FTP: Kings @ Blues 01/23/2021

1
First FTP of the season.
Let me know if you like to get more FTPs during the season.

The original thread link is here:
https://hfboards.mandatory.com/threads/ ... 1.2800243/

Page number: 1

Kings are better than the Blues on the PP and PK? I love early season stats.

Excited for these lines, Blues will force the emotional engagement imo, should be nice and physical, RIP Kale Clague probably
Kopi is due for a goal, make it so
Gonna be some tougher assignments for Vilardi and the 4th line, look at that Blues 3rd line, AND they have last change
GKG!

I guess there was a reason we got Maatta so cheaply.

I miss those jerseys, honestly
"Peter Harrold scores to tie the game" lol
And that Parse pass to Richardson for the GWG!

Against the blues, I would go with something like this:
Iafallo Kopitar Kempe
Andreas Vilardi Carter
Moore Lizotte Wagner
Grundstrom Andersson Brown
I am fine with the D.

It's a back to back. We may get Maatta tomorrow.

Kopitar also seemed to be on the ice with every other forward. Richardson, Simmonds, Frolov, Brown, Parse, etc.

He's carried a lot of anchors over the years.

I hope Clifford doesnt decide that its a good idea to fight Macdermid, would hate to see him get hurt.

What's the Maata?

Haven't watched any of the games yet (will tonight), why is Maatta already in the doghouse? As far as I remember Pens scouting report read "reliable" if unspectacular defenseman ...

He's definitely been unspectacular, but reliable? No, not at all. He's been pretty terrible on offense and defense and in transition. In general, those are the three areas of the game you want to be good at.

Remember when we traded a bag of pucks to Chi for Maatta? Think Chi won that trade. Damn. Can't win'em all.

Maybe Määttä felt he needed to be something he's not after being slotted in the top pair with Drew. Started to do too much instead of doing what made him successful in the first place. Hopefully this resets him and he can find his game again.

Yeah I felt there was too much responsibility on the top pairing next to Doughty. Once he was moved down I thought he was better so maybe his future here is as a bottom pairing defenseman. I never thought he was going to stay past his contract, but it does make you think it might've been better to bring back Hutton instead who would've been cheaper contract wise.

Double hattie from Clifford incoming. Sour for Power baby let's goooooo!

Perron is a piece of shit. I hope MacDermid takes care of that scumbag.

wow how weird perron taking a cheap shot
never seen that before

Vilardi. AA. Robert Thomas.
Some of my favorites in this game

Page number: 2

Hope MacDermid beats the piss out of Perron

Looking real good so far

Yeah, and he hit Cal with Doughty's knee.

Kings' trap or whatever... is pretty anti-hockey lol

yeah that's professional "accidentally on purpose" by perron, what he's best at

Liking the start so far. Had a couple chances off of turnovers, but need to start burying those. This is the first game so far where I've thought we started out as the better team to open the game

Didn't see that 2nd one

Jim Fox really looked stupid commenting on that incident without even looking at the video replay!

nice crosscheck in the small of carter's back on the break..
good save by cal though

i hate to say it but i love these blues jerseys

amadio you cant do that shit against nhl teams, jesus christ

Nice breakout led to that goal post

Not sure which team is the most sloppy.

first thing iafallo has done this season

Clague is making some good plays, can't say the same for MacD.

Every shift for the Carter-Lizottte-AA line is like this.
Carter comes on.
Team spends 25 seconds in their own end before they get it out.
Then Kopitar changes and Carter goes solo waiting for his linemates to come up the ice after the change.
Then Carter loses the puck and the Blues go up ice and get another 10-20 second possession.

kmac struggling today

Robert Thomas was who I wanted the Wings to draft at #9 overall until Vilardi unexpectedly fell...

We're never going to score the first goal

Thanks for the unnecessary penalty, MacDermid. It's bonehead penalties like that that'll keep him out of the lineup.

can't sulk off that though, seems like the second anything goes wrong for this team they mope and the problems get worse
start was good, gotta get back to that

Kings need to abuse the f*** out of Krug. Small. Not that fast either.

