***Toronto Maple Leafs vs. LA Kings GDT 01/02/24 7:30pm on ESPN+ & Hulu***

Kurisu said:
We lost to Quick, and now we lose again to Jones. Whose next on the revenge game list?
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Barry Brust?

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Congratulations to the only poster of the evening to correctly guess that the new year would be rung in with no kings goals:

TooCool


I'll wait on a ruling from Nyssa if anyone elses guesses will carry over to the next one. Regarding the game itself, Todd said it best on the bench when he talked about the team being behind the pace. Theres no nice way to say it but when that happens you're getting your ass kicked and that's what it looked like. Toss in a little Martin Jones and his otherworldly 22-8-3 record against the kings and well that's a perfect storm of no chance. Lets see what the Toddfather comes up with now that the skid is official.
 
We all know what a slump buster is, and the Kings are the new slump busters. No need to go find a.... well you know what I mean.
 
No one knows yet if Fagemo is or will ever be an NHL calibre player. But if he isn’t given a shot at it right now it’ll be a disappointment. I understand getting Kaliyev back in there. He sat his game like Laf sat his, but Fagemo needs to slot in somewhere on the PLD line. That way if he doesn’t have what it takes it’ll just be status quo for PLD and yet another young bum making him look bad.
 
4 goals in 3 games. They need a spark to wake up the offense. Clearly, bringing in PLD wasn't the answer. Would they be different with 33 in there? Sure won't hurt. No idea when he is coming back as there has been no update on him for quite some time. I am not opposed to bringing up Clarke, Fagemo, or whoever. Can't do any worse than what has been generated in the past 3 games.

Honestly, I thought the skid started in that 3rd period in Long Island. Kings have been a different team since then.

I wish them well and hope it can get turned around soon.

Go Kings!!
 
It's weird to see the team drop off so much...I wonder if it's just a matter of other teams have gotten better as they've played together, other teams have figured out how to play the Kings or a combo of both.
 
Pevsfreedom said:
Shot volume is there but Kings are completely lacking creativity offensively and making terrible turnovers defensively. Talbot is keeping the score sheet look half ok right now, but these are serious problems going into a very busy month. Todd's reasoning of "personal mistakes" ain't flying for me right now.
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Not a lot of high danger shots. This has happened a few times this season where the Kings put up a ton of shots but the games were far to close. Those shots were coming from far out and weren't very challenging for the opposing goalie.
 
Statue4Deano said:
I wouldn’t mind seeing Fagemo and Clarke called up as a response to this uninspired play for the last month.
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Entirely possible which means a couple guys have to go? Do you waive JAD and Bjornot or keep the latter and send Spence down (not sure if Spence is waiver exempt, definitely can't expose him)? The stats I saw around Spence on Twitter this AM clearly showed Spence isn't the problem defensively.
 
We have seen time and time again when the Kings deal with forecheck pressure they have a tough time getting out of their zone and teams know that is how you slow down a team like the Kings. Make the Kings extend energy trying to get out of their zone and they will not have enough energy to make plays once they are in the offensive zone.

Todd has to make the adjustments. The turnovers on the two goals were not bad plays as they did not occur up the middle, they were along the boards where the Leafs pressured.
 
ICE24 said:
We have seen time and time again when the Kings deal with forecheck pressure they have a tough time getting out of their zone and teams know that is how you slow down a team like the Kings. Make the Kings extend energy trying to get out of their zone and they will not have enough energy to make plays once they are in the offensive zone.

Todd has to make the adjustments. The turnovers on the two goals were not bad plays as they did not occur up the middle, they were along the boards where the Leafs pressured.
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Correct. The Kings are incapable of using the other team's overly aggressive pressure against them because they can't effectively move the puck. That starts on the back end. Your D-men (or back-checking forward) must connect on the first pass to have any hope of a second pass which usually leads to an offensive zone entry/scoring opportunity.

For almost a month now that 2nd pass hasn't been available because the first pass is either inaccurate due to pressure or it isn't a pass at all. It's more like a shot put into the boards near the blue line or neutral zone with the hope that the Kings forwards can win a board battle or come out of the scrum with the puck cleanly. And that's just not happening.

The Kempe goal vs Edmonton is a prime example of what the Kings were doing successfully for the first 6 weeks of the season.
sg.news.yahoo.com

Adrian Kempe with a Goal vs. Edmonton Oilers

Adrian Kempe (Los Angeles Kings) with a Goal vs. Edmonton Oilers, 12/30/2023
sg.news.yahoo.com sg.news.yahoo.com

We need a lot more plays just like this to fix the 5 on 5 offense.
 
LAKingSteve said:
Not a lot of high danger shots. This has happened a few times this season where the Kings put up a ton of shots but the games were far to close. Those shots were coming from far out and weren't very challenging for the opposing goalie.
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I agree - that's what I mean by lacking creativity. I'm sure there's fancy charts that show how 'dangerous' our shots were last night (or lack thereof) and that Martin Jones didn't necessarily stand on his head. Maybe he did. We were near the top in scoring.. until either a) we just spontaneously started being terrible at scoring, or b) other teams started paying a bit more attention to the Kings and adjustments are needed on our end. It starts with passing, as stated above by the ever thoughtful Dean Lombardi - lots of passes hitting skates or going completely awry and into our net. We have the skills.. let's deliver!

ICE24 said:
Todd has to make the adjustments.
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One can only hope.
 
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