC and really never tried to do anything flashy or "dangerous". He came in to LA, did some things on the rush every once in awhile but was, for the most part, safe and boring. Even when we started to see some success for him playing with 11 and 9, he never seemed to be looking for his own thing.

You score a goal like the one against CBJ, sign yourself a nice guaranteed contract and actually feel like a man playing in a man's league...well, the sky is the limit. He doesn't have to defer to anyone and getting him away from Kopitar's line is a great thing. Have him be the center on a line and go ahead and stick the wild card Fiala next to him so he gets the puck in more scoring situations. Scoring = confidence and it is time for him to be the top scoring center on this team.

He's been in and out of the NHL for four seasons so it is hard to remember that he has barely played two full NHL seasons when it comes to games played.

I agree with this to a degree. The thing is, he had already won gold with Akil Thomas as a 17 year-old. And he was playing as a third-liner alongside Jack Quinn for most of the tournament.

I'll see if I can find them, but the metrics and eye test improved as he was moved away from Quinn. Quinn's 11 months older, but it was also his first (and it wasn't lost on people that Quinn's coach in juniors was also the WJC coach).

The point is, I think the deferring to vets is more closely tied to a confidence issue, and I think some of that confidence was inadvertently affected when he has to play in a lesser role - which is what he was doing in the WJC and in the NHL.

Plus in Sudbury, he led the entire team in scoring in 2019-20, when he was 17 years old. Over half his team was older. Heck, he led the team in scoring as a 16 year-old rookie. So, how much deferring was he really doing? I know quality of competition matters, but if he just naturally always deferred to vets, I would expect to see similar patterns in the past.

 

[bland]

Byfield was never going to thrive until he grew into his frame and had the confidence to test it. Its why the only reasonable expectation was a slower growth than most top picks.

 

[GoldenBearHockey]

To be clear I don't care if you mock me personally.

mock away. Most of the time it makes me laugh.

This was an attempt to explain a situation that I saw a lot of people asking about not to try and protect the sheild or whatever

People wanna know why the cartoons and why no audio to start the broadcast... well I happen to know exactly why and I'm happy to share what information I can

I know full well that when I share information there will be the same small handful of you that will accuse me of carrying water for the org or trying to make excuses but at the risk of sounding like a total arrogant prick (which I am) .... I'm trying to talk to everybody not just the people that will mock me no matter what I say.

If one silent fan read that post and got something out of it then my work here is done. I'm not trying to convince anybody of anything.

To be fair, I was great without the commentary, just to watch the game and listen to the sounds....beautiful....

Montreal smoked meats are up there.

True....sounds like a meal.

 

[All The Kings Men]

Speaking of communication.

Is there anymore KCAL + broadcasts coming, or possible?

Not that I'm aware of.

I had to investigate and it seems to be a Los Angeles, channel 9.6 over the air (antenna ) broadcast?

Could I get it here in OC with an antenna.

Thanks Jesse.

That sounds accurate to me but I confess I don't fully understand the entire situation.

 

[Sol]

Appreciate him stepping up for a teammate but that was the most bizarre fight attempt I’ve seen in a while.

That’s what happens when you’re not going to just have the usual tug and throw jabs. I think it was pretty clear Lee wasn’t planning to grab him so he can get a bunch of momentum from a haymaker to kill Viel with all momentum.

 

[Reaper45]

That’s what happens when you’re not going to just have the usual tug and throw jabs. I think it was pretty clear Lee wasn’t planning to grab him so he can get a bunch of momentum from a haymaker to kill Viel with all momentum.

Just as likely to get smoked yourself like that. Get him some fighting lessons asap.

 

[DoktorJeep]

I’ve worked in the industry for over 20 years and understand streaming at an expert level. My company is a major partner for streaming with multiple sports leagues and that includes the NHL.

Streaming costs more than cable or OTA broadcast. Publishers pay for outgoing bandwidth per stream. So the more devices that connect and the higher the quality, the more the bandwidth charges.

The only offset if there is no paywall is ads. If there are no ads, most leagues or teams will choose not to stream.

It has almost nothing to do with the cost to set up the onsite feed to the streaming platform.

 

[Lt Dan]

Montreal smoked meats are up there

Reaper is in know

 

[BigKing]

That’s what happens when you’re not going to just have the usual tug and throw jabs. I think it was pretty clear Lee wasn’t planning to grab him so he can get a bunch of momentum from a haymaker to kill Viel with all momentum.

