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NHL Playoff Night Game 3s - Kings Goes Down 0-3 - Minnesota Finally Exploits Jet-D - OV Scores Twice in Second Period Collapse (PART 1)

First ever Tumblr Post, so you can be sure that I simply have no idea what I’m doing. But gonna try to summarized my thoughts in simple points.

So the biggest news of the night was Kings losing 3-2 to the Vegas Golden Knights in a span of 21 seconds. Yes, not even enough time to past gas if you’re going for a two timer. 

I don’t personally feel it’s fair to blame the loss entirely on the Kings, as they played a very solid defensive game all the way to that point in the game, but let’s say we are just being respectful to the game that Jonathan Quick had tonight looking like a reborn Stanley Cup goaltender. I mean he still is a top-notch goalie, but I’m going to be honest, I don’t even know who was defending on the ice in front of him when I saw the two goals, both live. First one was this  slick juke (by James neal I heard when they reported the goal), spinning off the defender from the boards and beating Quick five-hole. That was a tough one because the guy had a airplane landing path to the net, literally, and then on the second goal, the pass was a flick back-hand no-look pass made with two Kings hounding the Knight player carrying the puck from behind the net, and the player who eventually scored, was (hear this) drafted 53 overall in the second round in 2011, now you can also imagine the season that the Knights are having. No one thought he was going to score 43 goals this season (because last season he only scored 6 playing for the Columbus Blue Jackets), he potted the game-winner past quick with a perfect redirect shot to the far left corner of the net (William Karlsson is this stud fella’s name, a young Swedish player of course, as you do expect in these days NHL formidable stars).

Remember the other surprise this season though, is that the Kings missed the playoff last season, but this season they were able to record half a goal more per game. However you want to intuitively believe in “stat’ in the hockey world, it did make a difference in securing the LA. Kings into a post-season spot, but truth be told when any of the possible equations to evaluate tonight’s match-up between the two teams, is factoring the importance of an ‘eye-test’ gained by simply watching the game, I think it’s rather definitely just a disappointment that the Kings couldn’t get the game back to a possible even 2-2, as they got ‘royally’ out-played, out-skilled, and out-coached by the Vegas Golden Knights in Game 4, who just smartly out-scored & found the back of the net at the key opportunistic moments that happened in the game. 

It was in the third period, it happened tonight. Within just this span of 21 seconds as mentioned, they swiftly put two pucks behind Jonathan Quick, who by my standards played good enough to take absolutely no blame for the loss, given he was stopping pucks through screens, tips, and those blatant give-way leading to odd-man and break-away opportunities for the Golden Knights, but did get beat on the first goal unluckily with the puck going five-hole (still really not his fault when the guy dumbly reached and got burned by James Neal off the board), and then he got beat again on a bang-bang play behind the net, when the puck shot out from off the board onto the stick of an uncovered William Karlsson (bad type feeling for goalies, worse than a 2-on-1 imo because instead of having a ‘lounging’ chance at the pass-shot, with the tight quarter pass the goalie has no chance to properly react anyhow from his crease, plus Karlsson also put it perfectly to the left far post, so unless he grew an inch or two that was a sure goal executed to perfection by the Knight’s forward). And following the two goals, the Kings simply couldn’t muster enough offensive support to help their deserving moving wall of a man in the crease, thus dropped their third consecutive contest to the Knights. You could say defensive zone break-downs, where guys are simply left with their stick unchecked for chances, may be the sure thing that the Kings need to adjust going ahead into Game 4.

Yes, thus far the three games have been really close in scores, 1-0. 2-1, and tonight 3-2. You do see a trend here, right? Kings are scoring more and more, almost double than “half a goal” better each game, but they’re still down in a 0-3 hole. Gotta give the Knight credit, they back the King’s defense up the entire knight. If you watch the replay or the games they’ve been playing, it will show one strategic flaw clear as crystal: Gerard Gallant isn’t giving the King any chance to make a pass through the neutral zone, and so far as the series scoreboard indicates he’s doing this up to this point better than any other coach has proven in the playoff race, along with the constant fueling of the knights offense, their combo of strat and depth scoring talents, he likely going to put his team to a series sweep of the Kings. If you don’t believe me, go ahead and watch the first three games, this is what you will see.

Kings D-Man collects the puck (*Other than Daughty really, you won’t really see anyone moving the puck up for them). 

And he’ll try to make a pass up the center.

It will get knocked away or intercepted by well-placed sticks. Usually the ladder form, if so passed off then to an open wing-man readily moving half-way down the center circle, to this point forcing both of the two bigger and slower D-Man to have to back up to show respect for the forwards’ speed and ability to make a bolt right pass them. (They sometimes also try to do the old, dump-and-chase, but with the speed in their line-up, they simply run out of energy doing so all game). 

Eventually, what happened in the third, is too much turn-over and failed dump-and-chase, causing tired legs while the Vegas Knights had fresh legs playing off their trap strategy. Even the commentator simply described that, “they (Kings) are just playing panic hockey, at this point” (after being tired and then getting scored on).

