AN L.A. DIRTY DOZEN

LOS ANGELES, CA — Every National Hockey League team has experienced bumps in the road through the first of month of the 2020-21 season. The Los Angeles Kings have had their share of injuries, C-19 absences and will experience the first game postponement on Saturday due to protocols affecting the Minnesota Wild.

The turbulence has been an impediment to this rebuilding team as they attempt to find their collective feet through the first dozen games. There’s no shock as they sit in the basement of the Honda West after Tuesday night’s shootout loss against the San Jose Sharks, but there are some bright spots to go along with some disappointments that go along with a 3-6-3 record.

The Good: See, Kale is good for you.

There is a lot of work do to fix the Kings’ defense and a good part of the remedy with come when Matt Roy and Sean Walker log minutes on the blueline again. Very quietly, Kale Clague has stepped up and provided reliable performances, averaging 18 minutes a night and registering solid advanced stats while being used strategically by coach Todd McLellan (57.7% offensive zone starts).

The Not-so-good: Pick up the pace, Mikey.

The Roy/Walker absence, coupled with the underperformance of Olli Maatta, Mikey Anderson has been asked to step up big time in the infancy of his NHL career. He’s posting over 21 minutes alongside Drew Doughty and has held his own most nights. While he is part of the future, the trouble he experienced with the Vegas Golden Knights speed off the wing and size in front of the net is a reminder that he is not the top-pair solution the team still needs.

The Good: You’re so special.

Los Angeles is 17th in powerplay percentage but converting at 21.1% and fifth in penalty kill. Just imagine what the record would be had their special teams been sub-par. The best facet of their game so far this season.

The Not-so-good: 5 is an unlucky number.

And then there is the 5-on-5 play. It’s bad. And if you don’t believe me, here’s a visual representation courtesy of analytics guru, @JFreshHockey:

See that LA logo? Yeah, it’s not in a good spot.

The Good: Minute-by-minute, I’ll be holding on.

Despite the poor start, every minute logged by Anderson, Andersson and Anderson-Dolan (cool name for a law firm, eh?) and the rest of the limited experienced players draws them one minute closer to being an established NHL player. It’s a painful watch as decision making and situational awareness (Carl Grundstrom delay-of-game penalty with .2 seconds left is Sunday’s second period led to the GWG) leaves a lot to be desired but that the path that needs to be taken.

The Not-so-good: Second to everyone.

As Anze Kopitar keeps moving and grooving, Dustin Brown (tied for the league lead in PPG with 5) has recaptured his usual first line right wing position away from Adrian Kempe as the long-standing first line has been the team’s most productive. They are a team without a second line and while C-19 absences (Blake Lizotte and Andreas Athanasiou) have taken away players who were productive early and injury (Martin Frk) may have eliminated supplemental help, none of those names are legitimate top-six players.

The Good: Quick, who is the Kings best goalie?

The time has come for a conversation regarding who is the best goalie in the organization. Cal Petersen showed well at the end of last season, but the small sample size (eight games) did not supplant Jonathan Quick from being THE guy in net. Despite Petersen’s 1-4 record in five games, his .925 save percentage tracks almost exactly what he registered in his previous two seasons. With Quick’s similar slow start to last season (.867 save percentage through six games) and with Petersen playing three straight games, is the torch being passed?

The Not-so-good: Vil-ardi, whoaaaa.

Gabe Vilardi didn’t endear himself to anyone when he said he didn’t need to work on his faceoffs because of his belief that a player is either good or not good at them and can’t improve much by practicing. If you’re going to play right wing, maybe that’s the case, but if you’re expected to be the No.2 center, you should be out at practice early with Jarret Stoll. That’s the mystifying part; Vilardi has at his disposal a player who took over 10,000 faceoffs and won 55.3% for the 11 years  faceoff wins were recorded (NHL started in 2007-08). With all the chatter about the deep L.A. prospect pool, Gabe is the pivotal player in the team’s future; his failure to ascend to the No.2 pivot would create a domino effect and put more pressure on Alex Turcotte, Quinton Byfield and Rasmus Kupari to emerge sooner.

The Good: The Toddfather is still in a good mood.

Despite the slow start and the endless string of C-19 and taxi squad questions, Todd McLellan has yet to channel his inner John Tortorella in his Zoom media availabilities. He’s been patient in dealing with the flat screen technology that doesn’t allow for nuance or person-to-person exchanges he’s far more comfortable with. Or maybe I just haven’t thought of a good enough question to set him off.

The Not-so-good: Trade embargo.

Ignore the standings, whether the team can string some victories together to get back in the post-season race or not, if they get breakthrough performances from the prospects or not, the organization knows they must make trades to get back into contender status. They cannot rely solely on the Core Five and The Kids (a great name for a new pop band) to compete with the Colorados and Vegas’ of the West. It’s foolish not to believe they had interest in Pierre Luc-Dubois, a 22-year-old center who is controllable for multiple seasons and would have been a worthy successor to Anze Kopitar. They simply lacked the comparable talent that the Winnipeg Jets had, a proven player with over 300 NHL games experience in Patrik Laine. There will be teams interested in swapping established talent for futures at some point (Pittsburgh and Tampa Bay come to mind), it’s just not now.

