LA Kings: Three reasons team will and won’t make the playoffs
It’s no secret that the LA Kings are rebuilding, but they may have a better chance than you think of making the playoffs in the 2021 season.
The LA Kings finished last season as the fourth-worst team in the NHL, and they needed a season-ending seven-game winning streak to finish that high.
It was at least a slight improvement on the 2018-19 season in which they finished next to last. Another season of modest improvement seems like a realistic expectation for the team this year. Publicly, though, the players are saying they’re aiming to make the playoffs.
Carter on his excitement this year:
— Rink Royalty (@RinkRoyalty) January 4, 2021
"We feel we're a playoff team. Everyone is rested and ready to go, that's for sure."
It’s easy to dismiss those kinds of comments. Of course, they’re going to say that. Regardless of whether a team is rebuilding or not, the players are all going out there trying to win, and they aren’t going to concede anything before the season’s even started.
But what if we told you there was actually a realistic chance of LA making the playoffs this year? You might be skeptical, so let us give you three reasons why the Kings could actually reach the postseason — as well as three why they won’t.
West Division spot up for grabs
Four teams from the eight-team West Division will reach the playoffs this season, and it seems very likely that the Colorado Avalanche, St. Louis Blues, and Vegas Golden Knights will claim three of the spots.
The fourth spot, though? That could be a wide-open race.
LA’s competition will be the Anaheim Ducks, Arizona Coyotes, Minnesota Wild, and San Jose Sharks. The Coyotes and Wild likely wouldn’t have made the playoffs last year if not for the expanded format, and neither looks to have really improved over the offseason. The Sharks are an aging team that finished in last place in the Western Conference last season. The Ducks are rebuilding and weren’t much better.
Granted, that last description could be applied to the Kings, too. But we aren’t saying the Kings are likely to be a great team this year. We’re saying they may not need to be.
LA Kings lack enough offense
This has been a pretty constant theme for the Kings over the years, even when they were contending. Once again, expect LA to have trouble scoring goals in 2021.
The Kings averaged 2.53 goals per game last season, which was the second-lowest mark in the NHL. They have only four forwards on their roster who even scored 30 points last year: Anze Kopitar (62), Alex Iafallo (43), Dustin Brown (35), and Adrian Kempe (32). Their power play ranked just 26th in the league at a 17.1 percent conversion rate.
Must Read. Three undervalued players entering 2021 season. light
The LA Kings are certainly hoping their offense will be better this season, and maybe it will be. Maybe Adrian Kempe finally finds another gear. Maybe Gabriel Vilardi is ready to make an impact. Maybe Andreas Athanasiou proves to be a shrewd pickup and bounces back to his 30-goal form. Maybe the power play will be better.
Still, even if all those “maybes” come through for the Kings, don’t expect this team to be any sort of offensive juggernaut.
LA Kings Top-end talent
A lot has changed for the Kings since their last playoff appearance in the 2017-18 season. The formula for an LA postseason berth this year may be pretty similar, though: Anze Kopitar plays like a Hart Trophy candidate, and Drew Doughty plays like a Norris Trophy candidate.
That season, Kopitar was a candidate for the Hart as the league’s MVP, and Doughty was a candidate for the Norris as the league’s top defenseman as they led the Kings to the playoffs.
The key here is a bounce back from Doughty. Kopitar has continued to play at an elite level, but Doughty hasn’t been the same kind of defenseman over the last two seasons. He’s still only 31, though, so it’s not out of the question that he could still find a way to return to form.
If he does, it will go a long way for the Kings in the race for that fourth West Division playoff spot.
LA Kings Young core isn’t ready
Drastic turnarounds from a bottom-feeder to a playoff team do happen in the NHL. One recent example is the Toronto Maple Leafs finishing in last place in the league with 69 points in 2015-16 before making the playoffs with 95 in the 2016-17 season.
An even more extreme example is the Colorado Avalanche, who in 2016-17 had just 48 points. It’s still the worst 82-game season any team’s had since the expansion Atlanta Thrashers had 39 points in the 1999-2000 season.
The next season, the Avalanche had 95 points and made the playoffs.
This may sound like I’m giving another reason why the Kings can make the playoffs, but there’s a big difference between this Kings team and those Maple Leafs and Avalanche teams. Those teams had great young cores in the NHL and ready to take a big step forward.
Athanasiou on why he decided to join rebuilding Kings. light. Trending
The 2016-17 season marked the beginning of the Auston Matthews/Mitch Marner/William Nylander era in Toronto, and that trio of super talented young forwards led the Leafs to a 26-point improvement in the standings.
Meanwhile, as bad as the Avs were in 2016-17, they still had a talented young core in place. The next season they watched as Nathan MacKinnon, Gabriel Landeskog, and Mikko Rantanen all took huge steps forward, with MacKinnon even becoming one of the very best players in the league and finishing as the runner-up for the Hart Trophy.
As for the Kings, many of the players they are hoping will form the core of their next great team — Quinton Byfield, Alex Turcotte, Arthur Kaliyev, Samuel Fagemo — have never played in the NHL yet. Some of those players may get some action in the NHL this season, but they likely aren’t ready to lead the Kings to that kind of turnaround yet.
Shortened season
There are a couple of reasons why the Kings could be a team that benefits from playing a 56-game season rather than an 82-game one.
For one, the longer a season is, the more likely it is for the best teams to eventually end up at the top of the standings. In a shorter season, there’s less time there is for a lesser team’s hot start to evaporate.
Furthermore, all the time off some of the Kings’ older players have gotten off since they last played nearly 10 months ago could have done them some good. Kopitar noted in last week’s Zoom call that several veterans he spoke with indicated the 2004-2005 lockout year extended their careers by two or three more years.
Jeff Carter underwent core muscle surgery last June and turned 36 last week. Like Doughty and Jonathan Quick, Carter is another veteran King who has seen his play fall off over the last couple of years. Perhaps all this time off will allow them to show up with their bodies feeling fresher than they have in a long time and get off to a hot start to the season.
LA Kings Goaltending
Though the LA Kings weren’t an elite offensive team even when they were winning Stanley Cups, they made up for it with how good they were at keeping pucks out of their own net. That isn’t the case anymore, though.
Quick owns an .896 save percentage over the last two seasons. Cal Petersen has pretty played well in limited NHL action, posting a .923 save percentage in 19 games with the Kings over the last two seasons, but remember that this is the same goalie who has a .904 save percentage and 3.32 GAA in 116 career AHL games.
Frankly, it isn’t hard to envision a scenario where the Kings end up struggling both to score goals and prevent them this season. A lot’s going to need to go right for them to be a good team, but given their competition for the fourth seed in the West Division, maybe they won’t need all of it to go right.