MacDermid is a total liability out there.

yeah that stick on puck and blocked shot were such a liability
how about doughty hammering a shin pad then not even getting back, trying to bait a penalty?

Page number: 3

Get.
Your.
Shots.
Through.

Wow that was bad.

in general, doughty, you shouldnt fire the puck into the defenders' knees if you dont have support

was that not in? looked like it hit top net?

Wow vilardi. Really dumb decision to pass there. So much space and angle.

Vilardi needs to shoot there

Clague on fire tonight.. I like

Shoot the pick Vilardi!

Shoot that puck Gabe

clague looks decent out there

much better
that first game must have been jitters, he looks real comfortable now

Clague is really growing on me.

Falk is shit defensively too...
Falk/Krug... Kings should abuse them

Need to nut up and get a goal late

I cannot believe TM thinks he has something with Amadio.

what if - hear me out - we didnt play maatta or macdermid and instead brought up bjornfot?
anderson - doughty
bjornfot - roy
clague - walker

Got progressively worse that period. Missing those early opportunities coming back to bite us.

Kings had their chances.

Gabe--shoot the damn puck, often!!
Talk about Kopitar as a mentor makes me nervous in this area because he never shot the puck as much as he ought to. Gabe, don't emulate that aspect of Anze!

kopi disappointing again, one good shift, bobbled a ton of pucks in neutral ice
gotta be the best on the ice

What's up with Roy? Least amount of ice time for D.

doughty requested more ice time

what, 2 chances? (a generous 2)

Guys need to shoot around shinguards, it's really really infuriating
not a bad period, but knew we were giving up a ppg...but we made it 15 minutes! progress!
Perron does not get the benefit of the doubt
Need to see the grumpy Kings from Avs game the other night the next two periods
Vilardi getting too thoughtful

Wow what a bomb. Has Kempe worked on his shot this year? It's looked lethal most the time

Page number: 4

that was a really nice play

hey kempe might actually be a top six threat finally!

Swedish snipe show!

Y33t! Kempe!

Kempe breaking out would be MASSIVE for this team

Kempe so much better than Brown on that line.

Rocket Richard winner Adrian Kempe

Juice-y snipe.

He's been drinking his Ovaltine

Kopitar playing the Handzus role in front of the net on that goal

Damn Kyrous nose is so sharp. No wonder he's so fast.

another simple stick on puck snuff by macdermid

Lazy play from KM. Costly.

That was extremely lazy by MacDermid

Mac is terrible, put Toby in ffs

macdermid choked that
feel like cal should be stopping that too though

Carter-Lizotte-AA line is mess now

Weak icing call and a non- interference set that up.

The worst player on the team responsible for both goals.
If they need him in there for toughness (that is another debate) please play him at forward.
He should not see the ice again but tough to play 5 d-men.

PP - let's go!

BigKings boy really showing his weaknesses tonite.

Definition of no hockey IQ. WTF was MacDermid passing to

Is it possible we see Turcotte this year?

Weak clear by KMac, but Carter gave Dunn a lot of real estate to work with, if we want to call people out.

vilardi is more lethal on the power play than kopitar

Page number: 5

we just got outworked yikes

That was coming eventually. Too many turnovers and zero sustained zone time by the Kings

Not on this team. That's a move you do if you expect, honestly expect, something more of the group. On this team, you throw the guy that messes up out there again. See what happens. If he messes up again, give him another chance.
Same reason, even if the team has a chance to win a game, Kopitar and Doughty shouldn't constantly be out there. I get why TM does it, he's a professional coach, and his job is to win the game, but these are the years where you just see what happens.

crazy good pass by Robert Thomas.
How many goals this year come after the Kings have control and lose control?

clifford just easily defended kopitar...

Half way through the game and the Kings only have 9 shots on goal.

What was the whistle for Fox?

The Blues just aren't that good. TM needs to somehow light the fire...

say what you will about macdermid, he's snuffed out 2-3 plays with simple stick on puck tonight, clean breakout bank pass there, and just goaded barbashev into a penalty with a little crosscheck

Once he gets his confidence, he's going to be your PP QB

Just too sloppy and mostly self-inflicted wounds. Guys look tired but if there are two things I can't stand it's lack of effort/hustle and soft turnovers. Way too many of the latter tonight, if they're already gassed, tomorrow is going to be SUPER ugly.

