Trending Upward: LA Kings Bound to Rebound in 2018-2019
Last year was a career year for a handful of LA Kings. That being said there are room for improvements. Here are the players who didn’t exactly play up to their potential last season who will look to rebound this season.
I’ve seen a LOT of articles this off-season speculating on players who may lose a step next season and it got me thinking.
We usually only tend to look at player’s upsides post trade or as prospects trying to find a permanent spot on their team. If you want to read up on that check out this article I put out in late July.
https://rinkroyalty.com/2018/07/30/la-kings-prospect-roster-spots/
To change that trend we’re taking a look at 5 LA Kings, who aren’t going to be rookies, that are bound to break out in the 2018-2019 season.
Tyler Toffoli – Toffoli is an interesting case. He didn’t have a bad season in 17-18 he put up his second best goal total (24) and third best point total (47). The difficult pill to swallow is his career season, so far, was under a Darryl Sutter style defensive team.
With the coaching change and an emphasis on offense Kings fans expected Toffoli to break out and eclipse the 30 goal mark again and at the beginning of the season, he seemed primed to do so.
Toffoli had 17 goals by game 39 and the end of the 2017 calendar year, it wasn’t going too far out of the box to assume he’d net about 34 goals if he had as strong of a second half of the season.
He didn’t. Toffoli would only manage seven more goals on the season scoring one in january and none in April.
There could have been many factors to this sharp decline. The NHL season is long and strenuous and we saw a couple of LA Kings begin to slow down in the latter half of the season.
Toffoli was the best player on the Pearson-Kempe-Toffoli line, he was physical when he needed to be, he had a nose for the net, he has an elite shot, but he just wasn’t ready to take on that role that Jeff Carter’s injury had left open. He was fatigued.
Toffoli had a good season for a second line winger but on an LA Kings team where the last couple seasons fans have wondered which is the true first line, Kopitar or Carter, Toffoli didn’t make a good case for That 70’s Line.
His poor second half wasn’t helped by a demotion to the third line in the dying months of the LA Kings season.
He will “bounce back” this season. He’ll be well rested and you can project him to hit 30 goals and 65-70 points but I don’t even think that it’s still his full potential. If Toffoli finds his footing and was the player he was in 15-16, he is a potential 40 goal scorer.
It will be interesting to see how The Tale of Two Toffolis continues this season.
Alex Iafallo – Iaffalo had an outstanding rookie campaign with the LA Kings. Logging top line minutes, his takeaway game was strong, he’s strong on the forecheck and backcheck.
One glaring issue people noticed was his point output. In 75 games played Iafallo notched 9 goals and 25 points which aren’t bad for a rookie.
I hear you telling me “But he was on the top line with two high producing players.” Yes, that’s true Iafallo spent most of his season with Kopitar and Brown, something that the acquisition of Ilya Kovalchuk is surely going to change.
In the same breath, though, you can appreciate that in his rookie season the undrafted LA Kings forward played against the best defencemen in the world who were trying to stop the same Kopitar and Brown.
Iafallo will find himself on the third line wing this season unless the Kovi Kopi duo doesn’t pan out (see Lucic 15-16) and will have opportunities to move up into the top 6 if not this year, then the next.
We don’t exactly know what Alex Iafallo is capable of yet so it’s difficult to project what kind of stats he will produce. Let’s do it anyway!
He will score more than he did last season maybe somewhere around 15 goals and 35-40 points. Like Toffoli, Iafallo has strong potential and could find himself in seasons future scoring 25 or 30 goals and have Kopitar-esque point totals.
However, we do still have to learn what kind of player he is before we can even think about that. Iafallo has a high ceiling and he’ll draw closer to it this year.
Adrian Kempe – Kempe had the same struggles as Toffoli this season with a lackluster 2nd half of the season and a hard to swallow 0 goals after February 7th. Fatigue is a definite factor.
Kempe, 21, had big skates to fill October 18th when an errant skate took Jeff Carter out for most of the 2017-18 season. That same night he scored his first NHL hat-trick. Kempe showed promise through the rest of the first half managing 14 goals by the start of February.
He seemed primed to eclipse 20 goals in his first full season for the LA Kings but he’d only pot 2 more in before the fatigue of 2nd line minutes on a young centerman would become too much to handle.
This could be a contributing factor to Toffoli’s poor second half but I wouldn’t put it all on Kempe. Toffoli is a veteran now at 25 years and 5 years experience in the NHL. Kempe prior to this season played only 25 NHL games and spent most of that in the bottom 6 against slower players.
Kempe showed his speed and promise for the future. He is the LA Kings Jeff Carter when Jeff moves on or begins to deteriorate. Kempe like Toffoli has a wicked shot and can score from almost anywhere on the ice.
He will break 20 goals this year on the third line most likely sharing the dot with fellow first-round pick Gabriel Vilardi. Kempe’s ceiling though is still very high as well!
He could be a possible 35-40 goal scorer in the future, maybe 2 or 3 years from now. This would also depend on whether he plays center or wing. Both he and Vilardi have experience on both positions so look for the LA Kings to utilize them both for the year and going forward with the player they think better fits the center role.
They each have their upsides. Kempe has the speed to push defenders back and a shot that would frighten any goaltender tasked with stopping it. However, Vilardi possesses a playmaking ability and hockey smarts we expect from a centerman it’s the bar Kopitar has set.
It’ll be an interesting season for Kempe again 20 goals 40-45 points, you heard (read?) it here first!
Jeff Carter – Give this one an asterisk as it was a rough season for Jeff Carter, limited to only 27 gp this season he still scored 22 points and was producing at the rate he did in the shortened 2013 season. Carter scored 11 goals in March alone.
Injury-plagued the LA Kings forward this season and he seemed to be back to form when he returned for a playoff push in 2018. I don’t think he was 100% when he came back which is scary because we know what he can do when he’s firing on all cylinders.
Carter is going into his 14th season and after this year he will have been an LA King longer than he was a Flyer. Carter happens to play a full season every other year so that’s something to look forward to!
Will he be the Carter that netted 32g in 16-17? That might be a little much to ask of the aging forward but averaging out his most recent 5 seasons expect him to score 27 goals this year. I could be wrong, Carter could have a second breath of his career, which is weird to say because he never really had a bad season.
Carter will get the “bounce back” title this season because a shortened season is always a drag statistically. 27-30 goals and 65-70 points from the second line forward this season.
Paul LaDue – LaDue showed his offensive prowess this season when called upon. Though he only played in 12 games (10 less than his previous season) LaDue managed 3 goals and 4 points which is pretty solid as a rookie defenseman.
LaDue continues to grow into a strong top 4 right-handed defenceman and it is his handedness that gets him a spot alongside Jake Muzzin.
While there are many defensive prospects for the LA Kings, LaDue is the only right-hand shot an attribute coveted by the NHL for the time being. LaDue beats out Brickley, Fantenberg, and MacDermid because of this.
LaDue’s numbers look a little odd compared to his totals in other leagues point to him being the setup guy, consistently doubling his goals in assists.
Whether it’s a change of style for LaDue to better fit into a Slava Voynov “get the puck to the net” role or if his shots weren’t able to be redirected in front it’s an interesting statistic to look at when judging how he’ll end this season.
LaDue is still growing and we all know the saying “it takes longer for defensemen to mature”. LaDue is 25 this year and it will be his first shot to make the team for the entire season.
LaDue playing a full season on the second pairing with a reliable defenseman like Jake Muzzin could see him score around 10-15 goals and 25-30 points if he keeps firing that puck at the net and can get an entire season under his belt.
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