It was like watching a sad re-roll entertainment of an old film this night. Even I personally felt bad for them, not being a Kings fan (actually the total opposite), as I wanted them to at least get it to overtime for a showdown, but I realized later that they simply could not sustain against the Knights and their deployment of the trap strategy that devised a good amount of energy saving for the Knights while the Kings were furiously applying attacking pressure in-between the first and second periods.

One of the Kings Commentator also concurred to the fact at the end of the game, saying “They simply ran out of gas.” That’s literally more of a proof than anything, when the old pros and observers says this in the most non-bias and accurate analytical manner that they said about anything else that the Kings had done in the broadcast game the entire night. It was a definitely a highly physical affair between the two teams (like much of a men’s game played), some would say a true outing between the two battle ‘royale’ teams.

But in the end now, as the dust settles after their tilt tonight in the Staples Center arena, what are the Kings chances, if any, to come back from a 0-3 series?

I think the writing on the wall was set by the way things played out tonight, There is. Absolutely. Nada. Nulla. Nope. No chance that they come back.

Sure you can say, as a Kings fan, there’s always a chance for a reverse sweep, because it’s been done many times before in the past, but let’s not look at the  stats and just focus on the deciding factors of their comeback, and here’s in my opinion the basic missing pieces in the puzzle for the Kings to convince me that they can win out:

1) Most important reason ofr me. Kings don’t have Justin William (and Marian Gaborik) to save your touchy royal butts. Both players were lost in the team roster movement, and tonight was the perfect situation when they could have really used a playoff game-changer. Kings don’t play the run-and-gun game. They never did have played that style, as far as I know from watching them come to the rise in 2012. If they trade chances with a more depth-pacted team, it’s going to be a loss 10/10 time.

2) Drew Daughty and Anze Kopiter, they both have scored in the series and Anze finally got his first tonight late in the third tonight, to cut it from 3-1 to 3-2, these players cannot simply carry the entire team on their backs. On the side and backend, you do have two other important core players in Muzin and Lewis, both becoming more and more like aging role-players who can no longer to support their TOP 6 forwards when they have an offensive drought like they tonight. (To be fair though, Muzin can still produce in the regular season and defend very well, seen him caught up in the back-foot to a few guys while back-checking tonight, but really guys, the energy he’s spending just playing defense because of the Knights potent and ‘perfectly perfected’, counter-attack rush off the turn over, it has just tremendously impacted his individual offensive production game in this series, and this regular season alone he scored 8 Goals from the back for the kings +34 helpers). The only person who the Kings had before was Trevor Lewis and the other guy Pearson, first Lewis is still a great player, but what I consider him to be now is a Ryan Kesler type of aging star in particularly playing well below his ability in his prime years. But I still remember Lewis’ game-changing goals in the Stanley Cup Playoff, he basically is the pillar of supporting forward for them. And Pearson, he simply looked gas’ed tonight, especially in the third when he had tons of great scoring opportunities. 

Again, this is why I love watching these NHL playoff games. Especially in the first round, a lot of stats and analytics become actually proven in result shown on the ice. Golden Knights proved to us that they are a very well-coached, fast and  talented opponent to be reckon with in this year’s NHL playoff bracket. While so many times, the team that beats adversity in the first round, goes on to the conference final or the cup final. Looking at the kings this point, it’s likely not going to happen, where the Knights lose in the next 4/4. Again, the strategy deployed by coaching by Gerard Gallant, combined with a lost of their key playoff performing players and scorers, plus an aging forward core (defense they have Drew Daughty and Muzzin and both are still producing at their prime rate, so not gonna pick on them), their playoff odds does not look too great at this point. Finally, the Kings is on the third year after their Cup Run. Kings GM Rob Blake has refused to blow up the team up until the end of this year, albeit I know that it may be because they held down a playoff spot all year, but they have certainly a lot of depth problems to address on their roster in this upcoming off-season, which may be much sooner than he had anticipated.

*I want to put in a final word here, just because we are talking about these older teams in the NHL and new young starts rising quickly from the juniors, SHL, and college levels: the problem is not that GMs aren’t willing to blow up the team, rather when they do it and how much cap room they can expand. You can say, making playoff is great, but the Kings simply won’t win another Cup with this current roster. If they match against the Knights every year, they’d lose that contest if they could continue to rely on the anchoring defense of Drew Daughty in the back, we all had believed in the start of Game 1 that they may be able to handle the Knights potent offensive weapons. But as it’s come to our full view, looking back at everyone’s game prediction for this series, the line-up depth of teams are now more important than their elite players on the roster in order to determine any given match-up of games/series. Thus, my pick for this years final 4: Boston (with tons of young lead by Bergeron, Merchand, and added weapons of the likes of Rick Nash), Tampa (lead by former Art Ross winner Stamkos, over Pittsburgh), Nashville and Vegas (over Winnipeg, both no need for explanation).