By this point, I think everyone in the NHL knows the Kings are a good team. They are a good possession team, and they have been for a long while. There are plenty of reasons for both modern and traditional thinkers to believe the Kings to be a good team on paper, in the numbers, and on the ice. We have covered a lot of these topics before, and you can click on the following bolded text to read more in-depth on these things.
The Kings play an aggressive forecheck that causes teams to mishandle pucks.
The Kings play a very structured defensive and transition game that helps them keep the puck out of their zone.
They focus on breakouts in order to transition crisply and cleanly around opponent forechecks.
The Kings rely heavily on their centers and defensemen to work all three zones and move the puck to safe or high scoring areas.
These are all key elements of making a good team in both traditional and analytics regards.
Today I wanted to talk about one very specific play that may get overlooked when it comes to explaining why the Kings tend to hold an advantage in possession numbers. This play, coupled with other elements of the Kings, it is just another facet of an already well coached team that seems to emphasize the right things with their players. This play also lays the foundation for going into a more detailed macro view of what kinds of players the Kings are looking for.
I am talking about the Kings "Step-up" play.
So what exactly do I mean when I say "Step-Up" play? It is basically the Kings, for lack of a better hockey term, pinching or stepping-up on players at the line. But it is not a traditional pinch where you see a defenseman dive down into the corners to keep a play alive, it is more a calculated and aggressive way the Kings tend to pressure puck carriers and receivers at all three lines (Center red and both offensive and defensive blue), in all three zones. It is simply a player stepping up and closing a gap quicker than a player can react.
While it sounds simple in its brief explanation, it is a mentality and play that requires careful measurement, good execution, good quick thinking from the defenders, and a smart centerman capable of reading plays. It also requires all three of the centers, and defensemen to be able to skate well.
Let's get to some chalkboard to make things more visually appealing and understandable. We will use the offensive zone step up play as our primary example, and then dial back to this in other zones. The O-zone example of this gives us a good place to jump off from.
Imagine if you will that the Kings have just either dumped the puck in, or carried the puck in and are now down below the goal line with pressure on the opposing team. They set up their classic 2-1-2.
View post on imgur.com
OOPS, puck turned over or the Kings did not beat the dmen in on the puck, or he moved it well enough to evade pressure from the forecheckers. All are things that happen over the course of a game that beat the Kings forecheck.
What happens now?
Here is a visual to help.
View post on imgur.com
The Kings defenseman, naturally take a step back. If the Kings center is reading the play well and not getting caught too deep (Which rarely happens by design in the Kings system), he too is backing off.
The defender with the puck now has two primary options that you commonly see against LA:
View post on imgur.com
It's either to the centerman, which can be risky, or up the halfwall to the winger. In theory, that winger can now transition the puck to his centerman and move the puck up ice on a breakout, not all that dissimilar to a Kings standard breakout. Sometimes, and it can happen more frequently depending on the team, we will see that defenseman ring it around the other way to the weakside winger, like this:
View post on imgur.com
The weak side essentially becomes the strong side, but it does take away from that key step up play the Kings employ, simply because the element of surprise, and the closing of time and space is limited. Some teams stray away from this though because it can feel like lose their advantage of speed and numbers in transition. Others thrive on it as a slow and more methodical approach through center ice. Of course, the Kings also bog down center ice pretty well so you have to almost pick your poison in this regard. We will talk more on that later.
So the opposing teams will generally move puck to the winger up the halfwall if the Kings execute their spacing right. But wait, here it comes.
View post on imgur.com
Bam! In your face. the Kings defenseman, the same defenseman who was previously taking a step back, is now right up on you and has closed that time and space to nothing right when you get the puck. It has to be executed well, it has to be aggressive, and it has to be an all-in play from the dman. There cannot be any hesitation otherwise the player can simply hit his centerman in transition and the team has a potential scoring opportunity moving up ice. You see this all the time, most noticeably from the Kings top four defenseman, Drew Doughty, Jake Muzzin, Alec Martinez, and Brayden McNabb. We used to also see this quite a bit from Matt Greene in his earlier days. In my own player tracking, Jake Muzzin and Brayden McNabb are the two most aggressive Kings defensemen in this regard, with Doughty and Martinez following. Both Muzzin and McNabb average between 4-6 zone entry/exit denial step up plays a game depending on the opponent (Doughty about 3, Martinez around 2).
The nice thing in this play, as you see above, is that while it is inherently a risky play to have your defender step up at the line there is a built in safety: The Center.
The centerman plays a KEY role in this play, because he must stay disciplined and see the play developing and get back. If this were a non set-play, and more of a willy nilly on the fly step up, the pinch could expose the Dman's own team to a 2-on-1. Sometimes it still happens with the Kings when a center gets sucked down too far. However, most times, what happens is simply this.