No. What happened here was a Swedish guy that played USHL and NCAA with two career fights to his name prior to this one had no clue what he was doing. There was no plan: he doesn't know how to fight on skates. That said, kudos to him.

@King'sPawn
Regarding Byfield and deferring, I've noted previously that the Sudbury team was trash so deferring didn't make sense: he had to be the guy. When he had to put the team on his back, he did it. His size and skill were no match for Junior age players so the confidence was there as well.

In LA, he wasn't asked to put the team on his back and he would need the confidence anyways. We all remember that it took him a while to realize that little lazy poke checks when in on the forecheck and other stuff that worked at lower levels wasn't going to work here. That's where some of the "growing into his body" that @bland mentioned comes in to play. He started to figure things out while also getting that man strength. Confidence follows.

He's the pick at #2 that year and talked about as potentially the best player from that draft at the time because of the size/speed/skill trio. Now we are seeing the size used more effectively and the confidence from knowing how to use his speed and skill at the NHL level.

It was always going to take time. Maybe it would not have taken as long if he wasn't playing wing and was getting bigger minutes earlier but we're here now and it is exciting: we just have to not think about all the wasted assets that could be riding shotgun with him and the fact that they didn't get any UFA years in his contract.

 

[Kudelski37]

I haven't beein to Quebec in years.

But to earn the bonus points I'll say tire sur la neige

I have never heard of that and after looking it up it sounds delicious. Will keep that in mind if I go up there again.

 

[Rumpelstiltskin]

I had to investigate and it seems to be a Los Angeles, channel 9.6 over the air (antenna ) broadcast?

Could I get it here in OC with an antenna.

'Yes' (at least, on my TV that has an ATSC 3.0/NextGen tuner - not sure if that factor changes the material answer).

 

[King'sPawn]

No. What happened here was a Swedish guy that played USHL and NCAA with two career fights to his name prior to this one had no clue what he was doing. There was no plan: he doesn't know how to fight on skates. That said, kudos to him.

@King'sPawn
Regarding Byfield and deferring, I've noted previously that the Sudbury team was trash so deferring didn't make sense: he had to be the guy. When he had to put the team on his back, he did it. His size and skill were no match for Junior age players so the confidence was there as well.

In LA, he wasn't asked to put the team on his back and he would need the confidence anyways. We all remember that it took him a while to realize that little lazy poke checks when in on the forecheck and other stuff that worked at lower levels wasn't going to work here. That's where some of the "growing into his body" that @bland mentioned comes in to play. He started to figure things out while also getting that man strength. Confidence follows.

He's the pick at #2 that year and talked about as potentially the best player from that draft at the time because of the size/speed/skill trio. Now we are seeing the size used more effectively and the confidence from knowing how to use his speed and skill at the NHL level.

It was always going to take time. Maybe it would not have taken as long if he wasn't playing wing and was getting bigger minutes earlier but we're here now and it is exciting: we just have to not think about all the wasted assets that could be riding shotgun with him and the fact that they didn't get any UFA years in his contract.

I agree it was going to take time, but I feel like there were unnecessary obstacles that prolonged it.

Keep in mind Byfield was playing for a not-so-great team upon coming in, too. So, he had vets to defer to, but it's not like he was put with star players. He had Athanasiou and Brown - one was reayd to retire, and the other plays a solo game. How did that benefit him? How much was he "deferring" to the vets he played with, versus possibly having confidence issues?

There seems to be some misunderstanding that just because I feel Byfield should have played bigger minutes sooner that I expect Byfield to have been a star. I don't. I am only positing that putting Byfield in a bigger role would have addressed a confidence issue he appeared to have (to me and johnjm at least).

Maturity always plays a role. But there was a genuine switch in how he played as soon as he was playing higher up in the lineup. He wasn't deferring. He just played with more vigor and assertiveness to his own game.

 

[SherVaughn30]

I find PLD and his situation to be kind of interesting.

I'm not sure if PLD doing more of the same in Washington would make the Kings look better or worse.

Also, the whole "get over it" thing is awfully rich coming from a guy who's primarily a fan of a different team. We'll see if he's still in that mood after watching PLD for a full season in Washington.

I'm a fan of both teams. Caps will always be my heart, being born in DC. Kings are my 2ndary team, as I moved here in 2009. The way I see it, Kuemper will fit well for the Kings and PLD will fit well for the Caps. We will see the progression of both(I least I will see it).

