Wayne Simmonds would've looked nice in a game like this last night.
Kings without Simmonds are VERY soft in the top 9. Even Poni has a few fights under his belt. The Kings have no one that can step up in the top 9 except Richards...I hope Lombardi fixes that....
Souray, Ott, Morrow only run around and act like that because who is going to do anything to them on the Kings? Greene? Clifford? Ha. Come on.
Ponikarovsky must break you.
That's actually kind of similar to the Morrow hit last night.
He's got to be the only coach in Kings history that can give a 30 minute interview and have everybody going WTF afterwards...
This. I'm loving DS in interviews right now. He's just so akwardly funny... His response of "He'll live." today when asked about Kopi was especially good.
What?! When one of the players has his face on the ice it is AUTOMATIC separation. As Fox said, this could be reviewed as intention to injure and preventing an injury to a player who is pinned to ice by one player and receiving punches to back of his head by another 240 pound player is the FIRST priority of every official on ice - NOT to look for more infractions elsewhere.
And that is where you are wrong,
Separate lineseman and referee, two different job descriptions in scrums like that...
The good news is we are just one goal behind the Islanders, so we are catching up and may not be the worst offensive team in the league anymore.
The bad news is that the Islanders and the Kings are so far behind everyone else, that it has very little meaning.
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"It has not been a good day. I lost my glasses early this morning and I had to go buy a pair of 79 dollar reading glasses today. 79 bucks. You can literally get them at Costco, three-for-20." - Darryl Sutter's response to going up 2-0 in the series.
How did we go from a 3rd line of Poni-Handzus-Simmonds to Richardson-Loktionov-Lewis? Jesus Christ.
Money. Doughty had to get paid. Handzus and Ponikarovsky aren't signing with the Kings for a dime less than what they made with the team last year(a combined $7 million). The Kings have needed a 2nd center since Smolinski was playing behind Allison.
Unfortunately the Kings didn't get much from Gagne for $3.5 before he disappeared and then got hurt. The numbers for Penner are a horror story. Stoll. The Kings might be able to use some of that money in the summer to way overpay a role player or two in the mold of Handzus or Ponikarovsky though, so don't worry too much.
Money. Doughty had to get paid. Handzus and Ponikarovsky aren't signing with the Kings for a dime less than what they made with the team last year(a combined $7 million). The Kings have needed a 2nd center since Smolinski was playing behind Allison.
Unfortunately the Kings didn't get much from Gagne for $3.5 before he disappeared and then got hurt. The numbers for Penner are a horror story. Stoll. The Kings might be able to use some of that money in the summer to way overpay a role player or two in the mold of Handzus or Ponikarovsky though, so don't worry too much.
I wish they would have re-signed Handzus and traded Stoll. He is a lot more effective in that role. The flipside of that is Loktionov probably wouldn't have gotten a shot a center with Handzus here instead of Stoll.
I wish they would have re-signed Handzus and traded Stoll. He is a lot more effective in that role. The flipside of that is Loktionov probably wouldn't have gotten a shot a center with Handzus here instead of Stoll.
Based on what? Handzus looks more like a 4th liner than a 3rd liner
Quote:
On-Ice Corsi: Handzus is the worst on SJ (-9.41)
Corsi Quality of Competition: Handzus is the 10th rated forward out of 13 (-0.652)
Relative Corsi: Handzus is the worst forward on SJ (-20.4)
Relative Corsi Quality of Competition: Handzus is the 10th rated forward out of 13(-0.426)
Handzus has 3 goals and 16 points on a team that has 19 more goals than LA. Handzus is 39th in faceoff percentage in the NHL.
Stoll has 5 goals and 13 points. Stoll is 11th in faceoff percentage in the NHL.
On-Ice Corsi: Stoll is 6th (11.31)
Corsi Quality of Competition: Stoll is the 8th rated forward out of 15(-0.168)
Relative Corsi: Stoll is the 7th rated forward out of 15 (5.8)
Relative Corsi Quality of Competition: Stolls is the 7th rated forward out of 15 (0.067)
And On Ice Corsi of Mike Richards is convincingly worst on the team. Is he the worst defensive Kings player?
No, he faces the toughest competition of all Kings forwards. You can't just look at one stat, you have to look at all of them. Richards is also tied for the Kings goal scoring lead. Would you trade Richards for Handzus?
Stoll faces tougher competition than Handzus and has better numers.
No, he faces the toughest competition of all Kings forwards. You can't just look at one stat, you have to look at all of them. Richards is also tied for the Kings goal scoring lead. Would you trade Richards for Handzus?
Stoll faces tougher competition than Handzus and has better numers.
First of all I consider your first statement to be a myth because of all the away games, where Kings top line much more often faces home team's top line.
But I will simply use your tools, not my opinion. You are the one who is bringing these stats so I am just using the same.
You say that Richards faces the toughest competition of all Kings forwards? Based on what? Quality of competition stat (average +/- of opposition, weighted by H2H TOI) says that what you say is not true:
Brown: +0.127
Kopitar: +0.108
Gagne: +0.101
Richards: +0.82
...
Lewis: -0.146
Westgarth: -0.156
That is still a pretty big On Ice Corsi difference, considering that they MR, DB and AK are facing pretty much the same quality of opposition (MR SLIGHTLY tougher based on Corsi and the other two SLIGHTLY stronger based on +/- , we can call that a draw).
I am not trying to make big conclusions based on that, only that stats can show... strange things.
As for Handzus being better than what we have, I think there is a bit of nostalgia among Kings fans. So I agree with you, but not based on Corsi ratings.
Handzus looks more like a 4th liner than a 3rd liner
