LAK AT 83: HOUSE MONEY

LOS ANGELES, CA – It will be 1,476 days between post-season games for the Los Angeles Kings when they hit the ice in Edmonton on Monday night for the opening Round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. The pain of getting eliminated by the expansion Vegas Golden Knights on April 17, 2018 endured for three seasons as the team went through significant change that produced a gritty, determined team shrugged off persistent and significant injuries to place third in the Pacific Division this season.

The long path back to Game 83 was littered with a lot of bad hockey, the collateral damage of adapting an aging championship roster to one that could compete in today’s game. The outdated model of the heavy, big-bodied team that Dean Lombardi built, and Darryl Sutter drove to two titles, was handed to new General Manager Rob Blake, who kept the band together for one more playoff run but Vegas’ quick work of his Kings planted the seeds to cultivate a new crop of Kings.

He changed bench leadership, allowed proven veterans to walk away and traded core Cup contributors for futures. But on some nights at then-Staples Center, his team was so overmatched, looking defeated just a few minutes into matches against superior teams.

I sat ice-level for several games and could feel the air of desperation when the score read 2-0 for the visitors early in the first period, that this version of the Los Angeles Kings had no shot of winning, it was more about surviving 60 minutes and absorbing painful lessons.

In those moments, it was right to question if ‘The Plan’ Blake and Team President Luc Robitaille sold to ownership was the right strategy. Though they gathered assets in the form of prospects and draft picks, the gap created between Los Angeles and the playoff-bound teams looked cavernous. When last season completed, the .438 points percentage that placed them just six points from last place in the reconstituted Honda West (bet you didn’t remember that rebranding) and 33 points adrift (in just 56 games) from the best-in-breed Colorado Avalanche didn’t appear to be the platform needed to vault back to legitimacy. Though the optics were bad, the organization’s message never wavered, insisting improvement and growth would come from these forgettable days.

I was a partial buyer coming into the season, believing there would be significant improvement but not to the extent that would produce post-season play. I saw a double-digits (last season point total projected to 72 points over a full 82 games) improvement, envisioning this group being able to play a shade over. 500 hockey in the range of 88 to 92 points, a nice bump but still a season away from a return to the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

You now know the rest. Despite losing their best defenseman, Drew Doughty, for half the season, having replacement defensemen playing 20 minutes a night who weren’t on the roster Opening Night but wound up making significant contributions, with two pivotal off-season acquisitions (Phillip Danault and Viktor Arvidsson) forming its most productive line and with Jonathan Quick turning back the clock in the season’s final weeks, this resilient team clawed its way to a 99-point season.

The final regular season point total could be turned miraculous if you believe a straight line can be drawn between statistics and winning. Los Angeles stands to play its first playoff game in four seasons despite the following:

• Tied for 18th in save percentage

• 20th ranked offense

• 22nd ranked penalty kill

• 27th ranked power play

• 30th ranked power play shooting percentage

• 30th in goals by defenseman

• dead last in overall shooting percentage

And before you point at coaching for many the team’s offensive woes (missing Doughty is a significant factor), the lack of production wasn’t because design or structure prevented them from having opportunities. The Kings were fourth in high danger chances this season and the more stunning statistic is the Kings and Oilers (with the third-ranked power play) had the same amount of power play high danger chances this season (182 – all stats courtesy of Natural Stat Trick). Sometimes you just need better players to excel offensively.

That’s why some believe (as do I) that Todd McLellan will be a finalist of the Jack Adams Trophy – awarded annually to the league’s best coach – with his installation of a system that has shielded the weaknesses (he admitted late in the regular-season that the younger defensemen like Sean Durzi, Jordan Spence and Jacob Moverare were aided by the reliance of the checking system) on the depth chart and getting individual and group buy-in. That critical piece, a belief, made the system an asset his players could lean into knowing that if they played to the identity that was forged over the past few months, they would remain competitive and in the hunt for the post-season.

Some may scoff at strength-of-schedule, that it doesn’t matter who you play down the stretch during a playoff drive, you need to win the games, but the last 15 games tell a different story.

Los Angeles went 5-0-1 against non-contenders in their final six games to lock in the Pacific Division’s third seed after a difficult 3-5-1 stretch that ended with a 9-3 pounding by the Colorado Avalanche. Though they were far from masterpieces, they ground out wins in the last two weeks with the style they’ve displayed all season – not overwhelming you with offense but not surrendering much either, hence the +3-goal differential over 82 games.

The reward for navigating a crooked, divot-laden path to the playoffs is to get Connor McDavid and Leon Drasaitl as a welcome back to the post-season.

What makes this series fascinating are styles that are 180 degrees from each other, the offensively gifted Oilers against the system-driven defensive Kings. Off the results of the season series Edmonton has the advantage, winning three of the four games, the teams traded wins by multi-goals margins early in the season and closing with the Oilers winning a shootout and a 3-2 game over an eight-day span, not the domination a 3-1 series win appears to be.  Furthermore, both teams scored 12 goals in the season series with the exclamation point being the Oilers did not score a power play goal (0 for 10) while the Kings unlocked success with the extra man three times but with the caveat of all goals being scored in their December win with Connor McDavid assessed a major and game misconduct for boarding (I wouldn’t hold my breath on a recurrence).

The series may boil down to #TheOldMenInTheCrease.

In a rematch of the 2012 Western Conference Final, it will be Mike Smith (40) and Jonathan Quick (36) in the cages. Like Quick, a healthy Smith has turned the clock back to his best days, having not lost a game since March and with a nine-game winning streak entering the series. In a matchup with significant differences in offense, Quick will have to replicate his down-the-stretch play for the Kings to have a puncher’s chance to emerge from this round. There’s simply too much skill on the Oilers roster to withstand average goaltending.

And finally. . . since people love predictions:

Given the way the Oilers finished the season fueled by the run McDavid went on to win his fourth Art Ross Trophy (awarded to the NHL’s leading point scorer), they are instilled as a considerable favorite to win the series. The view from Los Angeles is that they are a bit ahead of schedule and are playing with “house money” at this point, a well-played series loss would be progression in a season that has shown significant growth and proof-of-concept for The Plan.

But along with being the favorites, the Oilers have great expectations placed on them given their first-round failures in the past two playoff seasons, winning only one game in seven against the Chicago Blackhawks and Winnipeg Jets, neither of them emerged from the next round.

For Edmonton, this is a must-win series, and for McDavid, he needs to answer the question affirmatively on whether he can lead a team, albeit for from the best in the NHL this season, to a deep playoff run.

Maybe the house doesn’t always win. The Oilers have the better team, but will they be the better team right now?

Kings in 6.