Roy makes the smart play instead of the easy play there is no turnover

They got absolutely murdered by the Avs 8-0, I know that doesn't mean much but we should be watching a better effort.

Let's see some line changes.
AA GV LA for second line please

On another note - Petersen is not looking sharp. Very uncharacteristic of him.
Maybe something to do with the knee he took to the head in the first?

Kopitar is legit so bad on the PP. He wastes so much time and does nothing.

there's an element of sluggishness to his game that is reaching new lows

Problem is, those are plays you expect every player to make! Stopping plays by intercepting pucks, and making breakout passes should be the bare minimum for a defenseman.

yeah holy shit a 6/7D making defensive plays intermingled with mistakes.................
meanwhile your $10M leaders do f***-all

Kings getting dominated

A "œ6/7" that costs you 2 goals a game and is trapped in his own zone all nite, isn't a 6/7. He is an AHL defender.

Jeff Carter doesn't like those long shifts in his own end

Kings don't get any clean passes out of their zone

Ack, Grundstrom so close to burying that on the delayed penalty, just handcuffed deep on his backhand with a bouncer

Little sign of life.
Need to score on this pp.

Page number: 6

Flatline.

Yeah MacD has been a tire fire tonight but there are plenty of shifts where he isn't out there that we've looked worse, there's plenty of blame to go around tonight, don't need to crucify the guy with the least minutes.

Yeah I thought he had that one, alas...

Now or never for the Kings. Gotta get back in the game.

"Costs 2 goals a game"
There's your problem.

Need two great shifts in a row, or at least some momentum on this PP

Here I thought the game was on at 7.

Coastpitar been taking energy conservation clues from 2019 Drew Doughty I guess.

f***ing Doughty right back to standing as far away from the net as possible on the power play. Bozo.

Maybe it is, let's hope

Two man advantage, now or never

Need to score here.
Timeout maybe?

nah bro it's all f***ing kurtis macdermid's fault
toby bjornfot taking 10 minutes a night will surely make this team win a cup.......

Nice. We can score 5 on 3 now.

Nice pass by Kopi

Amadio on the PP....beautiful

That was nice, I'll give Kopi that.

they literally don't even defend kopitar because they know he's not shooting
completely left him the whole front of crease and he hardly even looked at it
glad he made that pass but he could've literally skated into the crease

Big time Brown!

Kopi to Brown retro style.

Nice pass by Kopitar

wooooo...
That f***ing 5 on 3 was awful but they scored somehow.
Now we have 85 seconds or so still

The Kings have to have the highest number of missed/blocked shots and the lowest number of high danger chances, right? What are the best sites to check that?
That said, nice powerplay goal.

I'll give you that, lol. Faulk knew exactly what Kopitar was doing.
But still couldn't stop it...

Carter and AA looking very mediocre tonight.

Page number: 7

Not to mention EN!

It IS MacDermids fault. If he was Bobby Orr all our problems would be solved.

Will the 2 goal lead curse continue? Time will tell.

Happy to see Brown get one but the sooner he's off PP1 the better.

i know i know, my bobby orr replication machine is on the fritz

Not trying to be a downer at all, but does anyone else get some terrific naps in whenever the Kings are playing?

even the f***in NWHL can figure out how to provide a streaming service for hockey through twitch

Amazing Kopitar is leading the league in assists with 7 now.

Guess I need to talk more shit about Kopi.
All those assists and no goals, shoot you f***ing coward! That is, if you can stay on your feet when Krug is stick checking you!

That whole line looks pretty impotent.

should be 6 honestly, i don't even begin to understand how they gave him one for that AA goal in G1 vs the avs, he literally swatted at the puck and missed?

guess i'm f***in up my rituals too, they scored a PPG last time i took a dump during the game.. dunno if i can force it on this short of notice

Kopitar leading the league in scoring... man
Reminds me of when Robert Lang was a big producer for the Red Wings

Matty Roy has kind of been a shitshow with the puck tonight too

Shoot the puck AA!

