Like my pops Mad Max had said, the chickens had come home to roost. <\/p>\n
Was thinking about this line from the Wolf of Wall Street this morning. It was in Leonardo DiCaprio\u2019s character\u2019s monologue, after things came crashing down on him. I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve seen the movie, but for someone who played things fast and loose, when you have opportunities to do what you need to do, and you don\u2019t do them, eventually, the chickens come home to roost\u2026\u2026whatever that means.<\/p>\n
I found parallels between that scene and the LA Kings, coming off of their worst performance and defeat in a long time. The worst the team has played under Interim Head Coach D.J. Smith, certainly. Considering the magnitude of the situation, there is not much explanation for a team that came out flat, without energy, in a poor showing to begin a seven-game homestand, against a team that was within reach in the playoff race. <\/p>\n
Why I thought of the Wolf of Wall Street line, though, honestly doesn\u2019t even have that much to do with last night\u2019s game. The Kings were due for a loss like that in some ways. They happen to every team throughout the course of the season, when a team just doesn\u2019t have it. The larger problem is, for me at least, less about last night\u2019s game and more about why last night\u2019s game had the magnitude that it did.<\/p>\n
Since Smith took over, the Kings have played 14 games, with a record of 5-5-4. 13 of those 14 games, last night aside, the team was competitive. Breaking down those games, last night was the first defeat when the game was not tied in the third period. The Kings also have four wins in that span \u2013 Canucks, Rangers, Islanders (x2) \u2013 in games that were not tied in the third period. <\/p>\n
That leaves, by my first-grade education, nine games that were tied at some point in the third period.<\/p>\n
The Kings have a record of 1-4-4 in those nine games. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s those nine games that make last night\u2019s loss even worse than it was at the surface. <\/p>\n
If the Kings split those nine games, say 4-4-1, last night\u2019s loss is disappointing, but it\u2019s not nearly as important as it was when you go 1-8. I\u2019ve actually thought about a loss like yesterday\u2019s a number of times over the last few weeks, because games like that are bound happen. I\u2019m actually a little surprised it took this long. However, when you go 1-8 in games that are tied in the third period, you can no longer afford a game like that. The margin for error became so thin because of how many opportunities were missed along the way. As such, it felt even worse because you knew that there would be a couple of games down the stretch that wouldn\u2019t be competitive, in both directions. Some you win comfortably, some you lose comfortably. You had to account for a couple of games like that in any stretch and that\u2019s why losing eight of nine games that were tied in the third period hurts that much more. Because the Kings put themselves in the position they were, a bad night was that much worse. <\/p>\n
I don\u2019t write that to excuse last night\u2019s game because there aren\u2019t any excuses. It was unacceptable at this point in the season, by any way you assess it. A win last night and the Kings held a playoff spot with nine games left, two points out of the first wild card, two points out of the third spot in the Pacific Division. That is what a win would have done. Instead, throughout the lineup, the Kings delivered, by their own assessment, one of the poorest showings of the season, certainly the worst since the coaching change. Just a tough one to explain, especially when you look at an opponent on the same travel schedule and the same amount of rest that came out and played almost an opposite game. <\/p>\n
So, the chickens came home to roost. A string of narrow defeats finally caught up with the Kings, culminating in a blowout loss to begin a seven-game homestand. Now, there are nine games remaining in the regular season, with three days between yesterday\u2019s game and Wednesday\u2019s to reflect on it, think about it and improve upon it. <\/p>\n
