Los Angeles’ Kempe is Breaking Out Early On
By Brook Smith
The Los Angeles Kings continued their successful start to the season Thursday, downing Montreal 4-0. Their young star Adrian Kempe was a big part of the win, scoring a goal and an assist.
The Kings picked up Adrian Kempe in April 2015, selecting him in the first round with the 29th overall pick And while many expected the 21 year old to succeed in the NHL, I don’t think anyone expected it to be so soon. Kemp put a season in with the Kings’ AHL affiliate, and then two seasons in with the Ontario Reign. He would make his NHL debut in the 2016-2017 season with Los Angeles. In 25 games last year, Kempe scored two goals and four assists.
Since the start of this season, Kempe has set the hockey world on fire. Just ten games into the new season, the kid from Sweden has scored six goals and netted three assists. To give you an idea of what he is doing, the lead averages for goals and assists are 1.3 and 2.2 respectively. Both of these stats put Kempe up with some of the best in the league thus far.
Kempe’s best game of the season by far came early on, scoring three goals against Montreal on October 18th. In that game, Los Angeles beat Montreal 5-1. These sort of results from Kempe are just part of the reason the Kings have been so successful early on. Entering the weekend, the Kings have the second best record in the NHL, with just 1 regulation loss. They are just a win behind the NHL leading Tampa Bay Lightning.
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Kempe will be a huge part of the team’s offense moving forward, but we cannot forget how well the guys around him are playing as well. Anze Kopitar is playing great, up near the top of the leader boards in goals scored as well as assists. Drew Doughty has also returned to his dominant ways, with a +11 plus-minus leading all defenders. Jonathan Quick has been solid as usual, with a league leading 1.88 goals against average through the team’s first ten games.
What’s Next: The team will travel to Boston on Saturday to face a struggling Bruins team. Boston has put together a 4-3-1 record thus far, and have not managed a whole lot of offense. After that, they travel to St. Louis to face their toughest team of the young season. The Blues are 7-2-1, and have scored 34 goals with their high powered offense.