The Canadian was crushed by a steamroller on Saturday. Brendan Gallagher was not wrong to call the Los Angeles Kings the team of the hour in the National Hockey League.
The Kings, unwittingly at the heart of a controversy in Quebec in recent weeks after agreeing to hold their training camp in the Old Capital for funding of 5 to 7 million, occupy fourth place in the general ranking, just two points from first, with a record of 13-3-3. They have won nine of their last eleven meetings and have still not lost in nine games on opposing ice.
Their 4-0 victory against the Canadiens was their fifth in a row, a short streak during which they scored 20 goals and allowed… five.
Los Angeles constitutes a particular model. After their last Stanley Cup in 2014, the Kings missed the playoffs five times, occupied the cellar of the standings for three years, but they climbed back to the top by short-circuiting their reconstruction, with three of their first four defensemen drafted after the 100e rank, a 36-year-old goalie who was thought to be ripe for retirement and a terrible blunder with the fifth overall pick in 2019.
The Kings will nevertheless be the first to admit it: they must have success in the playoffs this spring, otherwise they will remain a club that has not made it through the first playoff round in ten years…
This team could have been looking at a complete rebuild in 2019 after an awful 71-point season, last place in the Western Conference and an aging club.
The Kings did it, but only partially, by hanging on to their two pillars Anze Kopitar and Drew Doughty, then aged 33 and 31 respectively, but by trading in the following seasons Jeff Carter, Tyler Toffoli, Jake Muzzin and Alec Martinez for draft picks and, or, prospects.
Los Angeles has managed to build a top defense with surprising players around Doughty. Michael Anderson, his 24-year-old partner, was a fourth-round pick in 2017. Matt Roy, 28, was a seventh-round pick in 2015. They are not great offensive defensemen, but remain effective defensively in the twenty minutes that we entrust to them for each match.
THE top 4 is complemented by Vladislav Gavrikov, obtained from the Blue Jackets at the trade deadline last year. Gavrikov is a strong guy built in the same mold, the type of defender that Marc Bergevin, now assistant to Kings general manager Rob Blake, particularly likes.
We must remember three key names on the attack in this process of reset on the fly, this expression dear to Marc Bergevin in Montreal. The acquisition of Phillip Danault for 33 million for six years in July 2021 marked the end of the reconstruction. The arrival of Danault, at 28 years old, coupled with that of Viktor Arvidsson, 27 years old, would allow the Kings to bridge the gap between the thirty-year-old stars of the team and the youngest recently drafted still a few years away from having a impact.
Late first-round pick in 2014, 29e in total, striker Adrian Kempe would also serve to solidify the team in this transition period. Kempe took five years to take off, before exploding with 35 goals at the age of 25 in 2021-2022.
Kevin Fiala completed the acceleration of the process starting in 2022 against a first-round pick (Liam Öhgren) and young defenseman Brock Faber. Rob Blake continued the exercise even further with the acquisition last summer of Pierre-Luc Dubois, 25, against Gabriel Vilardi, Alex Iafallo, Rasmus Kupari and a second round choice in 2024. We hope for more Dubois , at the center of the third trio, and 11 points, including 5 goals, in 19 games, after having granted him 8.5 million per season until 2031.
The Kings are massacring their opponents these days because their big stars Kopitar and Doughty still have a big impact, the cement holds well in the middle and the younger players are starting to do well.
The second overall pick in 2020 behind Alexis Lafrenière and ahead of Tim Stützle, Quinton Byfield, is coming out of his shell at 21 years old. This 6-foot-5, 225-pound giant has 16 points in 19 games at left wing for Kopitar. He had only 10 points in 40 games in his first full season two years ago, which shows that patience is always required with prospects.
The fifth overall pick in 2019, Alex Turcotte, is still in the American League at 22, but the young man, son of Alfie, a first-round pick of the Canadiens in 1983, has been slowed by concussions. He has 17 points in as many games with the farm club, let’s see if he can make the Kings regret a little less one day for having preferred him to Moritz Seider, Dylan Cozens, Trevor Zegras, Matthew Boldy, Cole Caufield and company .
The Kings’ third top pick between 2019 and 2021, big right-handed defenseman Brandt Clarke, drafted at 8e rank in 2021, had been approached for a position in the NHL at the dawn of training camp, but we preferred to let him develop in the American League, where he outrageously dominates at the moment, at 20 years old.
Let’s wait a little before declaring victory, since the championships are not won in November, but we can nevertheless salute the team’s current successes. The main question mark remains goaltender Cameron Talbot, 36, forced out of Ottawa after a difficult season, but smoking after two months in Los Angeles with a 2.02 GAA and .931 save percentage, superbly served by a watertight defense.
The start of a spectacular comeback?
PHOTO PERRY NELSON, USA TODAY SPORTS VIA REUTERS CON
The Oilers are still far from a playoff spot, but they just crushed two opponents, the Capitals 5-0 and the Ducks 8-2. They are thus closer to six points behind the Seattle Kraken and the last place giving access to the playoffs, with two more games to play, but they are also five points behind the Nashville Predators and the Arizona Coyotes. Connor McDavid took advantage of these two games to increase his record by… nine points. He had obtained sixteen in his previous sixteen matches. Here he is today at 16e rank in the scoring rankings with 25 points, ten behind leader Nikita Kucherov. Of the poolers Have they already made the irreparable mistake of lacking patience with him?