Kings General Manager Ken Holland has routinely referenced the 20-game mark as the first real judgement opportunity for a hockey team.<\/p>\n
20 games is typically approaching American Thanksgiving, which is the time when \u2013 historically speaking \u2013 12 of the 16 teams occupying playoff spots will finish the season in those spots. It\u2019s not a science and it\u2019s not 12 every season. Just historical trends. The point, though, is that you really begin to learn what your team is about with approximately 20 games of sample size to reference. <\/p>\n
So, bigger picture, where does Holland believe this team is at?<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019re playing better, there\u2019s lots of good things. We\u2019re 9-2-2 in our last 13, we\u2019re the second best road record in the league. We\u2019ve got ourselves up to [seventh] best in goals against. I think we were planning that special teams would be a little bit better. I think we\u2019re [29th and 21st]. When we talked about bringing in some of the people and some of the things, I think the penalty killing has been much better lately. We kind of got off to a slow start, it takes a while. We\u2019re bottom third in the league in goals, around 20th, we\u2019d like to score a little more and part of that would be power play. I think part of that would be maybe going to the net a a little bit harder. When I look at our division, I was looking [on Thursday], I think second to seventh was three points, 20 to 17, so everything\u2019s jammed together. It\u2019s still pretty early, but I think we\u2019re relatively happy where we\u2019re at. We\u2019ve lost a couple that we\u2019d like to think we would have won, but we pulled one out, pulled a point out in the last two minutes against Detroit, the goalie stole us a game in San Jose, so it all evens out over 18 games again. There\u2019s probably three or four points we\u2019d like to think we lost, but there\u2019s probably three or four points that we that we won.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lot to unpack there, but the general sentiment seems to be that the Kings are right where they should be, based on their performance.<\/p>\n
Holland referenced the point stolen against Detroit and you could probably throw in the point in Minnesota as well. The win over San Jose was a clear heist by goaltender Darcy Kuemper. On the other side of it, the Kings should\u2019ve gotten two points, not one, in Nashville and should\u2019ve beaten Pittsburgh at home back in October. So there\u2019s say 3-5 points in both directions that were maybe against the grain, but it\u2019s evened out, relatively speaking. <\/p>\n
Holland pointed to the team\u2019s strong performance on the road and the record as of late as positives and he\u2019s correct there. The team\u2019s defensive identity is starting to return after a few bigger numbers early in the season and he\u2019s correct on the penalty kill, as noted here over the last couple of days. In a 10-game stretch heading into the Ottawa game, the Kings ranked third in the NHL at just shy of 90 percent, which is excellent. Add in two successful kills versus the Senators and it\u2019s 27-of-30 over the past 11. <\/p>\n
The negatives are what I think we\u2019ve all seen. The team has not scored goals at the same clip they did after the trade deadline last season, despite relatively consistent personnel and a lot of that comes down to a power play that hasn\u2019t maintained early-season productivity, certainly coming in behind where they were at last year. At 2.84 goals-per-game, the Kings rank just 21st in the NHL. It\u2019s behind last season\u2019s pace as a whole (3.04, but very similar to where they were heading into the 2025 Trade Deadline (2.80). It\u2019s been a little bit better of late, but there\u2019s still work to be done offensively and Holland recognized that. <\/p>\n
In terms of individuals, he agreed that a 20-game sample size is a fair indicator to judge where players are at.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there\u2019s enough games there, it\u2019s quarter of the season, it\u2019s a relatively good amount of games.\u201d<\/p>\n
The conversation was more team-centric than focused on individuals, but if we accept that 20 games is an acceptable sample size, then players like Adrian Kempe, Kevin Fiala and Quinton Byfield are producing at a very acceptable clip in that span. You look at the Danault line, offensively speaking, as being the other way, probably along with Andrei Kuzmenko. Holland didn\u2019t go into those players, but by the statsheet, that\u2019s where things have gone thus far. <\/p>\n
Another thing he touched on was the parity in the league, which perhaps complicates a 20-game evaluation and likely a potential trade market, should the Kings look at any sort of a transaction. <\/p>\n
The Kings have played 13 of their first 19 games this season against teams that qualified for the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs. They\u2019ve played 12 of 19 games against teams currently in a playoff spot and the Venn Diagram there makes it 17 of 19 against teams with at least one of those two qualifiers. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think the parity in the National Hockey League, I think it\u2019s as close as it\u2019s ever been,\u201d he said. \u201cThere might have been more teams in the past that were rebuilding and I don\u2019t know that there\u2019s many rebuilding teams anymore. I think everybody\u2019s trying to win, everyone\u2019s trying to be a playoff team. I think it\u2019s really, really close.\u201d<\/p>\n