And now, my latest installment of ...... #playthekids

BURN, BABY, BURN!

With their AHL affiliate Ontario Reign’s season finally started, the wave of L.A.’s future has hit the ice. It’s your prerogative if you choose to stream the Reign games – I’ll spend my evenings watching NHL play – but if you do and squint hard, you can see Turcotte, Byfield and the rest getting their first pro minutes in.

With the hope the AHL can navigate through the C-19 struggle that the NHL has encountered over the past few weeks of play, I’d let Byfield play 15-20 games to settle in the pro game and then recall him (assuming there is no OHL option) to commence his NHL career; feel free to throw Turcotte and any other overachiever into the bargain.

As for the “they’re not ready, don’t burn their first-year ELC” argument, the two points are in conflict. If you believe that Byfield or any of his mates are the real deal but their big seasons are off on the horizon, you want to accelerate the contractual situation, not delay it. You want to get to the second (bridge) deal before they blossom into a star and get value on the first highly productive seasons. If you start the clock ticking on his deal this season, they have two seasons to get to the level that the glowing reviews say they will.

And about those projections, specifically for this year’s second-overall pick, the comparables Los Angeles wrestled with during the decision to select him or Tim Stutzle in the 2020 Draft were Anze Kopitar and Geno Malkin. If you believe that ascent will be actualized, if he is next Kopitar, here is a reminder of where Kopitar was at the end of his end of his third NHL season:

• 27 goals, 39 assists 66 points 20:27 TOI

If you think he is Geno Malkin inside of three seasons, you might want to think again:

• 35 goals, 78 assists 113 points 22:31 TOI

Some projections tag Byfield comparable to Eric Staal, for some a less sexy name ... until you look at his third NHL season:

• 30 goals, 40 assists 70 points 20:08 (at age 22, missed a season due to the lockout)

Watching Kopitar play this season, it is safe to assume he will be at the same level of play for the next two seasons. If you also believe that Vilardi is the real deal in the middle (we have covered the questions about his long-term prospects at center), there is simply no chance for Byfield to achieve bank-busting numbers in the final year of his entry-level deal if it commences this season.

If you are wringing your hands thinking what the Kings will have to pay the next generation inside of three seasons (and why you would given only three contract commitments in the 2023-24 season at present), I’m going to assure you that there is little to be concerned with. The logic on why there should be little concern.

To start, two assumptions:

1. Better days are coming in Los Angeles.

2. Los Angeles has if not the top rated, a top-three group of prospects in the NHL – an overarching reason for assumption #1.

Using these two assumptions, the sheer number of prospects in place will raise the team towards the top of the Pacific Division in the coming seasons – either through their play or packaging them in trade for established talent.

The issues with grading out organizations’ prospect pools are a) they are just educated guesses – one ranking by individual had Sammy Fagemo at the organization’s top prospect — and b) an aggregate rating does not address individual progression. And that’s what we call The Other Side of the Coin Syndrome. While you always hope for the best, there is another side of the coin when it comes to projecting talent.

The reality is that as deep a pool as exists in L.A., the other side of the coin is there is no breakout player right out of the box that will demand a huge bridge contract. Byfield isn’t Auston Matthews (40 goals, 29 assists as a rookie), Turcotte isn’t Mitchell Marner (19 and 41), Kaliyev isn’t Patrik Laine (36 goals) and Anderson and Clague aren’t Cale Makar and Quinn Hughes. There is no play-driving defenseman in the Kings system that will demand the money Colorado and Vancouver will be on the hook for.

This is not a criticism of what the Kings have coming, it is a criticism of the mentality that says you can’t play all the kids this season. For those who say the Kings are already playing kids, they are right. The question is how long does it take to evaluate players like Lias Andersson, Jaret Anderson-Dolan and Matt Luff? Does it take an entire season to evaluate where they sit on the depth chart? Could you use the second half of this season to look at your highest value prospects? It’s tough to find an argument against using the backend of the schedule for that purpose if the team’s level of play doesn’t rise.

Would it involve outside-the-box, aggressive thinking? It sure would; you’re looking at waving some placeholders, sitting some veterans from time-to-time, but as I’ve previously suggested, this is a one-time opportunity to accelerate development and learn what you have before the rosters shrink to normal size.

Supporting this theory is the tale of another former high draft pick.

He was a first-overall pick who played in his 18-year-old season, won the Calder Trophy but played behind veteran centers during his entry-level deal. He had decent second and third seasons, signed a reasonable six-year, $44.1 million extension as the organization cleared the path for him to ascend.

The player is Nathan MacKinnon, the Hart Trophy runner-up with two additional seasons remaining on his current deal(!). Is there risk that all the L.A. kids will achieve star status before the end of their entry level deals? There’s always a risk, but if that occurs, that team would be raising its third Stanley Cup at the corner of 11th and Figueroa.

That’s the other side of the coin for you cap-crunch worriers.

Burn, baby, burn.