Each spring 16 NHL teams play for Lord Stanley's Cup. At the end one team is left holding the cup while the other 15 teams can only think of what could of what might have been.
This is about one of the 15 teams who wasn't so lucky.
Los Angeles Kings:
How They Finished: 46-30-6 98 points
4th in Pacific Division 7th in the Western Conference.
What Went Wrong:
You probably think I'm going to say the Kings were doomed once they lost Anze Kopitar to an ankle injury.
Truth be told it didn't help Los Angeles to lose Kopitar before the playoffs. Ryan Smyth (2G, 3A) and Justin Williams (3G, 1A) had a good series for the Kings but they needed more from Dustin Brown & Dustin Penner (1G, 1A, -3 each) if they were to beat San Jose.
Where the Kings lost this series was in Game 3 when they blew a four goal lead against the Sharks.
Los Angeles scored the 1st four goals of the games and chased Antti Niemi out of goal. Instead of capitalizing the Kings gave up five goals in the period leaving the game tied at 5-5 after two periods.
Devon Setoguchi would go on to score the game winner giving San Jose a 2-1 lead in the series they would not relinquish.
Another thing that hurt the Kings was they couldn't get the job done in overtime. Three games went into overtime and all three times San Jose found a way to get the win. That's a sign of a young team still learning how to win.
Where Do They Go From Here:
Getting Kopitar back from injury will help the Kings next season. He lead the team in points with 73 and was 2nd on the team in goals with 25 before the ankle injury.
The other good thing for the Kings is most of their core players are under contract. The only player they need to re-sign is restricted free agent Drew Doughty. Los Angeles has $11.5 million in projected cap space next season so getting Doughty signed shouldn't be a problem.
At the start of this season I thought the Kings were a team that could contend for the Stanley Cup. That didn't happen this season but they are a talented team that is learning how to win.
If you look at the great teams that won the Stanley Cup in the 90's (New Jersey, Detroit, Colorado, Dallas) They had to all overcome playoff adversity to take that next step.
I think Los Angeles has the talent to become one of those teams. It won't be easy playing in the Pacific Division where four of the five teams made the post-season but the Kings are good enough where they should finish closer to the top of the Western Conference than the bottom.
No comments:
Post a Comment