All in all, Holland has been happy, but not satisfied with the team\u2019s play, is how I think I would summarize it.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s seeing the same things that we all are. There have been really good things, really good stretches, really good periods or even games, but an overall lack of consistency. <\/p>\n
\u201cI like the way we played against Winnipeg. I like the way we played against Montreal. Pittsburgh, I can\u2019t say, I was traveling, but they tell me we played a good third period. So, I would say this to you, early in the year, we had our moments. We played 40 good minutes, 45 good minutes, not 60. We\u2019re playing more to 60 minutes now. Penalty killing has gotten better, power play produced early, but I look and I think we\u2019re 29th in the power play, under 16 percent now. If you can kill penalties and you keep the puck out of your net, the power play is not as big a factor but early on, when we were giving up goals, we were like 23rd, 24th, 25th five games in. You\u2019ve either got to score goals or you\u2019ve got to prevent them. We\u2019ve got back to playing LA Kings hockey 1763382252.\u201d<\/p>\n
LA Kings hockey has looked like winning hockey as of late and as shown above, there are areas for improvement that can only help going forward. <\/p>\n
3 Individual Notes \u2013
\u2013 Holland said that he met face-to-face with Adrian Kempe\u2019s agent, J.P. Berry on this trip. He believes that conversation made progress towards an extension.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe hope, the plan is to find a solution, to get him signed. I believe he wants to be here. We want to get him signed. Trying to find that sweet spot that they feel good and we feel good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Holland agreed when I asked if he felt the market had shifted upwards at all as other players around the league had signed. He said that a couple of other contracts provided a couple of \u201ccomps\u201d to work off of, which he actually believes has helped negotiations a bit, even if it probably costs the Kings some money when all is said and done. <\/p>\n
We\u2019ll see where it lands, but one thing that has remained consistent is that both sides seem to want to reach a resolution.<\/p>\n
\u2013 When asked about offseason signings, he pointed to the Dumoulin\/Ceci pairing being -5 in their first three games, but seeing that figure for both players essentially go unchanged since that point.<\/p>\n
He credited Jim Hiller with quickly pivoting from that pair but also for bringing them back together, which meant that Mikey Anderson and Drew Doughty went back together. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think that we\u2019ve been able to roll three pairs. When you look at the minutes played most nights, they\u2019re all playing about the same, it\u2019s Doughty and those other four get the penalty killing, Doughty and Clarke get the power play. I think we\u2019ve been able to roll three pairs more.\u201d<\/p>\n
If Doughty misses any time, it\u2019ll be interesting to see how those two defensemen in particular are utilized and how much reliance goes into their game. Doughty provides a safety net in a number of ways. Take that away and there is more sink or swim involved.<\/p>\n
\u2013 On Clarke, Holland pointed out he didn\u2019t watch the Kings for 82 games last season, so he didn\u2019t want to make a comparable to last year, but he said that feedback from the coaching staff is that Clarke in the preseason was a step ahead of where he was last year and that from that base, Holland believes that Clarke 20 games in is even a step ahead of that. <\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t see him last year, so I\u2019m going to tell you that the coaches tell me that they think he\u2019s made a step from last year and I think he\u2019s made a step from what I saw early in the year, preseason to now. Seems like he\u2019s found good chemistry with Edmundson. I think with all young defensemen, it just learning to defend and he\u2019s playing hard. I think he\u2019s playing good and he\u2019s on a good path.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nice to hear that. There have been external and unsubstantiated rumors about trades involving Clarke, but feels like Holland is pretty happy with the game he\u2019s playing and what he\u2019s delivering. <\/p>\n
So that\u2019s 20(ish) games with Ken Holland.<\/p>\n
Will take a deeper look this week into a true quarter-season evaluation, including what\u2019s gone well and what hasn\u2019t with more detail and depth provided.<\/p>\n
For today, it\u2019s an off day in DC. Kings need a good rest day today and then they\u2019ll be right back at it on Monday against the Capitals. Haven\u2019t heard anything just yet regarding defenseman Drew Doughty. More coverage to follow!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kings General Manager Ken Holland has routinely referenced the 20-game mark as the first real judgement opportunity for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297029,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-297028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}