I mean Kevin Hayes is leading the league in scoring right now. Let's not forget Mr. Wolfe's wise words.

the defining theme of this season so far is that our best players are skating the puck directly into turnovers in our own zone and it is driving me f***ing nuts
this shit is indefensible

Kopitar had the puck. Coughed it up. And we spent the next 30 seconds playing ping pong at the blueline

no interference on kopi? ok

Two dudes checked him so they cancel out

Parayko lined up Lizotte and MY life flashed before my eyes

Pass to Lizotte seemed reasonable, but he coughed it up... and that's that. breakout over. back on defense

that lizotte v parayko moment was hilarious to me
lizotte literally went under him

That was a set play for Thomas attacking MacDermid as a slow skater. They overshot him on the area pass, but MacDermid was beat.
I love #56, but it's tough to watch plays like that.

The Absolut vodka ad on the glass behind the net is serving as a reminder that we should all be drinking.

Page number: 8

Kyrou dangerous tonight too

He does have a new partner. Clague has been okay, but he has some weird mannerisms, particularly with his bank passes. I don't think Roy is used to it.

yeah vilardi hooked to death on the doorstep, nothin

there was a little sequence there where 2-3 times whoever got the puck off the turnover in the D zone just scrambled up ice and it actually seemed more effective than a defenseman making a breakout pass
that was very unlike the kings

Thomas can turn on a dime to make room

Blues just suffocating us. Just can't get any sort of sustained pressure

Kopitar is skating like his water bottle is full of Zima.

I feel like the Kings would be better off dumping and chasing and battling behind the Blues nets than doing what they're doing

Grundstrom has been good on the forecheck, but really careless at his own blueline with the puck. Could see him sitting and Wagner drawing back in for tomorrows game.

what a sloppy, boring period. yuck

What the f***.
Mikey Anderson is brutal.
Gave the puck away with a bad pass.
Kings got lucky. Gives puck away again.
Kings ice it.
Anderson stuck out there and takes a penalty.

what the f***? where was the hold?

Oh look, the whistles DO work

Well he IS a rookie. And that penalty was horseshit

were giving a rookie top pairing minutes, that's what happens. hopefully he learns. i didnt see a hold though

back ref made that call
completely blind of the play, no way he saw anything
love these imaginary penalties

clague on the penalty kill, interesting

moore gets dragged down... nothing
ok

no penalty for dragging moore down though, interesting

brutal play by iafallo

Terrible zone entrance by Brown and pass outta the D-zone

these weak backhand clears in our zone are killing us. thats some austin wagner shit

Love that hookdown on the faceoff.
Nearly forgot what it was like to be a team that gets zero ref respect

Sadly lots of them are on the forehand, too, lots of ugliness.
It killed on on the PK too, they can get a stick on the puck, but they can't get it out, either due to jitters or just stupid f***ing user error

Was Matta a healthy scratch?

Page number: 9

This would be a good time for Kopitar to get his first goal of the season.

you thought anderson looked bad? watch maatta play

Rip offense

Oof Vilardi's face off numbers are BRUTAL.

he's been pretty good this year, but tonight has been brutal
how did we beat colorado lol

put out andersson - lizotte - grundstrom on the powerplay lol

Grundstrom's gotta get a shot off there. The slash was after he bungled the puck.

What's up with the 4th line at the end of PP?

what the f*** are we doing lol

Kopi looks like absolute shit

Wow. The Kings played like they weren't trailing.

Kopitar... Wow.

That's a pathetic excuse of a powerplay. Just flat out embarrassing

Absolutely pathetic.
Wish they would have gotten clowned 8-0 instead of being close, now we're going to hear a bunch of platitudes about being 'in this game' and 'bear down.'

They couldn't even set up for a shot for 3-plus minutes. Kopitar was the best penalty killer on the ice for the Blues.

What an impressively futile 3 minutes.

for being someone who wants all the pressure, doughty sure did a great job of deferring EVERYTHING on that PP and the empty net breakouts.......
kopi was exhausted, puts it on kopi's tape and expects him to dangle the entire team

Brutal finish there. Not even a shot.

That's Daryl Sutter there. Reward the guys that came to play.

Kings had the extra man but sure didn't look like it at all.

