LA Kings: The month of March team report card

It’s time for the monthly report card. How did the LA Kings do for March?

The 2020-2021 NHL season is a little over halfway over, and the LA Kings find themselves in sixth place in the Honda West division with a record of 14-14-6, good for 34 points. They currently trail the St. Louis Blues by four points for the fourth and final playoff spot in the division.

The good news is that the LA Kings are still in the thick of the playoff chase. With a format of intra-division games only, essentially every game is a “four-point” game, meaning that ground can be made up — or lost — much quicker than in a normal season schedule format.

The bad news is that the LA Kings did not help their own playoff chances during March. Although they ended the month with a big 4-2 win over the Golden Knights in Vegas, the team did not string together consecutive wins at any point in the month. The streaks they did put together were of the losing variety, which included two two-game and one three-game losing streak. Overall, the Kings went 5-7-2 for the month of March, picking up 12 out of a possible 28 points.

The report card categories will be offense, defense, goaltending, and special teams. Let’s see how it all breaks down.

Category number one: offense

Current grade: C

Previous Grade: B

Up and down is the best way to describe the LA Kings offense for the month of March.

In six of their fourteen games for the month, they scored three or more goals — including a three-game streak where they scored at least four goals per game. However, the other eight games were putrid. In those games, the Kings could not score more than two goals per game — including getting shut out by Colorado on March 12th.

Overall, the LA Kings scored 36 goals in March, which gives them an average of 2.6 goals scored per game. For the season, they rank 19th in the NHL with 95 total goals scored.

Adrian Kempe led the way in goals scored for the month with seven, while Anze Kopitar led the team in assists and points with nine and thirteen, respectively. Other offensive highlights include Drew Doughty‘s two goals and eight assists, Alex Iafallo‘s four goals and five assists, and Andreas Athanasiou with four goals and three assists. Trevor Moore provided a boost from the bottom six by chipping in two goals and four assists.

To make the playoffs, the LA Kings will need to avoid the offensive droughts that plagued them in the month of March.

Category number two: defense

Current grade: C+

Previous grade: B-

The LA Kings defense is still a work in progress. Actually, make that a very young work in progress — as three defensemen on their current roster are under the age of 25. With that much youth in the lineup, there will be inconsistencies, as this month has shown.

In nine of their fourteen games played in March, the Kings allowed three goals or less. This should give the team a chance to win on those nights, but the Kings do suffer from offensive lapses and so, three goals are sometimes difficult to come by for them, let alone the games where they give up four or more goals. Overall, they gave up 40 goals in March, which breaks down to 2.9 goals per game. Surprisingly, they are thirteenth in the league in goals allowed.

Outside of Drew Doughty, the LA Kings need to get more offensive contributions from their defensive corps. On a bright note, Matt Roy had a decent month in that department. He celebrated his new three-year contract extension by scoring two goals to go along with four assists.

The goals allowed totals can be lived with as they are amplified when the team struggles offensively. The LA Kings’ biggest weakness on defense this season has been the number of shots on goal they allow, and it continued in March. They have allowed the ninth-most shots on goal in the NHL at 31.4 per game, including four games where they allowed 40 or more. Strangely, they won two of those games against the high-powered Vegas Golden Knights, although that had more to do with goaltender Cal Petersen than stellar defensive play.

On a side note, I don’t care what the analytics say. Drew Doughty deserves to be in the Norris Trophy conversation, period.

LA Kings (Mandatory Credit: Isaiah J. Downing-USA TODAY Sports)

Category three: goaltending

Current grade: B+

Previous grade: A

It is clear that Cal Petersen has taken over as the number one goaltender for the LA Kings, and deservedly so. Despite having a record of 3-3-2 for March, he was outstanding. Petersen stopped 243 of the 264 shots he faced for a stellar save percentage of .920%.

As previously mentioned, he beat Vegas twice despite facing 42 shots in each game. In two games against the West Division’s other offensive juggernaut, the Colorado Avalanche, he stopped 80 of 85 shots for a save percentage of .941%. In his one “bad game” for the month in which he gave up six goals on twenty-five shots against the Anaheim Ducks, Petersen was the victim of a few weird deflections and bounces of the puck.

To put it simply, Jonathan Quick struggled in March. He made 112 saves on 128 shots for a save percentage of .875% to go along with a record 1-4-0. To his credit, three of his losses were by one goal each, but that still didn’t help his overall record. At the beginning of the season, it was thought the goaltending duties would be split evenly between Quick and Petersen, but the net now belongs to Petersen. Still, if he overcomes his current struggles, Quick can still be a valuable backup for the LA Kings going forward.

A tip of the hat to Troy Grosenick, who, in his one start of this season on March 10th, stopped 33 of 34 shots to defeat the Anaheim Ducks.