After last night's possession juggernaut display against the Toronto Maple Leafs...
Many East Coast pundits were talking about just how good the Kings looked. Had it not been for the great goaltending of James Reimer, the scoreline may have been different from the 2-1 game that was finalized just after 10:30 PST last night. (Good on you for staying up East Coasters!)
The Kings roster, top to bottom, with the new acquisitions playing well, could be as solid as the cup years. However, still, when you look at some players and you look at the overall lack of scoring prowess it can be hard to fathom.
It is system.
System, system, system. The Kings are an extremely well structured and extremely well coached team (Even if I may at times disagree with Darryl Sutter on roster selection). They simply can make questionable overall players look very good.
Actually, scratch that, they can make very simple and blue collar players look very good.
Two areas where the Kings cannot be lacking, and two areas in which they just strengthened via the trade with Philly, are the center ice position and the defensive position. I would like to tell you it is a complex, hard to understand system, that only the best of the best can play in. It's not. It's simple, and that is why it can be so damn entertaining and entrancing when it is working.
From Ontario to Los Angeles, the Kings emphasize one important thing: Play goes through the center.
Nic Dowd has mentioned it numerous times in post-game interviews with the Reign, the organization emphasizes play through the middle and centermen wanting the puck on their sticks. We did a somewhat comprehensive post at the beginning of last season about the Kings breakouts that highlights how they work.
Required reading folks!
But in general, why are Centers and defensemen so important to their success?
cue some diagrams.
This is the set up for a normal Kings breakout when coming out of their zone with some applied pressure.
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It begins and ends with the defenseman.
The defenseman has a key job. He has to analyze the forecheck and make one of many possible decisions. The most common and routine one is going to the forward on the half wall, who in turn kicks it to his centerman.
Like this:
(Let's also add a 1-2-2 forecheck since it is generally the most common one NHL teams put forth nowadays)
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This is standard, and it is part of the reason why when the Kings hit their breakouts right they do not look like a grind it out style team. They look almost like a rush team.
However, the 1-2-2 laid out in this example is not always the coverage the Kings find. Sometimes teams do a 2-1-2, or a 2-3 and stack the neutral zone while remaining aggressive. This is when it becomes entirely on the defenseman to read the play and know his options. The centerman also has to adjust his game. The wingers, for the most part, stay the same in their approach: Get the puck to the C, and get the heck up ice.
On most Kings breakouts, the job of the winger on the halfwall is to A) Make the outlet to the C and/or B) win the battle that may ensue versus the pressuring forward.
This is why you constantly hear the cliche of "Winning battles" come from Darryl Sutter. The wingers are there to simply win battles and make good first passes. Then, ultimately, to skate. It is a simple yet still admirable job. You have to be quick thinking, quick footed, and ready to absorb hits and pressure. Thus, the simple players like Dwight King, or Kyle Clifford are really effective in the Kings system. They are not high skill players, they are big bodies who can protect the puck and move the puck. Tyler Toffoli can move the puck as well, as can Gaborik. The system is dependent on the wingers being quick, decisive, and altogether simplistic in their approach. Do not try to do to much. Do the easy thing, get the puck, and get it to your centerman. Then haul it up ice because the puck is likely coming back to you, but we will get to that in a moment.
Back to the defenseman's job. In a situation where the standard breakout isn't available, the dman has to reset on the fly and think about what play to make. Here is a nice in game example taken from our previous Kings breakout article.
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Arizona is using a highly aggressive 2-1-2 forecheck here to limit the Kings standard breakouts. However, if the Kings Dman is paying attention he will notice he has a D to D pass, or a D to wing breakout on the far side. Both are a bit more risky than the standard would NORMALLY be, but those are the only options.
In real time, and often in a split second, the Kings defense has to analyze what is happening in front of them, where he can pass the puck, and/or whether he can plain and simple skate the puck out. This makes players like Muzzin and Doughty much more impressive when taking in the scope of how much they control the Kings play coming up ice. It start with them. A good breakout starts the transition. A bad one makes you look like a peewee team that can't get out of the zone. The Kings have targeted some obscure players on defense and also grown many themselves. Muzzin and Martinez are two examples of players that grew within the system, and learned it from the beginning. Jamie McBain is a player who was acquired by the Kings and fits the system very well. McBain is a plus passer, and his heads up, tape to tape passes, have been valuable on the Kings bottom pairing at times.
Now let's move to the C. He has the next most important job, and that is navigating the neutral zone. The whole center of the ice, getting from blue line to blue line, and sometimes circle to circle, is dependent on the smarts of the Kings center. Center depth has always been key in the Kings system, and this is why.
Let's assume that the Kings breakout worked on the halfwall, and the play is now into the neutral zone.
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Just like how the defenseman has to analyze the on rushing forecheckers, the center has to quickly analyze the make up of the defending blue line. How many players are on the line? How deep are the opposing wingers? Do I dump it? Do I hit a winger with speed? Do I try to skate it in myself?
For the most part, the Kings often try to hit wingers with speed. If that is not there they usually dump, or the winger dumps in if he feels he can't beat the defense. Again, the job of the wing is simple: Skate, receive the puck, and go to net.
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The center has so many options though, all of which I am sure you have seen if you are a Kings fan.
If the defense plays conservative, the center will likely dump in for his onrushing wingers to recover. Neutral zone speed plays a key part there.
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Also, aside from skating it in, which needs no diagram, there is another option. It happens when teams collapse in.
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They have to look for the drop pass, or hit a winger cutting inside rather than outside if it is available. There is also always the option of throwing a weak shot on net and getting an offensive zone draw.
Think about all that we just talked about, and now think about how a center has to make these calls on the fly, normally within about a span of 5-6 seconds while traversing the neutral zone. The Kings success has been directly related to center depth for this very reason. Kopitar, Carter, Stoll, Richards, Fraser, and now Shore were all good at one aspect or another. Kopitar is very good at pretty much everything. Carter is good when it comes to skating the puck up ice quickly and hitting players at the line. Stoll, Fraser and Shore were good at making sure the puck got out of their own. Richards, at his best, was a lot like Kopitar, where he could do pretty much everything. The wingers, while not interchangeable so to speak, require less coddling and training. Get the puck to your center and skate skate skate.
In the past, the players who have failed to adapt to this system have been players who try to do too much with the puck (Andrei Loktionov and to an extent Jordan Weal) or players who just simply cannot hit the centers off the halfwall or win the battles (Matt Frattin and Teddy Purcell are good examples). With this in mind, the Kings have had some odd characters funnel in at wing and have success. Scott Parse had a good run before his diminishing hip surgery for two reasons: He could skate and he could shoot. Dwight King is a relevant player because of this system, as is Jordan Nolan to an extent (His skating pushes back defenders). Some of these guys would not work in other systems and would likely be AHLers and/or far less effective players. On the flip side, someone like Phil Kessel would probably be bad on the Kings because he tries to do too much with the puck. This is not a knock against Phil Kessel, it is just a "Not the right fit" scenario despite the talent level.
The Kings have acquired two players recently: A defenseman and a center. Both will be challenged to adapt to this system in the most strenuous of positions (Although Schenn will play more of a shutdown, stay back, role on the Kings). Dean Lombardi obviously must have seen something that works within the scheme that he and Darryl Sutter have created.
One thing is for sure, when it works, it works well. The Kings can look like a well-oiled, puck possession machine that can trample you at a moment's notice. It all comes down to centers and defenseman. AKA, the ones that start the play up ice, and the ones that command the play up ice.
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