“Everybody knows we’re going to get wins, we’re going to be better at the start of games and all that kind of stuff. That’s the days, weeks, months coming up that we validate it. If we keep doing our things, we’re going to start getting wins.”
That was forward Adrian Kempe, speaking after yesterday’s 4-3 overtime defeat against Carolina.
The Kings are not a 1-3-2 team over 82 games. It’ll get better, certainly. I believe in what Kempe said. In time, the Kings will be fine. But right now, the record is what the record is. Right now, it’s not there in terms of winning hockey games. Right now, the Kings are a 1-3-2 team. And that isn’t good enough.
The Kings have done a lot of things well. Really well at times. When they’re playing their game, it’s been apparent to me how this team can be successful. What has yet to happen, however, is seeing those things for 60 minutes. Hasn’t happened yet.
I thought this morning of a quote from The Mighty Ducks. Where Gordon Bombay is talking about how if his shot was a quarter of an inch to the left, it would’ve gone in. Then, Charlie Conway says yeah, but if it was a quarter of an inch the other way he’d have missed completely.
Kempe added that if the Kings won the two overtime games they lost – Minnesota and Carolina – we’d be sitting here with a different conversation. And he’s correct, of course. But that’s only thinking about a quarter of an inch one way. A quarter of an inch the other way……yeah. That’s an ugly thought. Right now, the Kings are a team without a regulation win, with five defeats from six games played. There have been a lot of could’ve’s and should’ve’s, but could’ve’s and should’ve’s don’t count for any points.
If you look at the could’ve’s and should’ve’s, a quarter of an inch one way versus the other, it’s not hard to see how 1-3-2 could be, what, 4-2-0? A 4-on-3 power-play goal in Minnesota, closing the game out against Pittsburgh and last night’s overtime. Could be. Those were all games that the Kings had an opportunity to win. Even Winnipeg was a winnable game the Kings led in midway through.
Could also be 0-6-0, though, if you take away two three-goal comebacks to force overtime and a two-goal comeback versus Vegas. Without those comebacks, the Kings could be last in the NHL.
That’s the quarter of an inch. The could’ve’s and should’ve’s. Could write 2,000 words about those. But ultimately, we have to look at what has happened, not what could’ve happened or should’ve happened.
I feel like at times, as these games go by, I’m reading the same story. Yeah, the characters are different, the setting is in a different time period, maybe it’s a different genre. But the plot has been very, very similar.
On the recent two-game homestand, what happened was a story that was different, yet sort of the same.
Against Pittsburgh, the start was gangbusters. A 2-0 lead should’ve been more. Should’ve. But it wasn’t.
The goals against in that game were killers. A power-play goal and a shorthanded goal changed the game. A couple stoppable shots. A couple small breakdowns. What could’ve been, perhaps should’ve been a win at home turned into a loss that got away. Could’ve and should’ve. It was a loss.
Yesterday, the start was unacceptable. A goal against on the game’s first shift and another inside four minutes into the game. Both goals came on blown coverages in front of the net, in the slot, the most dangerous area on the ice. The Kings deserve credit for coming back. They do. Against that team, when you’re down 3-0, getting a point feels almost inconceivable. When they started ramping things up, we saw a lot of encouraging things. But, for all of the good that went into the comeback, it was necessitated by a start to a game that just can’t happen. Again, a loss.
It’s the could’ve’s and should’ve’s right now that are overshadowing the good things the Kings have done. And, it’s the differences in games that is making this a trickier analysis. If you want to say the starts, well that was only the problem against Winnipeg and Carolina. Every other game, the starts have been fine. If you want to point to playing with leads or not extending leads, well you’d be right against Vegas and Pittsburgh, but wasn’t the case elsewhere. It’s not the same thing every night and the reasons for the losses are not larger-scale problems. They’re things that will get corrected and eventually, we’ll see come together at the same time. It just hasn’t happened thus far.
If the Kings were going out and getting throttled night in and night out, this would be easy. The team just isn’t any good. That’s not the case here. You take stretches of these games and say okay, there’s something here. But right now, even if you look at a positive stretch of 50 minutes, it’s the other 10 that are deciding these games. The tide will turn and so will the results. However, the NHL isn’t a league that waits for you. In the NHL, every point counts the same whether it’s October or April. It’s not a development league. The Kings aren’t be a development team. But right now, they have not developed 60-minute performances and in turn, they haven’t gotten early-season results.
For a team that considered itself to be improved from the 105-point team that finished second in the Pacific Division last season, five defeats from six to begin the season is below the expectations that have been said. And that needs to change. Expectations set are not the fault of the players or the coaching staff. They were not the ones who set those expectations. Those came from above. But those expectations are the world we’re living in and while six games only represents seven percent of an 82-game season, when expectations were set a certain way, even seven percent of the season will feel like a lot more than it really is. That’s how it feels right now, even if it’s not as bad as it feels.
The Kings now hit the road for five games, but it’s the first two that are really worth looking at here. They’ve lost three straight in St. Louis and six straight in Dallas. Some games with a point in there, for sure, but right now, points are the focus, not point. And this trip presents a real challenge in getting things back on track. There’s been more than enough shown to suggest that it gets done. But even with good stretches of play, teams with expectations have to get results. When they don’t, it leads to change. This trip represents the opportunity for that change and those results to come from within. To get that quarter of an inch moving in the right direction.