Here, Marian Gaborik's up-ice pressure cuts off speedy Andreas Athanasiou's momentum. This pressure and the surrounding Kings force the puck toward a stationary Thomas Vanek in front of the Detroit bench.
Perhaps the key defensive play in this sequence, Jake Muzzin steps up on Vanek quickly, which forces a rushed pass to the Red Wings speed coming up the middle.
That speed, Ryan Sproul, fumbles the pass behind the red line with Dustin Brown lurking. So instead of having the options to carry the puck up or dump it in softly past the red line, which a clean pass reception might have allowed, Sproul has no choice but to backhand it toward a stationary Gustav Nyquist for a blueline tap-in to gain the zone.
The sum effect of LA's defensive efforts is a slowed, disorganized Detroit counterattack, as only Athanasiou enters the zone with speed. As fast as he is, he's outnumbered down low.
Los Angeles has short circuited Detroit's timing and pressure on this dump-in. Then Muzzin and Nic Dowd beat Athanasiou and Nyquist to the puck, and Muzzin sets up Tom Gilbert for an easy breakout.
And herein lies the point of this article. As many things as LA did right on this shift -- and you can say this about any shift for any team in a game -- it takes just one mistake to throw a wrench into the clockwork.
Was it a poor first pass by Gilbert? Choppy third period ice? A sloppy reception by Brown? All of the above? It doesn't matter, assessing blame isn't the point of this piece. Instead, all this makes me appreciate the precision that we've been so used to seeing from the Kings in recent years.
LA's subsequent recovery on this play, then Brown's outlet up the middle to an open Gaborik, that's the norm we've come to expect from Darryl Sutter's disciples. It's a good norm -- and we've all been spoiled by it.
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