The title of this year’s game recap series is ‘Just the Facts.’ so here they are:
LA lost 6-1 in Vegas on Tuesday night.
They didn’t lose because of Trevor Lewis, nor because Akil Thomas wasn’t in the lineup. This isn’t exclusively a fourth line issue.
At its core, the situation is deeper. And, yes, Drew Doughty being out is likely playing a significant factor.
However, some big picture perspective is likely important here. Coming into the season — even before Doughty was injured in training camp — most people would have signed up for a 3-2-2 record after seven games. It’s respectable for most teams, and especially for a group attempting to navigate through a series of offseason changes.
When Joel Edmundson was out of the lineup recently, the team’s PK took a significant hit. In fact, they had gone three of four games with him playing where they didn’t allow other teams a power play goal. That wasn’t the case last night. With Edmundson in the box for slashing midway through the opening period, Vegas converted to give them an early 1-0 lead.
Although fairly steady throughout the preseason and thus far in LA’s 2024-25 campaign, the pairing of Edmundson and Brandt Clarke weren’t good enough vs. the Golden Knights.
It happens. Again, big picture perspective is important here. The Kings are (hopefully) going through a 25-game run of metamorphosis. Each night they play right now, you never know exactly what you’re going to get. They’re sorting things out. Watching this team, one can either chose to have a glass half full view or a glass half empty approach.
No, the coach isn’t being fired anytime soon. Ditto the General Manager.
We get it, losing is frustrating. People want immediate change and better results. Fans in Los Angeles deserve a competitive team, no doubt.
Other cities are going through similar feelings. Nashville spent more money than any other NHL team during the offseason and started the season 0-5. Colorado, despite one of the most potent offenses in the entire league, they have a minus-7 goal differential right now, along with a 3-4-0 record. Is LA’s situation any worse (or better) than those teams?
We’re expecting lineup changes heading into the home opener on Thursday. Those will come just as much because of the loss in Vegas as they will because coach Jim Hiller hasn’t found the optimal lineup yet through seven games. And that’s OK.
If the Kings came into the season needing time to tinker with the lines, the new players, and the new system, then the sand hasn’t slipped through the hourglass yet. They are on the clock, though.
Newcomer Warren Foegele scored his first goal of the season on Wednesday; an encouraging sign. He’s playing on a line with Alex Turcotte and Alex Laferriere, a trio that could easily be argued has Hiller’s most effective over the past week. We’d expect that unit to stay together.
Getting Thomas into the lineup at this point should be a given. The big question there would be at the expense of who? Lewis? Andre Lee? Tanner Jeannot?
Meanwhile, on defense, is it time for Kyle Burroughs to draw back in? Perhaps.
Again, these are all tweaks on the margin. For Hiller and the Kings to find success, they’ll need to tighten up defensively. They can’t attempt to trade defense for offense. That’s not how the team was constructed.
While the above tweet references Darryl Sutter, perhaps it’s another former Kings coach who would have provided sage advice at this point — ‘Focus on breaking the season down into five or 10 games segments.’
Sure, it a long season. Yet, sorting the NHL standings by points percentage (the only true way to compare teams given the variation in number of games played), LA finds themselves tied for 15th with a .571 points %. That’s middle of the pack, about where most people expected them to be this season.
Last year, the Kings finished with a .604 points % and Western Conference clubs needed to be above .598 to make the playoffs.
There’s still some plenty of work to be done.
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