I thought Brian Dumoulin summed up pretty well where the group is at, coming off of yesterday\u2019s loss and entering into this span of three days. Utah came into last night\u2019s game like a playoff game and played as such. That was the team that played like it deserved to be in. The Kings clearly didn\u2019t have that level of intensity in their game. Dumoulin is someone who has been in this situation before and understands the stakes. If the Kings play their way in, they\u2019ll do so playing at that level. If not, they don\u2019t deserve to be in the postseason. <\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, it\u2019s a reminder of how hard you have to work to win in this league. They were ready, they treated that game like it was a playoff game, they came at us, they gave us no room. They made plays, but they also kept it in deep and they didn\u2019t give us anything easy. We have to do that to teams. I think this is the best thing for us. Going forward, it\u2019s a nine-game season. It\u2019s playoffs now. If we do get in, we\u2019ll be thankful that we had these nine games to get playoff ready. In the past, being on the other side of it, I was in Pittsburgh, we were in a playoff spot, just hoping teams would lose and Florida ended up winning seven out of the last nine, took our spot and ended up going to the Stanley Cup Finals. You have to be playing your best hockey right now, playing playoff hockey. This is going to prove it. If we don\u2019t play it then we don\u2019t deserve to be in. It\u2019s as fine as that.\u201d<\/p>\n
In terms of today\u2019s skate, the Kings had a few areas of emphasis. the last 10-15 minutes of practice were all battle-driven situations. 1-on-1\u2019s out of the corner, board battles, 2-on-2\u2019s down low. Things like that with certain things in mind.<\/p>\n
Dumoulin used words like \u201cbattle and compete\u201d to talk about some of the drills the Kings ran. Forward Quinton Byfield used \u201cbattle and intensity\u201d. Clear focus in trying to show some progress in those areas. <\/p>\n
Before that, the Kings spent a lot of time working on the neutral zone, while looking to push the pace throughout the game, specifically when it comes to the forecheck. Lots to work on, naturally, with today\u2019s skate focusing in on those areas, per Interim Head Coach D.J. Smith. <\/p>\n
\u201cPlay faster. Forecheck. Continue to work on our neutral zone, which we don\u2019t want to be sitting back as much, we want to be pushing the other team, just getting comfortable with that. Getting our mindset to where we\u2019ve got to push here with nine games to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the nuts and bolts side, here\u2019s how the Kings aligned today \u2013<\/p>\n
Panarin \u2013 Kopitar \u2013 Malott
Moore \u2013 Byfield \u2013 Laferriere
Wright \u2013 Laughton \u2013 Armia
Joseph \u2013 Turcotte \u2013 Ward<\/p>\n
Anderson \u2013 Doughty
Edmundson \u2013 Clarke
Dumoulin \u2013 Ceci
Moverare<\/p>\n
Kuemper\/Forsberg<\/p>\n
Forward Samuel Helenius is \u201cdinged up\u201d and is considered to be out day-to-day, per Smith. He did not skate today and is not a lock to be available for the games on Wednesday and Thursday of this week. Smith said that there will for sure be some lineup changes come the St. Louis game on Wednesday, highlighting Alex Turcotte and Taylor Ward as players who could come into the lineup versus the Blues. <\/p>\n
Jeff Malott filled Adrian Kempe\u2019s spot on the top line today, skating with Anze Kopitar and Artemi Panarin. The rest of Kempe\u2019s season probably goes this way, for now at least. He has not practiced since he got injured but has played in every game but one. In speaking with him today, the schedule has helped, meaning there have been lots of games, tightly compacted, so until now, he really hasn\u2019t missed all that much. He\u2019ll likely be good to go on Wednesday against St. Louis, but not sure we will see him between now and then. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a good thing that we play a lot, so it\u2019s not too many days off where I don\u2019t have to skate, now is the only break we have, practice today, day off, practice again,\u201d Kempe said today. \u201cIt hasn\u2019t really affected me that much, it\u2019s really a lot better than it was a week ago or two weeks ago, so I\u2019m happy because of that. It\u2019s going to be important coming down the stretch here that I can feel as good as possible and get my game back to where it was before I got hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n
Looking ahead, the Kings have a day off tomorrow, a practice day on Tuesday and then return to game action on Wednesday versus St. Louis. That kicks off a stretch of nine games in 16 days to conclude the regular season, with just one stretch of multiple days off remaining on the calendar. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Like my pops Mad Max had said, the chickens had come home to roost. Was thinking about this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554069,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-554068","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\/554068","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=554068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554068\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}