Pathetic last two minutes.

5 games in kopitar still hasnt taken the puck to the net once. He must be allergic to the slot

Welp, not a bad game overall given the talent difference. Kings made it competitive and didn't roll over. Back at it in 24 hrs.

Page number: 10

at least its early, ive got the whole night ahead of me

FYI, the last shot on goal by a King was with 5:09 left in the 3rd.

not surprised to hear that
shiftchart is down but i reckon kopi was on the ice for 3 or 4 of those minutes

I was watching him in the 1st period. His explosiveness after his starts and stops is completely null and void. There is none.
Dude looks like he just played a full season, Olympics, and 4 rounds of playoffs.

f*** the blues. eh, 3 - 2 loss. Trap team vs. a rebuilding team. I'm not concerned.

Think it's easier to list who looked good tonight vs who looked bad, because the bad list is pretty long.

The Kings transition right now is about the worst I've ever seen in all my years of watching hockey. And I spent last year watching the worst team I've seen (Red Wings).
It's Doughty or bust from defense.
The forwards are always scrambling just to get the puck out - because they're taking hand grenade passes or just corraling loose pucks on the boards.

seems like he just gives up if he doesn't get his same ole dangle cycle going
hard stop then running in muck for a couple strides before gliding to the bench

Carter-Lizotte-AA line
1 shot for
9 shots against.
I don't think Lizotte should be centering those guys.

pretty much ghosts aside from 1 individual effort attempt from carter and a breakout from lizotte
vilardi's gotta get those wingers next game, it's just not working

we just straight up looked bad tonight. only players i liked were... petersen and andersson? maybe?

Lizotte is an asset as a 4th line player, but he is one of those guys that coaches sometimes fall in love with and use to much making an asset into a liability. I think we saw it with Sutter and Clifford towards the end of the Sutter era.

Clague looked ok
Andersson meh
Grundstrom decent
Thats all I got for positives for tonight.

What is there to be confused about with Kopitar. He is 33, he is old for an NHL player. Kopitar and Doughty are only a problem because they are still expected to shoulder the load as the best players on the team when had things not been ridiculously botched from 2015-2019 maybe they are transitioning into a secondary role behind guys like Barzal, Sergachev, Makar, Hughes. These are the types of players that would be in or entering their primes that the Kings could have drafted had they not tried to play contenders from 2015-2019. Kopitar has to be better but the expectations have to be lowered, Doughty and Kopitar are never again going to be the best players on a serious playoff team. When they are the best players you get the Kings results the past few years.

The powerplay needs a lot of work, I know they introduced a new entry with Kempe, but it is already getting stale. If they can get the special teams going the team can make some noise. Also, I saw an interesting stat on the Blues broadcast, Kopitar has the most assists in the NHL since January 8th, 2020 Edit: (I just looked it up and he is 10th, so there must have been another qualifier). Speaking of the Blues broadcast, that has to be one of the top ones in the league. Panger is a gem and they were highly complimentary of the Kings when they did things well. It was nice to hear a hockey broadcast talk about hockey and actually seem to enjoy the sport.

He's factoring in 50% of the goals for. Nobody has taken the mantle from him yet.
People can dunk on how "useless" he is, but he's still playing the majority of tough minutes and outproducing everyone.
If nobody can beat out an "old, useless" player getting tough minutes, then it gkes back to how well can we develop the offensive ability of these supposedly superior talents?

I'm not disputing that he and Doughty are still the best players on the team. I'm just saying when those are your best players these are the results you are going to get. The Kings need their prospects to overtake Kopitar and Doughty not play secondary roles to them if they are going to contend again before they retire.
This is still a painful time for the Kings because while we have a very impressive prospect list, we needed impressive prospects 3-4 years ago when they could have rebuilt then still had the current Kopitar and Doughty still as pretty good players. I think the timing is just off because when these kids are beginning to make a serious impact who knows what types of players DD and AK will be.

Based on the post game comments I must have missed the 8-0 drubbing the Kings took tonight.

"œSuck shit Kopitar" still is over PPG. Imagine if he finds his legs.

damn i'm anxious to see how the Reign are doing.

