When you break down the Kings team over the past five to six years one thing really stands out above all else: This team is defense first.
Built upon strong possession hockey, the Kings have time and time again finished near the top of the league in defensive metrics like scoring chances, expected goals, corsi, shots against and penalty killing. This team is and has always been (At in their recent status) predicated on defense first hockey.
So why is it that every darn preseason and season preview we have to have a similar constructive argument based around the concept of the Kings offense, or lack thereof rather? Can the Kings score enough? Where will the offensive come from? They will not get enough goals!
Since 2011, the Kings rank 23rd in the league in offense through those years combined. In five years, the team has averaged just 2.11 goals per game at even strength. However, in that same time span the Kings have allowed a miniscule 1.84 goals against per game, the best of any team over the combined five seasons. With the Kings, it has been, and will always be this way as long as they play under the defensive structure and responsible hockey concept they have been built around.
With that in mind, people are still somewhat concerned about the scoring of Los Angeles.
Is it a fair point to bring up? After all, the team lost a huge productive cog in Milan Lucic this offseason, and they will now also be without the services of Marian Gaborik for at least the early part of the regular season.
What we are going to look at right now is what we can EXPECT based on reasonable average for the Kings. Taking into account, time on ice, shots, shooting percentage, and a few other factors, we can theorize what kind of totals we are looking at team wide and individually.
Last year's 223 goals scored was the most the team is scored by a large margin in a five year period, and it was buoyed by a strong powerplay. The forward group scored 182 goals, a number that will be important later on. Both the goals, and the powerplay (20%) were above the league average (Goals = 222, PP = 18.7%). However, overall the Kings were carried in scoring by a group of about five players. Anze Kopitar, Jeff Carter, and Tyler Toffoli led the team scoring 25, 24, and 31 goals respectively. Milan Lucic chipped in with 20, and Drew Doughty had a very productive year at 14 goals (His second highest season ever)
The top guys
Realistically can we expect the same season from Toffoli, Carter, and Kopitar? Well, actually, yeah you pretty much can!
Toffoli, who shot at a 14.6%, was not really shooting much over his career average of 12.2%, and an inevitable rise in time on ice will only help boost his totals. Penciling in Toffoli for 30-35 is probably not out of the question. Kopitar, likewise, was not much above his career average in any offensive category, and should reasonably score 20-25 goals again. Carter was actually down a little bit in terms of scoring last year, as he played more of a set up role to Tyler Toffoli. His assist total tied a career high, but his goal scoring rate and shooting percentage was at very low points taking in his career. At this stage, 25 goals or around that is probably a good expectation for Carter.
With the injury to Marian Gaborik and the uncertainty of his return date, it is hard to know just how much he could score. Last year his numbers took a big hit, and at 34-years old we are starting to see a downward trajectory in some key things. Gaborik is possession the puck less, scoring less frequently, and an injury is not going to help that any. Depending on how long he is out, Gaborik may chip in 15 goals this season.
If we take the low on everyone's projections, we are talking about 90-100 goals. Compare that to last season's league team average of 222.
Alright, now come the fun players.
The Committee
The Kings rely heavily on committee scoring, and that is probably where most people have their fears and misgivings. It is not a sexy group at all. Dustin Brown, Nick Shore, Trevor Lewis, Dwight King, Michael Latta, Teddy Purcell, Kyle Clifford, Jordan Nolan, Andy Andreoff and potentially Nic Dowd and Michael Mersch. There is one player who may jump up into the big gun group this year, and that is Tanner Pearson.
Very early in the summer we posted a piece on Milan Lucic and how his contributions to the team may very well be replaceable, largely in part to the potential of Tanner Pearson.
Check out that post here
Amongst the most regular Kings forwards last year, Tanner Pearson actually scored at a rate just below Lucic, and ahead of both Carter and Kopitar. So what kept him at only 15 goals on the season? An average of 14:28 of ice time. If you bump Pearson up into the Toffoli range of 17-18 minutes you are talking, maybe, a 25 goal scorer. The scary thing here is that Pearson's shooting percentage was actually DOWN. His goals per game was also down. Finally, his expected goals rate was also down from career average. So if everything was down, why are we so bullish on Pearson? Because everything else was up! Pearson is playing better possession hockey, was doing so mostly outside of the Top 6 last year and was hardly averaging any powerplay time. Tanner Pearson stands on the cusp of a potential breakout season, and a lot of numbers point to that.
