What We Learned: Losing Drew Doughty hurts the Los Angeles Kings, but how much?
Already in this preseason, there has been a rash of ugly and serious injuries to players who were likely to be critically important to their teams this season.
This is most true for both Drew Doughty and his Los Angeles Kings. Doughty fractured his ankle so badly — on the kind of play that happens about 1,000 times per game — that he is expected to miss months of the season, and will perhaps be able to return maybe like the All-Star break at the earliest. The Kings were one of the best 5-on-5 teams in the league last season and Doughty was a huge reason why. Despite the fact that he's past his prime years, his underlying numbers were spectacular, and on top of that he scored 15 goals and logged almost 26 minutes a night. He ran the power play, he killed penalties. Basically, he was their go-to guy once again last season and excelled. And now, he's on the shelf for the majority of the coming season. The timing couldn't be worse.
The Pacific Division is likely to be a slugfest this season and the Kings were already going to be in tough to finish ahead of two of the Edmonton Oilers, Vegas Golden Knights, and Vancouver Canucks to assure themselves a divisional playoff spot. They might argue they improved in the offseason: adding Tanner Jeannot on a reclamation project, trading for Darcy Kuemper on a reclamation project, signing Joel Edmundson on a reclamation proj… hold on a second.
The Kings haven't exactly been successful in the postseason their last few tries, due largely to the divisional playoff format that forced them to play the Oilers a lot, but also because their roster hasn't been especially good.
(Never mind the fact that they're not changing the playoff format anytime soon, so any grumbling about it wouldn't get you anywhere.)
The fact that the Kings really improved their roster only on the margins and maybe in goal if things broke their way with the trio of Kuemper, Pheonix Copley, and David Rittich does not paper over the fact that they're still fourth-best in their own division on paper. And that was with Doughty in the lineup for something even close to the full 82. Now, if he's going to miss something like 50 games at a minimum, it's hard to see the future holding a lot of positive results. Brandt Clarke is the obvious candidate to replace Doughty spiritually if not in terms of actual deployment; this team needs a star defenseman and Clarke, at age 21, probably just had a lot put on his shoulders.
It's not that the Kings' blue line is in any way bad, it's just unspectacular. Doughty was by far its best contributor, but most teams would love to have Vladislav Gavrikov, Mikey Anderson, and Clarke in their top four. The depth includes Edmondson, who hasn't seemed to have much left to give of late, but he was reportedly brought in specifically to play with Clarke. If they hadn't lost Matt Roy to free agency, that would be one thing; this becomes a much easier problem to stomach even if it still hurts. But Roy's gone and he was one of their two best defenders last year.
If Jim Hiller, who had the interim tag removed this summer, wants to go pure "lefty, righty" with his pairings, he's going to have to put one of Clarke, Jordan Spence, or Kyle Burroughs in a top role because both Roy and Doughty are gone. Through that lens, even if Clarke is quite precocious in his first full NHL season, the gap between his contributions and what either of those two would likely have brought to the table should still be enormous. In his limited action at the NHL level, Clarke has been good in terms of underlying numbers but badly outscored at 5-on-5 (it's 19-12 in favor of the opponents across 285ish minutes a roughly 17-11 advantage in expected goals). Not necessarily what you want to see from a highly regarded prospect averaging just 13:39 a night.
f Doughty is out for around 50 games, it probably costs the Kings a win or two above replacement. That likely wouldn't cost them a playoff spot, unless something truly strange happens with the Western Conference standings (acknowledging that one or two weird things happen every year in this league). However, not having Doughty for an extended period raises serious questions about their ability to keep pace with the better teams in the Pacific, let alone the Central. This could hurt their seeding, increasing the likelihood of another first-round exit.
At some point, you have to question what that means for the rebuild and the leadership within the organization. Obviously, Quinton Byfield has developed into the player everyone expected, and he's now being paid accordingly. Clarke’s chance to do the same is right in front of him after a very strong full season in the AHL.
However, the rest of this mini-rebuild hasn't resulted in a roster full of young contributors. This has forced GM Rob Blake to go out in recent years and sign expensive veterans to create the illusion of competitiveness. In reality, we’re talking about a team that hasn’t won a playoff round in over a decade. Since winning the 2014 Stanley Cup Final in five games against the Rangers, the Kings have managed just seven playoff wins across five postseason appearances.
