On one hand, the Kings have essentially kept pace with the second-place Seattle Kraken and would be in playoff position if the season were to end today, despite any question marks on their roster and the potential to backslide from last year’s odds-defying achievements.
On the other, they just lost to the worst team in the Eastern Conference, a 6-5 flurry turned flop against the Columbus Blue Jackets Sunday. The Kings battled back to force overtime after facing three different deficits, but gave up half a dozen goals, which stemmed mostly from miscues.
“The carelessness is killing us,” said Kings coach Todd McLellan, who continued to preside over the league’s second most-productive offense, albeit one with a negative goal differential.
“We’ve got to care about more situations that are important coming back to our end. We have world-class players, guys that we brought in to be shutdown players, that missed assignments.”
The Columbus winner came with some controversy but also a disjointed Kings line change. The Blue Jackets had previously scored off a defensive-zone turnover, an odd-man rush and a two-on-one break during a Kings power play. That signified the Kings’ fifth shorthanded marker allowed in 31 games, the third most in the NHL. During the past three seasons under McLellan, which spanned 208 games, they surrendered 13, just one above the lowest total ceded over that stretch league-wide.
The Kings also gave up two power-play goals and now have the seventh worst penalty kill percentage among 32 franchises, though that’s nothing new. Since McLellan took over in 2019, the Kings, once shorthanded stalwarts, have possessed the eighth-worst mark killing penalties.
Whether it was a year spent shipping out veterans, a full-blown transition season or a 99-point campaign that qualified them for the playoffs, the Kings have also had issues reconciling possession time with results at both ends during McLellan’s tenure. They ranked in the top eight cumulatively five-on-five in both Corsi-for percentage and Fenwick-for percentage over the past three seasons, and rank 11th and sixth, respectively, in those categories this year.
Yet for three seasons their offense was among the lower fifth of the league, even as the Kings trended upward defensively. Now that the offense has evolved into something prolific, the defense has become porous: only the Ducks have given up more goals than the Kings this season.
All that said, there remains cause for optimism. Not only has the overall offense been ignited to a level unseen from the Kings since the ‘90s, the power play is converting at its highest rate since the 1982-83 season. It has produced well above the level it did during the Kings’ Stanley Cup-winning campaigns of 2012 and 2014.
McLellan finished sixth in the Jack Adams Award voting for Coach of the Year last season, a position that may have been even higher had he coached in a more prominent hockey market.
McLellan and his staff have also made considerable and tangible progress in terms of player development. Four experienced players – Phillip Danault, Blake Lizotte, Matt Roy and Carl Grundstrom – were among those who set career highs in scoring under McLellan last season, and each remained on pace to raise the bar again with new personal bests this year. Trevor Moore had been on track to join that group comfortably, but a recent funk has seen him compile just two points in his last 10 outings. Second-year players Arthur Kaliyev and Sean Durzi impressed as rookies in 2021-22 and have soared to new heights in terms of production already.
The ability of McLellan to cultivate and refine talent was undoubtedly of interest to the Kings’ next opponent, as the Sabres were a competing suitor for his stewardship. The Kings will head to Buffalo with forward Rasmus Kupari and defenseman Jordan Spence in tow after they were recalled from the minors.
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Drew Doughty, who missed his first game of the season Sunday (lower-body) and just the fifth by a Kings defenseman due to injury after last year’s calamitous season for both Doughty and the defense corps, should be considered day-to-day. Winger Viktor Arvidsson was given a non-roster designation, a status typically assigned to players attending to a personal matter such as bereavement or childbirth.
Buffalo’s season has had its own peaks, valleys and statistical anomalies. The Sabres have a positive goal differential but nine fewer points in the standings than the Kings as well as a sub-.500 points percentage. After winning four of their first five games and seven of their first 10, the Sabres endured a dismal string of eight straight regulation losses that effectively buried them in a stacked Atlantic Division.
Like the Kings, scoring has seldom been an issue for the Sabres. They’ve potted more goals than any other organization, but have given up more than all but six other clubs. Towering 25-year-old center Tage Thompson ranks fourth in points and third in goals league-wide this season. Former No. 1 overall pick Rasmus Dahlin trails only San Jose’s Erik Karlsson for the most points by a defenseman in 2022-23.
KINGS AT BUFFALO
When: Tuesday, 4 p.m.
Where: KeyBank Center
TV/Radio: Bally Sports West/IHeartRadio