 

[Surf Nutz]

'Yes' (at least, on my TV that has an ATSC 3.0/NextGen tuner - not sure if that factor changes the material answer).

Do you have recommendations on that tuner or something else and antenna?

I usually like the best possible cheap options.

Thanks Skin

 

[Surf Nutz]

I’ve worked in the industry for over 20 years and understand streaming at an expert level. My company is a major partner for streaming with multiple sports leagues and that includes the NHL.

Streaming costs more than cable or OTA broadcast. Publishers pay for outgoing bandwidth per stream. So the more devices that connect and the higher the quality, the more the bandwidth charges.

The only offset if there is no paywall is ads. If there are no ads, most leagues or teams will choose not to stream.

It has almost nothing to do with the cost to set up the onsite feed to the streaming platform.

That's a very exciting evolving industry.
What's the best cheapest way to get every Kings game, if there is a simple answer, if you know?

I won't tell anyone?

What would you use if you were an unrelated to streaming fan?

Thanks
]

 

[Surf Nutz]

I'm a fan of both teams. Caps will always be my heart, being born in DC. Kings are my 2ndary team, as I moved here in 2009. The way I see it, Kuemper will fit well for the Kings and PLD will fit well for the Caps. We will see the progression of both(I least I will see it).

What's your outlook on Kings/Reign goaltending stable?

Please don't mention the traded King with the three letter nickname.

Lol.

Thanks

 

[Sol]

Is PLD actually doing good???

 

[KingsCrunch]

Is PLD actually doing good???

Come on man, He is like Al Bundy. He scored in a pre-season game.

 

[shuchukfan]

we just have to not think about all the wasted assets that could be riding shotgun with him...

This times a thousand for me.

 

[Kingfan1967]

Oct 5 Sat, Florida @ LA in Quebec 4:00pm on KCAL (9) end of preseason

Regular season starts Oct 10 Thru 4:00pm @ Buffalo

 

[Dog as Man]

What a freakin mess!
This whole thing looks like somebody pulled the old switcheroo on Streamers. ESPN+ had thurs game still on the schedule @ 11 am. (As well as Today's game). Did they drop the games or did some smart guy realise the kings could get the rights and had to scramble for facilities. Wanna bet today you get commercials rather than Walter Lance cartoons. So today, what if you're out of off air broadcast range for Kcal like in Santa Barbara or Santa Clarita. Come on, this whole thing is smeared with bumble. This is not Possum Trot. Somebody doesn't understand the assignment yet.

 

[Kingfan1967]

What a freakin mess!
This whole thing looks like somebody pulled the old switcheroo on Streamers. ESPN+ had thurs game still on the schedule @ 11 am. (As well as Today's game). Did they drop the games or did some smart guy realise the kings could get the rights and had to scramble for facilities. Wanna bet today you get commercials rather than Walter Lance cartoons. So today, what if you're out of off air broadcast range for Kcal like in Santa Barbara or Santa Clarita. Come on, this whole thing is smeared with bumble. This is not Possum Trot. Somebody doesn't understand the assignment yet.

it will be on ESPN+ for out of market, the KCAL(9) is the regular over the air local channel, KCAL+ is not carrying the game.

 

[Dog as Man]

Beg to differ not listed on espn+ website for today.

 

[Trash Panda]

it will be on ESPN+ for out of market, the KCAL(9) is the regular over the air local channel, KCAL+ is not carrying the game.

Yeah, ESPN+ is not showing the game tonight.

I’m not above a nefarious stream, but it’s wild that in 2024 we can’t just simply watch a f***ing pre season game without thought as to how.

 

[Schrute farms]

What a freakin mess!
This is not Possum Trot. Somebody doesn't understand the assignment yet.

Hey, lay off the Los Angeles Kings organization. They are doing the best they can with such limited media and infrastructure abilities that the Los Angeles area provides. Not to mention limited access to young college kids and grads -- only like 652 large colleges in the greater LA area. How are they supposed to figure out confusing things like access to their games in 2024 with these difficulties and limitations. This isn't a place like Marfa (Texas), Winnett (Montana) or Kaktovik (Alaska) -- we're clearly short handed compared to places like that. Maybe one day LA will develop into a thriving metropolis and get access to skilled minds/infrastructure/etc. to catch up to these other places....one day. dare to dream.