View post on imgur.com
The King defenseman is pressuring, the center (Jeff Carter in this play) is already on his way back, and this play will more than likely develop into a harmless 2-on-1 in which the Canadien forward will see he has few reinforcements and simply dump the puck, thus ceding possession.
If the defender chooses to hit his center on a play like this, it simply becomes a 2-on-2. Now, this is when it becomes interesting, and key for the wingers to get back. What happens at times with the Kings, is that the late jumping in defenseman becomes the problem in transition, and/or the winger who was stepped up on beats the defender out of the zone and up ice. The third and fourth man in can really cause problems for the Kings when the winger is able to make a play instead of harmlessly chipping it up the boards for the Kings to recover. Every play has a weakness, and this may be the one most glaring one to this play. However, it takes a really high skill play to A) hit the centerman, and it also takes a breakdown from the winger/defensemen to get outskated back up ice. The Kings are a hard-working team, and that individual effort and discipline often shows through in this example.
While this play is not exactly a breakdown like the example we are talking about, it is one that shows the late man being the Kings achilles heel.
For this reason, the idea of speed and committing to the play are major factors. If you are going to step up, you have to do it quickly, you have to do it aggressively, and you have to make sure you pressure the player enough to where the outlet pass is not very good.
In the Kings system, with the center falling back, it brilliantly makes a high-risk play into a low-risk one because of centerman support.
Know what the cool thing about this mentality of stepping up is?
It can be used in all
View post on imgur.com
three
View post on imgur.com
zones
View post on imgur.com
And each time, the set up is very similar. The back defender is already in recovery mode to clean up the trash dump-in/pass that is coming off the stick of the attacking forward, plus the centermen is falling back in order to help support the defenseman and also keep tabs on any good play that the opposing forward executes through the center lane.
Now here is where this article transitions from what this means in X's and O's and more into what it means statistically and also in the macro organizational sense. In all three examples above, this immediately leads to the Kings regaining possession of the puck. Possession leads to more shots for, less shots against, more scoring chances for, less against, ergo BETTER CORSI and BETTER FANCY STATS! There it is. The transition from X's and O's to analytics. The Kings system takes inherently risky plays, and flips the tables on them by making them medium to low risk plays with a chance of high reward. That reward? Possession. Teams that cannot breakout cleanly, enter the opposing zone cleanly, or transition across center red, will often cede possession to the Kings. What you will see against the Kings and what does tend to work, is teams trying to play through the center of the ice instead of the halfwalls, and/or teams bypassing the pressure with puck movement. The Blackhawks are the prime example and it is part of the reason why the Kings/Hawks matchups are always so appetizing. It is a stylistic heavyweight bout. Will versus skill. Going back to the analytics vein though, this can prove that both eye-test and analytics can meld together in one. You can see this play quite clearly live and on T.V, you can also quite clearly see how it could have a major statistical impact on the Kings holding more possession than opposing teams. These stats do not just come out of thin air, the Kings are a good possession and analytics team for many reasons, and this kind of play is one of them. It translates.
Now what does this mean from an organizational standpoint. Well, the Kings love their responsible centers who can skate. Nick Shore is a responsible center who can skate. Anze Kopitar and Jeff Carter are responsible centers who can skate. Nic Dowd is in the minors, but he too is a cognitive, responsible centerman with pretty good wheels on him. Let's be real though, everyone wants those centers.
From the perspective of defensemen, this is where it goes deeper and more refined.
Kevin Gravel was by no means a top end draft pick. Alec Martinez was not a top end draft pick. Neither was Jake Muzzin, who the Kings dumpster dove out of free agency to get. Know who else is doing well in the Kings system and turning some heads? Kurtis MacDermid, another free agent signee who the Kings took a flier on.
These players all have "Something" to them. That something is usually aggression with a combination of skating or intelligence. Some have two of these attributes, some have all three, but the key here is that the Kings see players with a very workable skillset into their system. They see players that they can make work in the system because they have attributes that perhaps other teams do not look for. Even Brayden McNabb, who was picked up for fairly cheap from Buffalo, is a player that fits that aggressive mold that works with these kinds of possession driving step up plays. It is an interesting all-around musing of how the Kings are built as an organization. They look for very specific players with their defensemen. Sometimes they seem odd, and sometimes it seems like these guys come out of nowhere, but the cool thing is is that generally the Kings hockey ops and development staff can see the potential fit coming from a long way away.
On-ice, the step up play is a really key, but often overlooked play the Kings attempt probably 10-15 times a game in order to swing things in their favor. It is good coaching, it is good player support, and it helps the team continue to drive possession and win plenty of hockey games. Next time you watch a Kings game see how many times they attempt this and how many times it is successful in shifting possession.
Follow me on twitter for news and notes about the Kings and the NHL
Also be sure to like HockeyBuzz on facebook!
Los Angeles Kings Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»