The Kings will return from the Olympic break by confronting the division-leading Vegas Golden Knights and archrival Edmonton Oilers on back-to-back nights at Crypto.com Arena.
It’ll be a fitting trial by fire for a team seeking to reconcile contradictions between its rhetoric and reality.
To hear team president Luc Robitaille tell it, the Kings are “right there” or “there,” among the top 10 or so teams in pro hockey. Yet to see the standings is to notice that they are three points out of a playoff spot with two more teams breathing down their necks. According to general manager Ken Holland, the Kings’ plummet of more than 100 ticks in points percentage is indicative of the NHL’s parity. Yet the Kings are one of only seven teams with that kind of decline and most of those clubs had no real ambition to begin this season.
They’re also one of the oldest teams in the NHL, one that just added another piece in his mid-30s as it attempts to salvage the swan song of its most iconic figure, captain Anže Kopitar. Can the Kings harmonize their purported contender status with their results? These three factors could answer that question.
You say goodbye, I say hello (hello, hello?)
Though they careened across the latter part of their pre-Olympic schedule, losing four of five games, the Kings scored big in the limited pre-pause trade market by landing Artemi Panarin from the New York Rangers at a cost slashed by his trade protection and other circumstantial factors. Panarin immediately becomes the most creative and prolific weapon the Kings have had in over a decade and arguably since the days of Wayne Gretzky, even at 34 years old.
But that major advance may have been reduced to a lateral move by the misfortune suffered in Milan, where Kevin Fiala broke his leg and was pronounced out for the season. Fiala and Adrian Kempe had combined for 86 points, with a double-digit drop to third-placed Quinton Byfield. Kempe and Fiala were just one short of the Kings’ dozen least productive players’ combined output.
Beyond adverse conditions in the standings and on the injury report, the Kings have significant age at every key position on the ice as well as in the front office. Holland, 70, was not brought in to oversee the initial stages of a retooling or rebuilding process. The Kings need at least one center given the impending retirement of Kopitar, the departure via trade of Phillip Danault and the apparent move of Byfield back to flank for the time being. They could also look to replace Fiala in the near term with another less prominent move on the wing, similar to their acquisition of Andrei Kuzmenko last season. What seems certain given the 50% retention of Panarin’s salary by the Rangers and Fiala’s absence is that the Kings are not done dealing.
The old guard
Panarin has plenty of peers awaiting him with Kopitar, 38; time-on-ice leader Drew Doughty, 36; starting goalie Darcy Kuemper, 35; and relative newcomer defensemen Joel Edmundson, Brian Dumoulin and Cody Ceci, who combine to be 98.
Doughty, once a marvel of durability and stamina, has looked much more mortal in the past two seasons. Kuemper, who was a Vezina Trophy finalist last season, will be hard-pressed to finish with a similar caliber campaign this time around. Kopitar’s final trip around the league has left some fans wanting, as he has missed 15 games, already the most absences of any season of his 20-year career.
Doughty and Kuemper both went to Italy for the Olympics, though Kuemper did not see game action with Team Canada. Doughty did, and it could rejuvenate him, as high stakes typically have done for the two-time Stanley Cup champ and two-time Olympic gold medalist. Kopitar was among the many veterans who likely used the break to heal and rest, hopefully putting wind in their sails for the final third of the campaign.
About face or faceplant?
Both Holland, referring to the “guide and record book,” and coach Jim Hiller, pointing at last season’s relative success in his first full campaign at the helm, have alluded to players having more to give on the scoresheet. Yet through 56 games, the Kings own the fourth-worst power-play percentage and the second-fewest goals in the NHL.
Nearly every Kings player with 15 or more games played in black and silver in each of the past two seasons has seen their scoring per 60 minutes figure decline year over year under Hiller. Only marginal offensive contributors Joel Edmundson and Samuel Helenius have seen any uptick.
The Kings’ home points percentage has gone from league best to third worst in the process. While it’s possible that the Kings turn it on as they did down the final leg of last season, that seems unlikely at best and far from the eventuality that Hiller has often portrayed it to be, especially with virtually every player declining, regressing or otherwise underachieving.
Vegas at Kings
When: 7 p.m. Wednesday
Where: Crypto.com Arena
TV: TNT, truTV, HBO Max
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