News came out recently the LA Kings have moved a couple of extra pieces for Ryan Smyth. Their top 6 now looks something like this:
Frolov-Kopitar-Brown
Smyth-Stoll-Williams
Scary. I count at least 4 or 5 guys who can take on heavy competition and keep their heads above water. Hell, I'm betting that first line could hang with some of the best in the league. None of those three guys scored at a good rate last year at ES, but they were all in the black in terms of corsi. The Kings outshot the opposition routinely despite being a bottom of the barrel club; it was a terrible ES SH% (a ghastly 6.8) that suppressed everyone's scoring. If this were, say, the Islanders inflicted with injury I'd admit that that pathetic success rate was indicative of a lack of skill - but, the Kings had a decent group of forwards (thus the outshooting) and I think it was just their time to be at the wrong end of the curve.
One guy to keep an eye on in particular is Dustin Brown. He led the league in terms of penalty differential by a country mile last year and he managed to fire 292 shots on net in just 80 games (Iginla had 289 in 82 by way of comparison). His PDO was 98.3, putting him in line for a rebound and the dude is 24 years old. He seems to have things figured out already and he's got a few more years to improve.
There's always a couple of Cinderella stories every NHL season. I half expect the Kings to be the WC's big mover next year, assuming Lombardi doesn't somehow fumble the ball at some point this summer.
2 comments:
Good assessment.
Their record notwithstanding, I was fairly impressed by LA last year, both from their underlying numbers and from having watched quite a few of their games. I was also surprised by the team, given that they weren't very good at all in 07-08 and I was expecting more of the same last year.
Unless they're plagued by bad luck for a second straight season, I'm expecting a playoff birth and perhaps more.
The Kings cleanly outchanced the Oilers in the first three meetings last year by Dennis' numbers. They deserved a better fate than the 1-0-2 record shows. The Oilers outchanced them in a meaningless game in April, but the Kings were coaching/playing for draft position starting well before that.
So yeah, I like the Kings' chances too if the goaltending holds up. Especially if they hold onto Frolov and add a solid veteran defender who can log some \ev and PK minutes.
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