I understand. I was supplementing your post, as people keep pointing out how horrible Kopitar was (he had a bad game, but so did most of the team).

With Kopitar putting up points but not looking so hot, should LA consider moving him?

I've found over the last few years that whether I praise Kopitar or criticize Kopitar I'm wrong, so I'm just going to say whatever the f*** I want either way, thank you very much

No, cause the return will be garbage.

Page number: 11

We'd have to retain for Kopitar and I don't know what anyone expects we'd get for him. He's not exactly young anymore. What does need to happen is transitioning away from him being #1 C.

The Good
-Those Blues jerseys are god tier and I will not hear any discussion to the contrary
-The Blues broadcast, of course, as someone else pointed out. Panger is a gem, he's Pierre without the creepiness. Just kidding, Pierre without the creepiness is an empty seat.
-The Blues. They did a lot to frustrate the Kings, great forecheck, absolutely dismantling zone entries--whether the Kings tried to carry or dump, the Blues player always won the puck. And they shotblocked like absolute madmen--the Kings were actually at 57% CF% at 5v5, which tells you how good the Blues were at clogging lanes and how bad the Kings were (ARE) at shooting.
-Adrian Kempe. Continuing his emergence, one of the only skaters who consistently penetrated through the Blues lines, looks so much more decisive this year.
-Kale Clague. Didn't have a GREAT game but he showed progression and ate 16 minutes--including both special teams--against a team that was chewing up our pucks. For a guy who lives on puck skills and not defense, he did well.
-Really liked Lias Andersson, he's a real pain in the ass.
-Doughty. Not quite his old self yet, and that shot into the shinguards while taking himself out of the play had me hovering over 'ugly' instead, but he "only" played 25 minutes, and I think that kept him closer to looking normal.
-Our top 6 players in shot attempt differential were absolutely insane tonight--79, 78, 77, 76, 73, 71%. --Kopitar, Moore, Clague, Kempe, Grundstrom, Iafallo.
-Tonka keeps truckin.
-Amadio looked completely miscast with Grundstrom and Moore, while they were in there grinding in digging, he hung back with wide eyes like he was watching tigers maul a zebra but all three had strong games from a play driving and forechecking perspective.
The Bad
-Vilardi's worst game as a King, bar none. Looked indecisive and tentative for the first time ever and for a guy with his foot speed that's a death sentence. Trying too hard to be a good teammate instead of remembering he's f***ing awesome.
-Growing pains for Anderson, like Vilardi. Not sure why he kept falling down, that was the biggest problem. Struggles with more physical checkers, that's for sure. But he's in a tough role and has a lot to learn--he'll be better for it. Still liked his assertiveness, leading the drive a couple of times, better zone entries than most of our forwards.
-It's been real but the Carter-Athanasiou-Lizotte line is officially drunk.
-Reaaalllly need Iafallo to reclaim what made him successful, right now he's late-stage Dwight King.
The Ugly
-Vilardi's faceoff %--13% lolol. Pretty sure this board could win more by dumb luck and toe picking forward on the drop.
-What the actual f*** was Kopitar doing in the last 5 minutes? The guy was a constant forehand-to-backhand, soft turnover, slow turn. If I didn't see "11" on his jersey, I'd be having Michal Handzus flashbacks, but at least Zeus could get the puck deep. God bless him we need him, he had too many minutes again tonight and I pray he turns it around, the silver lining is he's somehow producing like crazy while looking the worst he has in the NHL.
-Macdermid did not make his supporters look or feel good tonight.
-Amadio can NOT keep turning the puck over in stupid places, he's not skilled enough to even try that OR to make up for it later.
-You cannot have your 2nd line at 25% CF%.
-Coaching decisions, especially with ice time. Anze Kopitar STILL had 1D minutes tonight. He's got more TOI per game than McDavid and Matthews. He's only behind Marner and Schiefele. This is really the only game I can understand the other Cs giving him no options, with Carter/Lizotte trying to crawl out from a dumpster, Vilardi's FO struggles and general tentativeness, and Amadios...Amadioness. But did we forget we have a back to back? Does Kopitar come out with an IV tomorrow?
-I cannot for the life of me understand how Petersen did not get pulled after that double head shot. He didn't even look right for almost 2/3 of the game...

