This article will be another in my series of player profiles, where I review the season of every player on the Los Angeles Kings. This piece will focus on Kurtis MacDermid.
This was MacDermid’s first full season spent in the NHL, though he was in and out of the lineup for the Kings. When he did play, he averaged just 13:43 per game, which was less than every other player who played at least 10 games with Los Angeles this season.
He scored eight points in 45 games with a minus-nine rating and had a corsi for percentage of 50.5 per cent, which seems decent but was actually quite a bit lower than the team’s overall corsi for percentage of 53.1 per cent. He also had a goals for percentage of just 35.7 per cent and the lowest expected goals for percentage of any defenseman on the team (min. 10 games played), according to NaturalStatTrick.com.
What’s more concerning about this is that he was given a very favourable role, playing against by far the lowest quality of competition of any defenseman on the team (according to Hockey Abstract) and he also got the most offensive zone starts of any player on the team. He does bring size and a physical presence but he's not likely to be with the team on a long-term basis.
The Kings did re-sign him for another two years and I’d probably bet on him being a spare next season. Los Angeles has their three defensemen on the right side and as for the left side, either Ben Hutton or a different veteran will be on the top pairing, then Mikey Anderson and either Tobias Bjornfot or Kale Clague will likely take the final two spots. Considering MacDermid is already 26 years old and we know that he probably shouldn’t be getting into the lineup every night, it makes the most sense to keep him on the roster as a seventh defenseman next season.
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Here’s today’s poll questions (results and discussion will be posted in a future article):
How many games do you think Kurtis MacDermid will play with the Kings next season?
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