Los Angeles Kings reign likely to return next season
The Los Angeles Kings are the strangest non-playoff team in the NHL.
They were good this past season. Really good from a puck possession standpoint. They were the team that nobody wanted to face in the playoffs. If the Kings got into the postseason would you have picked them to win the Stanley Cup? I know I would have at very least placed them in the Final.
They had 95 points last season – the same amount as the season they won the Stanley Cup as the Western Conference’s eighth-seed in 2012.
The core of the team that won the organization’s second Stanley Cup one year ago today is still rock solid.
“They have tremendous pieces to the puzzle and have had, still have and will have moving in the future,” a Western Conference scout told Puck Daddy. “They’re a very complete team from top to bottom including in goal. There’s very little wrong with them.”
General manager Dean Lombardi believes in this group of players, and doesn’t think anything huge needs to truly change.
“I think if you look at our team, I don’t see major moves,” he said. “You never say never, and I hate to say it, but the truth is now that people are talking more in earnest, I don’t look at anything. It’s asking me to predict, ‘Do I see a major move?’ No. But I could get a phone call five minutes from now that I don’t expect. It’s happened before. But it’s certainly not the priority sitting here that I need to make a big move.”
But clearly, something misfired in 2014-15.
Some facts are obvious. For one, the Kings had an abysmal overtime and shootout record. A lot of that is luck, but 3-15 won’t help you make the playoffs.
Did they play too much hockey over the last few years with three straight trips to the Stanley Cup Final or Western Conference Final? Did off-ice issues derail Los Angeles? Did Mike Richards’ contract paralyze them?
We take a deeper look into why the Kings missed the playoffs this year and show how this team really isn’t that far off from competing again.
1. The Kings of the courtroom
In late October, Kings defenseman Slava Voynov was arrested, and eventually charged, with felony for corporal injury to a spouse with great bodily injury.
This threw the Kings into flux.
Voynov was initially suspended indefinitely with pay – and the Kings were charged with his $4.16 salary cap hit. They were eventually given cap relief. But hypothetically if the Kings made a move for a higher-salary defenseman, charges were dropped and the suspension was lifted, the Kings would have suddenly found themselves with Voynov’s cap hit again.
This uncertainty slowed LA’s decision-making process on how to address its defense after Voynov was arrested.
“I think everybody knows how good a defenseman Voynov has become,” the Western Conference scout said. “I think it was easy to speculate that would hurt them. I think it hurt them probably more than what was perhaps written or I thought about.”
Voynov apparently wasn’t the sole off-ice problem with the Kings.
Pending unrestricted free agent forward Jarret Stoll was arrested in April for possession of cocaine and Ecstasy at a Las Vegas area pool. He wasn’t likely to be re-signed, but it raised questions about the Kings and the team culture.
Said Kings captain Dustin Brown on Stoll to ESPN.com:
“The way I see it is, [Stoll] screwed up and it is what it is,” Brown said. “But am I worried about this happening again or this happening during the season or people getting into that lifestyle? No.”
General manager Dean Lombardi said the team will bring in people from outside the organization to talk to players about domestic violence and drug abuse.
“I think that both incidents generated a lot of discussion during the year. They were clearly in the first meetings and debriefings at the end of the year, the number one topic before we even got to the hockey. The first thing we looked at was were there any signs that we should’ve been aware of for both of these incidents? If you look at yourself – managers, coaches – I think we’re very good in terms of communicating with our players,” he said. “We go out of our way to try and know them personally as human beings. I think it’s one of the reasons we’ve always had that family affect around here. But, clearly, we can do more.”
As far star teams go, the Kings have a close group. Many of the players have come up through the minors together. They’ve been with the team during lean years and seen the organization grow into a juggernaut.
Stoll was unlikely to return anyway. Voynov involves more finessing. His trial date is set for July 6, after free agency. He’s also injured. He’s also a distraction. And he also needs help.
“There’s a lot of discussion on how this happened, why this happened, why weren’t we aware of it and how are we going to stop it in the future?” Lombardi said. “That’s kind of the end result of what we’ve come up with at this time.”
The Kings say they are taking the steps, which should make this less of an issue, professionally and personally for the team. But until there’s clear and tangible progress, questions will loom.
2. The ‘too much hockey’ theory
Their run to the Cup in 2012 was easy, with only one series going more than five games. Last season was gut-wrenching.
The Kings had to fight through three bruising seven-game series, before vanquishing the New York Rangers in five-games to win the Cup. One series needed one of those historic down 0-3 comebacks just to make it to the second-round over the San Jose Sharks.
Also, the Kings made the Western Conference Final in 2013.
