The Los Angeles Kings’ playoff performance through two series has resembled a sine wave – lost three games, won six, lost three – but then L.A. won their last two games to advance to the Western Conference finals. When the Kings are pressed against the wall in a win-or-go-home game, they barricade their net and feast in the offensive zone, procuring scoring chance after scoring chance, and dominating the territorial game.
The Kings’ series against the Blackhawks, which begins this afternoon, is a rematch of last season’s Western Conference finals, and the Kings have added Marian Gaborik to try to alter the outcome of the hockey world order. At their best, the Kings’ transition game is fantastic, and their layered puck support polished. Ace defender Drew Doughty is a hockey genius, and his brilliance in all three zones is mind-blowing. Anze Kopitar is a master playmaker, whose size and control over the puck make him impossible to fully contain.
The narrative should sound familiar: The Kings are a big, skilled squad that is the NHL’s preeminent puck possession team — and they win in the postseason because of their depth and ability to defend. Teams cannot grapple with Doughty and Kopitar over the full sheet of ice, and goaltender Jonathan Quick stops the puck when it matters. Kings’ forwards Jeff Carter, Mike Richards, Justin Williams, and Dustin Brown step up in crunch-time situations.
Well, all of this is true, to an extent. The Kings have dominated Fenwick Close on a game-to-game, season-to-season basis since acquiring Carter from Columbus. Their players are adherents to coach Darryl Sutter’s vision, adopting the identity he has desired.
But lost in the zeal for the Kings’ ability to play hockey the right way is the hard fact that they were on the brink of elimination against San Jose until the Sharks’ ace defenseman, Marc-Edouard Vlasic, suffered a series-ending injury. That injury proved an inflection point, allowing the Kings to claw back from 3-0 down. Additionally, in the Western Conference semifinals against Anaheim, Los Angeles once again was pushed to the brink, but ultimately the Kings’ transition game won out, and the Ducks were unable to overcome their own vulnerable back end.
L.A.’s fun ends today. The Blackhawks will not fret when they face adversity, like San Jose and Anaheim did. Chicago is better offensively and defensively than either of those teams. Like the Kings, the Blackhawks are aggressive in their defensive zone coverage.
Chicago goaltender Corey Crawford has been a rock in net. He leads the playoffs in save percentage, and has kept Chicago competitive in several games. Superstars Kane and Jonathan Toews do not dither under the bright lights, and in close games those two will find space and deliver top-notch scoring chances. Forwards Bryan Bickell and Marian Hossa have been robust offensive players, and their ability to find their way into the scoring areas has been impressive. When defenseman Brent Seabrook has played, he has been a high-impact player on a shift-to-shift basis.
Chicago strives to disrupt the puck-carrier and push the pace. Blackhawks’ coach Joel Quenneville is confident in his charges’ ability to collect takeaways and ignite the transition; forwards Patrick Sharp and Patrick Kane will sometimes fly the zone if they anticipate a turnover. (Interestingly, the Kings are able to utilize this luxury as well, with Carter and Gaborik playing the Sharp and Kane role.)
The Blackhawks have firepower, and they won their past two series on sheer talent. Their firepower has placed them second in the postseason in five-on-five scoring through two rounds. In the regular season, the Blackhawks were a top-five team in the league in goals per game, five-on-five scoring, shots per game, and shots against. Chicago’s B-game is better than most teams’ A-game, and Chicago’s elite forwards are deadly with time and space, not only creating separation, but playing proficiently through the contact.
But frankly, the Blackhawks deserve a B or worse in their execution in the playoffs so far. Their goals-per-game is noticeably lower than their scoring average during the regular season. Partly this is because they played consecutive series against very good defensive teams, but it is also because Patrick Sharp has been quiet this postseason. Sharp is a streaky scorer, and if/when he becomes hot, he will inevitably goose the Blackhawks’ scoring.
There are reasons to think the Kings’ defense will be fine, despite depth defensemen filling out their defensive group. The Kings’ defense has looked better as the playoffs have gone on, despite the absences of Willie Mitchell and Robyn Regehr. After losing their first three games against the Sharks, and allowing 17 goals in those contests, the Kings have allowed 20 goals over their last 11 games. Moreover, the Kings’ defensemen have a reputation for being stingy, and were first in the regular season in goals against.
Still, there will be some drama in this series if the Kings are forced to continue to use Jeff Schultz and Matt Greene against the speed and skill of the Blackhawks’ high-end forwards. It will be interesting to see if Sutter shortens his bench, and whether the Kings’ rearguard can avoid the turnovers in the neutral zone and defensive zone that almost sank them against San Jose and Anaheim.
Chicago presents the same versatility as San Jose and Anaheim, which was something the Kings’ defense struggled with. The Blackhawks can attack with fast, efficient zone entries and converge on the net for quick strikes on the opposing goaltender. Or they can chip-and-chase, establishing the forecheck and engaging their defensemen in the cycle – with skaters zipping into space for shots and pouncing on rebound opportunities.