Most rebuilds that land you two players as good as Byfield and Clarke — and to a lesser extent, as good in theory as Spence, Arthur Kaliyev (also currently out indefinitely with a fractured collarbone), and Alex Laferriere — by this point can be considered at least minor successes.
But when you consider how the Kings have spent their money, how reliant they still are on veterans from their glory years like Doughty and Anze Kopitar, and how few of their draft picks have become everyday contributors (partly due to how many veterans have been brought in), this season feels like a referendum on Blake’s tenure.
A team with so many playoff misses and early exits shouldn't have so little to show for it after seven years. If we want to call making the playoffs three straight years and getting beaten by the Oilers each time a success, you could do that. But the disparity in quality is stark: the Oilers have only lost six times in 18 games, outscoring the Kings 74-50.
Making the playoffs is a nice aspiration. Losing your best defenseman for months, with no timetable for a return, sucks. But in this particular case, the latter just makes the former look exactly as uninspiring as it is: The Kings will probably still make the playoffs with Doughty missing the majority of the season, and by the time the playoffs arrive, he will have been in the lineup for months. And the most likely outcome will be the same. So what are we doing here, exactly?
What We Learned
Anaheim Ducks: It feels like we're moving into "cursed franchise" territory with these guys.
Boston Bruins: I guess you're trying to make lemonade here but this strikes me as a big problem.
Buffalo Sabres: If we're defining this as "barely miss the playoffs," then I'd say it's okay to be optimistic that you can barely do that, yes.
Calgary Flames: Deeper than we think? Can that be right?
Carolina Hurricanes: I think the answer to this question is yes but I can be swayed on that.
Chicago: (Reading a ream of paper being spit out one line at a time by a dot-matrix printer) This guy isn't 37.
Colorado Avalanche: You'd sure hope so.
Columbus Blue Jackets: I guess I'll take your word for it.
Dallas Stars: The way injuries are piling up across the league these days, the answer might be "yeah, positively.
Detroit Red Wings: If history is any indication, they simply do not.
Edmonton Oilers: Great question.
Florida Panthers: Pretty cool.
Los Angeles Kings: I mean, jeez, he better be.
Minnesota Wild: I don't think this is the problem.
Montreal Canadiens: Absolutely brutal. Just horrific video.
Nashville Predators: Well, it's a start.
New Jersey Devils: Jump scare.
New York Islanders: Reading the first eight words is a bummer. Reading the second 11 is fine.
New York Rangers: One day Lucy will let me kick this football.
Ottawa Senators: Could?
Philadelphia Flyers: Expectations are so high, and yet it really looks like it might all come together.
Pittsburgh Penguins: Hmmm.
San Jose Sharks: Come on.
Seattle Kraken: He probably is, but it remains to be seen whether that's a positive.
St. Louis Blues: You can't say you're predicting the top line for the team then name five guys. Not how this works.
Tampa Bay Lightning: This is kinda scary.
Toronto Maple Leafs: Looking at how to navigate around no-trade clauses? Great start as usual.
Utah [fill in the blank later]: We're doing this already?
Vancouver Canucks: This is basically what you want when you trade your captain.
Vegas Golden Knights: I'll say.
Washington Capitals: This happens every year and most of the time by Game 30 or so, you're going, "Oops." So I guess we'll see, but so far so good.
Winnipeg Jets: Blue line depth isn't looking so good right now.
Play of the Weekend
Yup, that looks good. Two points a game in the preseason. Yup.
Gold Star Award
Looking at preseason points leaders is always so funny. Joel Eriksson Ek had 2-3—5 in 14:37 on Friday night, his first preseason game. That's 20.5 points per 60. Insanely good. If he did that this season and played about as much as he did last year, he would finish with about 216-324—540. I think that would be some kind of record.
Minus of the Weekend
This is maybe the most bizarre take I've seen in a minute. You want the people who own the Ducks to own ANOTHER local team? These guys?
Perfect HFBoards Trade Proposal of the Week
User "avsfan" has the vision:
Georgiev and Girard for Swayman
If B’s and Swayman can’t reach a deal.