“It finally caught up to them after winning the Cup twice and being in the Conference Final against Chicago the other year,” a former longtime assistant coach said. “They just ran out of steam.”
When Los Angeles needed a win against Calgary on April 9 to keep their postseason hopes alive, they were just flat-out beat 3-1. The only time they flipped the ‘on’ switch was during an eight-game winning streak in February
Is there something to the ‘played too much’ theory? Of course, and it’s more than just physical exhaustion. When a team wins a Stanley Cup, it rightfully wants to celebrate, and that also bleeds into training time.
“If (my team) ever won it, guys would be partying til September, then training camp is right there, and then you’re behind the eight-ball,” the assistant coach said. “You’re training, the injuries you get from the eight weeks of hell in the playoffs catch up to you sooner or later.”
Anze Kopitar failed to hit the 20-goal mark for the first season of his career. The rough n’ tumble Brown’s 27 points tied his career-worst from a year before.
“You could tell the guys maybe weren’t as energized or whatever,” Kopitar said at the team’s locker cleanout day. “The will was obviously there, you can never question that with this group. We wanted to do it, we maybe just did lack a little bit of gas in the end and we didn’t make it happen.”
3. The Richards problem
One man cannot hamper an entire team. But when that one man carries a $5.75 million salary cap hit and bounced between the minors and the NHL, that creates a problem.
This was Richards, the former Flyers captain, who has never scored more than 44 points in three full seasons with the Kings. Last season he notched 16 points. He’s 30 years old, and a trade will prove difficult.
The Kings would dearly love to move Richards’ contract, which still has five more years on it at a $5.75 million cap hit. But to do that, they will need to sweeten the pot by adding another asset. Whether that’s a draft pick of value, a player or a prospect, the Kings will need to entice another team with another asset or two if they want to get a deal done.
Oh and there’s this issue as well, which could make it even more difficult:
If you’re a team trading for Richards, are you hoping he can recapture his form? The risk is if Richards retires before the end of his contract, there are cap recapture penalties at stake, both for the Kings and the team that trades for him.
Bringing Richards back makes little sense for the Kings. At age 30, can he turn back the clock into the player he was four years ago? Unlikely. And if the NHL is moving more towards a speed league, Richards isn’t the type of guy you want in your lineup … especially at the money he makes.
“I think Mike Richards was a casualty of that where he just had a hard time keeping up with the pace of play,” and Eastern Conference scout said. “If you can’t skate, it’s not saying you’re not a good hockey player, but it’s hard to play if you’re always chasing.”
Currently Lombardi is exploring all sorts of options.
“I don’t think we’ve made a final determination on anything,” he said. “There’ve been … a number of scenarios, a trade, a subsidy, a buyout, and all those would probably be reflected on how the other pieces fit. So there’s a number of ways to deal with that cap hit, so you can actually throw that into the mix, right?”
The Kings have won two Stanley Cups with Richards. They’ve gotten all they can out of him, even if at times it appeared minimal. Lombardi has recently referenced former 49ers coach Bill Walsh as a template of how to manage his organization.
Walsh was famous for cutting the cord with key pieces before they hit decline. Lombardi failed with this in his loyalty to Richards by bringing him back for 2014-15. He’s recognized it. He’s trying to change this situation moving forward, but both Richards on ice play and off ice distraction on his status clearly hurt the Kings.
4. What to expect next season
Those are the three major scenarios the Kings need to address. But there are other types of problems that might not seem so clear-cut.
“In a fast game these days, they’re not built that way,” the Eastern Conference scout said. “They have some great players and have high skill, but I think they have a hard time of keeping up with the pace.”
Hmm, is speed also a problem with the Kings? If you look at the two teams that made the Stanley Cup Final this year – Chicago and Tampa – both are powerful skating groups. The Kings are fast for their size, but can’t zip around the ice like the Lightning.
The scout believes this makes their gaudy puck possession numbers a bit of a mirage.
“They do have some big, strong guys. It’s hard to get the puck off them and that,” he said. “But if you can’t generate speed going to the net and getting the puck to the net. If you do, these goalies these days stop anything coming at them more or less.”
But a healthy (re-signed) Tyler Toffoli and Tanner Pearson can address the speed. Kopitar is still 27 years old. If the Kings made the playoffs, Drew Doughty would have been a slam-dunk pick for the Norris Trophy.
They’ll lose Stoll and probably Justin Williams to unrestricted free agency. But the core with the aforementioned players along with Jeff Carter and Marian Gaborik is strong.
“I think they have a great combination of speed and size,” the Western Conference scout said.
Now we’re just getting nitpicky. They will be better and they will contend. But they still have their work cut out for them this offseason.
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Josh Cooper is an editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @joshuacooper
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