An ugly side to the Blackhawks has been that, when they make their zone entries, too many times they have seen the puck make a quick exit. Having good puck possession starts in the defensive zone, and the Blackhawks have not won the Fenwick Close battle in either of their prior series. When adjusting the Fenwick percentage to even strength situations – to achieve a larger sample size – both the Blues and the Wild had a slight edge on Chicago. The Kings are at 52.7 percent on faceoffs, best of the remaining teams. Why would this series be any different?
How the ice slants will be a focal point in this conference finals. In the Second Round, Minnesota was able to impose its will on Chicago, establishing extended offensive zone time and leaving Chicago disjointed in its own zone. The Blackhawks have thrived in their zone exits all season, which is one of the key reasons they had the second best Fenwick Close this season. But the Blues had success hemming Chicago in their own end as well, and if the ice gets titled dramatically, the Kings assuredly will win.
Like the Blackhawks, the Kings have not seen their dominant Fenwick Close numbers fully translate in the postseason. There have been games where they have commanded the puck to a high degree, but the Kings were the loser against San Jose in this stat by a tiny margin. And they only narrowly won the puck-possession battle against the Ducks, despite having a significantly better regular season Fenwick Close than Anaheim.
Through 12 playoff games, the Blackhawks have not played particularly well. They have looked sloppy and undisciplined, chased the puck too often, and mostly not had the crisp execution that they employed during their best spurts in the regular season. When the Blackhawks are buzzing they look unstoppable, but that has not been the case this playoffs. (It was the Kings who had that unstoppable-locomotive look in the second half of their Game 7 against the Sharks, and for all of their Game 7 against the Ducks.)
One of the symptoms for Chicago’s unsettling play has been the very uneven performance in the first two rounds of Norris Trophy finalist Duncan Keith. He has looked downright bad at times, and his play in his own zone and neutral zone have been costly in some games. His Relative Fenwick is minus-3.1, and the obvious suggestion would be that Keith’s audacious play should be dialed back a little bit if he keeps failing to alleviate his mistakes. That said, Keith is likely to win his second Norris this season, so maybe tweaking his game is the wrong move. But if he continues to play like this, the Blackhawks will lose this series.
Chicago has the personnel to mitigate the Kings’ hulking forwards and puck-moving defensemen, and Niklas Hjalmarsson and Johnny Oduya have submitted several great performances in their role as Chicago’s shutdown pair. Their likely adversary in this series will be the Kopitar line, and that individual match-up and how much the Kings can command it will be tremendously important. While the Blackhawks’ offense has vacillated from potent to ineffective, their defense has been the team’s bulwark. Crawford has made some incredible saves, and Chicago’s back end has fended off numerous odd-man rushes and penalty kills. (The Blackhawks are first in the playoffs in penalty killing.) Chicago has made it to the conference finals on defense and timely scoring – few anticipated that.
The Kings’ third consecutive trip to the conference finals has yielded several compelling developments. The optics for the Kings is that they are a brutally physical team and score off the cycle. That has not been true in the playoffs – their counterattack and rush have been very good, and they are deceptively fast. Also, the perception is that they use their size and brawn to score enough to win and bully teams away from the net. But they have not been all that physical in these playoffs. In fact, there may be reason to believe they have tried to ratchet back their physicality because they want to stay out of the penalty box – they lead the NHL playoffs in minor penalties right now – with the thinking being that if they can play at even strength, they have a very good shot at winning.
Another misnomer is the Kings’ offensive depth. The prevailing sentiment is that they win through their four-line scoring. But this has not been true. The Kings have been scoring – they are first in the playoffs in goals per game, scoring at a rate that would have ranked them tied for first in the regular season — but Jarrett Stoll, Dwight Kings, Mike Richards, Kyle Clifford, Dustin Brown, and Trevor Lewis have been scant contributors on the scoresheet. Kopitar and Gaborik are leading the NHL playoffs in points per 60 minutes by a significant margin, and Justin Williams, Carter, Tanner Pearson, and Tyler Toffoli follow suit. This has been true with Chicago, but there is less mystique with the Blackhawks concerning their depth.
The Kings’ offense was white-hot last game, and players like Kopitar and Carter possess speed that is incongruous to their size – players that big should not be that fast. The Kings’ back end is showing more offensive engagement, with Jake Muzzin, Slava Voynov, and Alec Martinez pushing the puck up the ice. When the mobile defensemen activate, they distribute it to the perimeter or slip it into the middle for the accelerating Kings forwards.
This has been a bumpy postseason for the Blackhawks and Kings, and each team’s regular season and playoff metrics help elucidate a foggy picture. These are two squads who have excellent rosters, but have played inconsistent hockey. The Blackhawks are healthier, have played fewer games, and have not yet reached their extra gear. They also have home-ice advantage, and are one of the best home teams in the NHL. Chicago will reach the Stanley Cup final in back-to-back seasons, but this series will be painfully close.
Prediction: Chicago in seven
Note: All advanced statistics used are from ExtraSkater.com, and conventional statistics are from NHL.com
