With the Los Angeles Kings set for quite a long offseason and even the draft lottery still a couple weeks away, I’ll be reviewing each player on the Kings and how they performed this season. Today’s article will focus on Drew Doughty.
Doughty saw a slight dip in production this season and his 43 points per 82 average was his lowest in the last six seasons. That said, he’s still producing at a great level and continues to provide the Kings offense from the blue line. Doughty saw an increase in even strength points per 82 this year from last season and still plays a ton of minutes for the Kings. This year, Doughty played nearly 26 minutes per night, for which landed him second in the entire league in ice time per game. He also led the Kings in minutes per game on both the power play and penalty kill.
The fact is, however, Doughty can’t continue to play these minutes forever. He’s got seven years remaining on his contract and the biggest concern will be at what pace he’s going to regress, considering he’s already turning 31 years old this year. His game also isn’t where it was a couple years ago (though I’m not saying it’s necessarily permanent regression). While it’s important to factor in that he played difficult minutes and had a lower offensive zone start percentage than the majority of his teammates, Doughty did have an expected goals for percentage of 49.3 per cent, which was worse than every Kings defenseman who played at least 10 games this year, other than Kurtis MacDermid. He also averaged more giveaways per 82 in the last two seasons than in any other seasons of his career.
Don’t get me wrong, Doughty is still a huge asset for the Kings and will continue to be for many years to come. But he may benefit from the Kings setting themselves up in a position where he doesn’t have to play the minutes that he does, especially as he continues to age. If they continue to rely on a defenseman entering his 30s to consistently take on a huge role every night, especially now with the team much weaker, his flaws are certainly going to become more visible. He's seen his minutes reduced from year to year for five straight seasons and ideally, the Kings continue to drop his ice time little by little.
Between Doughty, Matt Roy and Sean Walker, the Kings are strong on the right side with three very capable defenders. Considering both Roy and Walker now have more NHL experience, next season, I’d like to see them start to play more minutes, to take some of the pressure off Doughty.
***NOTE: We've launched a HockeyBuzz Kings Twitter account! For anyone interested, you can follow @HB_LAKings for updates on articles, Kings news, etc. We're starting right from scratch, so any followers would be appreciated!***
Here’s today’s poll question (results and discussion will be posted in a future article):
How many points do you expect from Drew Doughty next season?
Los Angeles Kings Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»