Slumps happen. That much is inevitable.
It is an 82-game season, there are injuries, lineswaps, bad stretches of luck, and bad stretches as a team. It is going to happen. During those stretches what you will usually see is continued strength in other aspects of the ice, ala defensive numbers, possession numbers, or scoring chances. Maybe it is just a bad dip in shooting percentage, or a bad stretch of games where the matchups went against you.
What we are seeing right now with Kings second line center though is definitely a slump. But what kind of slump is it? Is it one we should be concerned about or not?
The Kings 31-year old center currently has 18 goals, 33 assists, and 51 points in 68 games thus far. That would actually be better than his 2013-14 scoring pace, and slightly below last year's pace. Scoring, despite a lower goal total, does not seem to be the real issue here. It is defensively where we are seeing a few strange slip ups.
Carter has been a fairly strong defensive contributor with the Kings in his four seasons. He plays a good two-way game, kills penalties, does not get caught going up ice too soon, and essentially does everything the Kings like to see out of their centers.
This year though, we are seeing a slight departure in normalcy from Carter. Last season was, more or less, a prime Carter year. His corsi relative was positive for only the 4th time in his career, the other three times all coming before 2010-11 with the Flyers. He had a high number of scoring chances for, offsetting his average scoring chances against at even strength. He also had the 4th highest point pace of his 11-year NHL career. His faceoffs, at 51.1%, were still good enough to not be a risk in D-zone draws ala Andy Andreoff or Trevor Lewis.
He was, by all accounts, the perfect second line center to Anze Kopitar.
This year, things have been very different from the perfect 2C we saw last year.
Carter's Scoring Chance relative is at a minus for the first time in his Kings career. Granted it is only at a -0.1 minus. Nevertheless, that is a steep drop off from the 4.5 and 2.1 he logged in the past three seasons. Even at 54.2% scoring chances for, a positive number, Carter is not beating the average of his own team this year.
In terms of Corsi relative to his team, he is sitting at a -4.3, which is the lowest relative number he has EVER had. Are the Kings that much better of a possession team as a whole? Or is Carter having a rough year possession wise? It would seem that the latter is more the case. His shot generation numbers, which are always pretty high, have stayed consistent from last year to this year (65.2 -> 65.4), however, he has seen a spike in against numbers (49.9 -> 52.9). In terms of possession, the Kings are doing slightly better with him off the ice than on. Strange for a 2C. No. 77 has also had immense difficulty in the faceoff circles, winning just 48.7% on the season. Furthermore, some of these numbers become a bit more puzzling when you consider that his Ozone starts have gone up quite a bit from last season (55 -> 58.5) while his Dzone starts have dropped (45 -> 41.5%). Carter has had worse defensive numbers, while being given less opportunity to have bad defensive numbers if you can follow that logic.
He still rates in the top 5 of King forwards in scoring chances for, but he is actually sixth from the bottom (Eliminating Michael Mersch) in against.
This season, he has been a bit of a glass cannon, run and gun player. I imagine that is not how the Kings really envisioned their 2C playing. In my own zone entry and exit tracking, Carter is still a C that is comparable to Kopitar in exit success at 75% (Shore leads Kings centers at 80% success rate).
Then, there is the game to game stuff which recently has taken a spill as well.
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You have to kind of ask yourself, alright, what changed?
Carter, from an eye test standpoint, does not look like much of a different player. He has had a consistent partnership with Tyler Toffoli for a good section of the year, which also mirrored last season's play. He still takes care of getting the puck up ice in transition. So what has changed?
Tyler Toffoli.
The Kings separated Jeff Carter and Tyler Toffoli during Carter's injury absence and placed No. 73 with Anze Kopitar. What developed was a wonderful tandem. If you recall, both Kopitar and Toffoli went on a run where they were slaying defenses and leading the Kings offense. Offensively they were producing at a rate higher than when Kopitar was with Pearson and Gaborik and with Lucic and Brown, but also preventing goals at a better rate also.
While Toffoli is by no means a defensive stalwart, he is a play driving offensive player. Paired up with Kopitar, it is a two-headed dragon. You have a play driving offensive mind, and a defensively responsible center who makes sure you risks are taken care of.
When Carter returned from injury, Sutter kept Toffoli with Kopitar for a short while, before giving Carter back his favorite son. However, a stretch of tough offensive games in the month of February saw Sutter again separate the two.
This has not been bad for Tyler Toffoli, but for Jeff Carter, he has yet to really gel again with another winger like he had with Toffoli. For No. 73, this is not an uncommon thing. Check out his 2015-16 WoWY chart courtesy of HockeyViz. Toffoli is the straw that stirs the drink for many Kings players.
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Back to Carter though. He has had short lived stints centering Lucic and Brown, Brown and Clifford, and even Gaborik and Pearson, but nothing has stuck so well. Amidst his struggles in both the faceoff dot and in the possession game, Sutter has now resorted to moving Carter to wing alongside Anze Kopitar. It is a bold strategy given that Carter's best results with the Kings have come at center, but the Kings are currently dealing with a log jam of centers with the inclusion of Vinny Lecavalier, the defensive contributions of Nick Shore, and the potential emergence Nic Dowd (one game is certainly not a sample size though). They also have jack of all trades Trevor Lewis, and the grindy fourth line toss in play of Andy Andreoff. The Kings can risk moving him to wing, but it is still an interesting thing altogether. Duos at forward are definitely what makes the NHL tick in terms of chemistry, and through injury and inconsistency the Kings have separated a very productive and consistent duo with nothing to replace it. Carter has unfortunately been the one who suffers (If you want to consider playing on a wing with Kopitar suffering). The trickle down effect of losing Gaborik has had effects on other parts of the lineup, no question.
For that reason, this does not seem to be a year where you should look at the numbers of Jeff Carter and be overly concerned. About halfway through the season he lost his best play driving option at wing, and it was never the same after that. Do not be surprised if that duo is back together for the playoffs, because they were just too good when they were on to deny trying it again. For the time being, the Kings have turned to some youthful energy in Nic Dowd to fill in the gaps while Carter maybe tries to get some confidence back playing on the first line. It is a new look for Kings fans to see 77 playing out wide, but it is probably not one they should expect to see for the long term.
While Carter's age is always a concern when talking about inevitable "Decline", this probably is not a year where you say "Oh man, this is the start of it." There have been a lot of variables and changes that have hit Carter this year (including a wrist injury), and they have taken a toll on his effectiveness.
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