Why don't you take a chill pill.

lol, you sure you don't need one?

McD was pretty brutal tonight. 2 goals were on him. Valardi had a bad night for sure, he got eaten alive on faceoffs. Not sure where the 2nd line was. Carter was damn near invisible to the point I had to check to see if he was scratched.
Just a bad game all around.

On the plus side, they can answer back with a strong performance tomorrow. On the negative side, that's probably hoping for too much. Putting together a 60-minute effort has been arduous for this squad.

We need 1 more dman. Maata and McD aren't the answer?
What's the word on bjornfort?
Anyone know?

It'll be a back-to-back situation and the 4th game in 6 nights...big ask for a team that keeps playing its 1c 25 minutes a game...
Even better, we'll have played 6 in 10 and also on the road when we're done with the Wild in a few days, this could get worse before it may get better.
These guys looked gassed already tonight, tomorrow might be a rough watch.

After watching the final 5 min again, Kopitar looked gassed. Some of those passes were just awful. Still not sure why TMac waited until there was 15 sec on the pp to pull the goalie.

I'm just glad that the Kings are headed in the right direction. Good to see Kempe has finally arrived. I think there's no regression here on out and just will get better, with more confidence and getting deserved 1st line duties. While Vilardi was off his game tonight, he's going to be very good and I'm not worried - except for his faceoffs. Why not put Carter on his RW and move Brown to Lizotte's line; to let Carter take the faceoffs for Gabe for now. (that won't help Gabe's confidence on draws, but he needs to work on them)
Lias Andesrsson looking legit and could have had a few pts. Grundstrom looked better as the game went on. I liked Clague's game a lot. He looks more comfortable and not at all
like a liability in his zone. He looks bigger, too. I'd like to see him keep getting 15+ minutes and some 2nd PP time.
I know full well things will get better moving forward and that gives me hope. If not a playoff team, these young players will get great experience and get better. I see players like Mikey Anderson, Lias Andersson, Grundstrom, Vilardi, Kempe all getting better; as well as Bjornfot (once he plays)....and the Moore's, Amadio's, Wagner's, MacDermid's, Luff's NOT getting better, but just being at their potential. In the past, this was a problem, going forward, because there was no one in the AHL that could move in and be better.
Just knowing that REAL talent is in the AHL : Byfield, Kaliyev, Turcotte (soon) Madden, Kupari, Fagemo, Thomas and Hults (soon) and even Dudas....that things WILL get better.
Sure, most of these will not play on the Kings this year, but that's fine. They will all get a year of pro hockey. Some will be ready to open on the Kings in October (or whenever 21-22 starts)
The thing that's awesome - it's not just Byfield, Turcotte, or Kaliyev we're pinning our hopes on....players like Kupari, Madden and Fagemo would be the best prospects on several NHL teams. I would not be shocked to see Kupari or Madden to surprise to the upside and that will only be sublime. Fagemo too...but I don't think many would be shocked, if he does well. Kupari has been called a more talented Kempe? Saw that somewhere...I'll freakin take that. I think Wrobo will get the Euro play stuff changed to more NHL style and help make him an impact player...just like Kempe is finally becoming.
Now...what happened to Iafallo? Looking like his rookie season, without the tenacity and drive...he'll be an UFA, so he'd better figyaitout. (for himself, if not the team!)

Only thing I can think of are teams with a closing window and some desperation.
Montreal, for example. They need to do something in the next two years with the aging Price and Weber.
But looking cap space up and down, you're right. I don't see any team with the space AND the need.

If the return was big enough, the Kings could retain. Who will be seeing big raises in the next three years? Especially given that Carter, Brown, and Quick will all drop off the books in that time too. It may be a tough sell for ownership, but Kopitar at $7 million? Or $5.5 million? That's top prospects and more territory.

It was; 53%, 50%, 44% & 64% in the other games.
13% is horrible but you wont get moved from the circle due to one bad game.

Kings aren't trading Kopi unless he wants to go.
Kopi is adjusting two. Just had ten months off as well.
Has what seven assists in five games. Man we are a myopic bunch.