Statistically speaking, if Tanner Pearson can take his 7.25 shots per 60 rate at a career shooting percentage of 12.7%....On top of playing let's say 18 minutes a night for 82 games...
That's 178 shots over a full season, and 23 goals. No let's say Pearson jumps up to around 200 shots, we are looking at 25 goals. That is also assuming that he stays right at his career average of 12.7. Point is, Pearson has a lot of good things going for him on top of healthy regular top 6 minutes, some more powerplay usage, and a reuniting with Carter and Toffoli.
The Kings, in that regard, just replaced Milan Lucic's 20 goals, and then some.
So who replaces the 15 of Pearson from last year?
Where here is where you start getting into the guys like Shore, Lewis, Dwight King, and Dustin Brown, who in all honesty should have scored far more than the 29 that was scored between the four of them. In case you are keeping track, that's 7 goals for three, and 8 for the fourth guy.
Not. Good.
But there is hope.
Dwight King probably stands as the player most likely to stake a step back, but he still is ripe for 10-12 goals this coming season. Looking at the insane bad luck of Brown, Shore and Lewis though is baffling.
The progressive slide from the 10-12% shooting days of Dustin Brown down to 5% has not been kind. It seems highly unlikely given the shot volume, and quality, that Brown beats the numbers and AGAIN posts an abysmal year of 10 or 11 goals. BUT, 20+ is probably a bit much to ask. With an uptick in shooting, Brown is probably still good for around 15 or more goals during the regular season. From a scoring chance standpoint, the trio of Brown, Shore and Lewis didn't do ALL that bad for themselves comparatively.
There are also ungodly numbers like the trio's differential in expected production based on possession, shot quality, and chances, versus what ACTUALLY happened.
xGF60 - GF60
Lewis -
2.56 - 1.47
Shore -
2.49 - 0.91
Brown -
2.59 - 1.58
Players that scored at about their right expected totals were Kopitar, Toffoli, and Milan Lucic. The numbers are so against the trio having another poor year when you further consider that Nick Shore shot at a 2.72% at even strength, Lewis a 4.72, and Brown a 4.74. For Shore that was actually the 3rd worst shooting percentage in the entire league amongst players playing at least 500 even strength minutes. Lewis and Brown slot in further down the list, 21st, and 22nd.
Is it more conceivable that Shore continues to score three times on every 100 shots he takes? Or are we going to see an uptick? The latter seems far more likely.
Saying Shore scores 10, Lewis scores 12, and Brown 16 does not seem that crazy an idea. Toss King in with his previously mentioned 10 or so.
That's around 45-50 goals from those four guys, about an average of 10-13 amongst the four.
In total that's around 140 goals or so from the Kings Top 9 forwards. The Kings forwards last year scored 182 goals, and that was for league average, which you would more than settle for for such a good defensive team. Basically the Kings will be asking, Nolan, Andreoff, Dowd, Purcell, Latta, Clifford and Michael Mersch to contribute 40 some odd goals. Between seven guys that should be more than doable.
Here is the kicker. That's to get to league average and the totals the Kings had LAST YEAR.
In 2013-14, a year in which the Kings won the cup, the forward group scored 162 goals. Just 22 shy of what we have accounted for here.
So What's the Point?
This may have been a long winded way of saying it, but the Kings offense doesn't matter as much as people think.
The team, in the years in which they won the cup, were 29th and 26th in goal scoring at 5v5.
The Kings have plenty of places they can get scoring from to at least match or surpass the production of successful teams of previous years. The real question comes in the defensive sense. Do the Kings again post good enough defensive numbers to make up for their low/mediocre scoring?
Given that last season the team yet again led some key categories like shots against, goals against, corsi against, and expected goals against, you could go out on a limb and say they will probably be just fine.
So the realistic expectations of the Kings offense is...well, basically to just continue being defensively responsible first and foremost. Seems silly, but as long as the Kings can continue to prevent goals at the rate they do, it really does not matter how little they score. However, this exercise does theorize to those that may still be worried about offense, they probably have enough horses to get them by.
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