Midseason Mailbag Part 2
Better late than never. We discuss the LA Kings downfall, the Flyers resurgence, Oilers trade deadline targets, Lukas Reichel & Jordan Kyrou's strange season
Why Does My Team Stink? (Kings Edition)
The short answer for the Kings problems is they’re in a miserable shooting slump, (last I checked they were scoring on only 5% of their even strength shots) and it’s impossible to win like that unless your home rink automatically transports you to the year 2000. They’ll eventually break out of it, but I do see the big picture problem with this team and why they opted to change coaches.
They’ve lost to the same opponent in the first round two years in a row and are trying to make that jump to becoming an elite team instead of cannon fodder for the Oilers power play. In the first 20-something games, things were looking pretty good.
Between the two blue lines, there still aren’t many teams better than them. They have a plethora of guys who can get the puck into the zone & create some quick-strike offense while their defense is just as good at shutting down entries. Other parts of the game have been a struggle. They aren’t the most consistent team with generating scoring chances or executing passing plays. Their rush offense is near the top of the league, but they’re closer to the middle of the pack when it comes to things like chance creation, shot assists & they’re one of the lowest ranked teams in the league in terms of creating high danger passes. So, they’re leaving some offense on the table and you’re going to have stretches like this where goals are hard to come by.
They have a lot of good players but lack the one player posting superstar results. Kevin Fiala can be that guy, but hasn’t this year. Pierre-luc Dubois has never been that guy, Adrian Kempe’s finishing has tapered off and Trevor Moore can only carry your offense so far. They definitely have the guys, they just need one of them to break into that next tier during this final stretch.
You also have to wonder if this team is good enough to get over the Edmonton hump, since the playoffs are more about “can you beat this team?” rather than how good your own team is.They’ve got a lot of other concerns if this is their top priority. Their penalty kill is much better now, but their defense corps is still very sloppy with getting the puck out of their zone. They play at a very slow pace & if they can’t control the terms at which they break the puck out, things usually go off the rails (similar to the Rangers). They have one of the highest possession exit rates in the league, but also the most failed exits, which is usually what happens when you have a team that’s slow & deliberate on breakouts.
I’m not sure if the coaching change is going to fix this, but the pace usually picks up when there’s a new voice behind the bench & the shooting will figure itself out eventually. Their offensive philosophy isn’t great, but it’s not “shoot 5% for 40 games” bad.
Jordan Kyrou’s Weird Season
This was interesting to look into because I’ve thought Kyrou has looked fantastic this year whenever I’ve worked a Blues game. It seems like most of their offense revolves around him & Robert Thomas. He’s gotten back to being the lethal chance creator that he was in his second year.
As for why he’s not as productive, he has only one power play goal compared to 11 last year and he’s shooting at a career low percentage. The Blues have a god-awful power play and it seems to run through Torey Krug at the point now instead of Robert Thomas along the wall like it did last year. Kyrou is typically one of the flanks for one-timers, so maybe they’ve had a hard time setting him up. Watching a quick clip of them & they seem pretty hesitant to make any play that isn’t to the point, so I’m not sure if it’s too late in the season to fix this.
Kyrou has gotten better in a lot of the more impactful areas at five-on-five, so I wouldn’t worry about the scoring too much. He’s driving offense at a pretty insane rate regardless.
Surprising Flyers
The Flyers resurgence depends on how you feel about a few things. Sean Couturier is back in healthy. I think we all forgot how damn good of a player Travis Konecny is & he’s been one of the best wingers in the league this year, Owen Tippett figuring out how to score goals & the Tyson Foresters & Morgan Frosts of the roster contributing at odd times. The biggest thing for me was the addition by subtraction with Provorov & DeAngelo. Not that both players are awful, but they were playing heavy minutes with defensive zone work & got bad results. They moved on & the by-committee approach on their blue line is working better this year.
The returning Couturier also makes a difference when you look at the workload he takes on in the defensive zone. Compare the guys retrieving pucks & starting breakouts from last year:
To This year:
Pretty big difference in quality, huh? Fewer turnovers & you have better players in general starting with the puck from your end. I might have underestimated this roster now that they’re actually healthy for the first time since before Toronto Bubble.
Trade Deadline Chatter
In a vacuum, I like Carrier the best out of those three. That pair doesn’t get the McDavid minutes, but if you want someone who can handle the fire drills in the neutral zone you get with Draisaitl & complement him on offense, he’s probably the best of the three. Ceci’s big frame & conservative style of defending works to a degree, but these two have been the Oilers worst at giving up chances off entries this year & they’re bleeding expected goals against.
Yes, they have a tough role but like the Kings, they have to start thinking about playoff matchups & their immobile blue line is partially what did them in against Vegas. You get some stability with Nurse & Ceci, but you also have a lot of plays die at the blue line & that is a killer when you’re playing from behind. Trading for Carrier & sliding him into Ceci’s role isn’t going to automatically fix it, but he has a lot of things going for him when you look at his body of work in Nashville.
He’s played top-four minutes before, both with Mattias Ekholm and Roman Josi, and one of his roles there was retrieving pucks to start exits. He was a big part of Josi’s monster season a couple of years ago, doing most of the work with chasing pucks down in the defensive zone so their star player & make the most of his elite offensive skills. He got more by doing less. Nurse isn’t Josi, but he is better at the sprinter out of the zone than the retriever & Carrier is someone who can unlock that. Compare his workload in the defensive zone to Ceci & it’s a huge difference.
Retrievals are more of a team-dependent stat since coaches have their favorites & roster make-up is a huge part of it. Carrier just seems to have the skillset to get more from your forwards if he can handle the tougher role. You lose some size on the blue line, but the Oilers issues in the games they lost against Vegas was that they couldn’t score & got shutdown when coming from behind. Adding someone like Carrier on their second pair could give them another layer.
The highlights are only part of the story, but I’ve watched him for awhile & have always been a fan of the way he sees the game under pressure. He’s very good at taking the hits & making the first exchange to the forwards & has shown flashes offensively. He’s just really good at getting pucks to the net even if it’s just to create a scramble or a loose play for someone in front to cash in on. I think that’ll could help the Oilers squeeze out an extra goal or two when the games get tough.
As for Walker, he’s more of a pure rushing defenseman and I think that’s the guy you go with if you’re looking for an all-out approach with offense. He’s had a fantastic season with the Flyers, but doesn’t have the same recent track record as Carrier as a top-four option. He is worth the gamble if you want to really get some extra goals out of the Oilers top-six, though.
Lukas Reichel’s Struggles
It’s been frustrating and somewhat perplexing, because he’s excelled in some areas that are really tough at the NHL level, namely zone entries leading to scoring chances. He’s one of the Hawks better players here, the finishing has been abysmal, but even with that you would think this would lead to some sort of results in terms of play-driving or at least setting up teammates. He does have kind of an odd-ball statistical profile, though.
It’s been a struggle for Reichel in everything except zone entries, and he’s not even producing an average number of shots or chances despite that. He’s also not completing any passes, either due to his own play or his linemates, so his poor shooting season is a double whammy. I thought he looked the part last season too, but he also showed some chemistry with Andreas Athanasiou & there has been none of that this year. This is where I would dive into his off-puck play or what his linemates are doing because something isn’t adding up here. There’s clearly talent & he’s trying to make the most of his puck touches, but everything has been a mess so far. This is something that’s worth a full-size article look in the future.
Andrew Brunette
It took a couple of months, but we’re seeing Nashville start to take shape. Their offense was dependent on counter-attacks and turnovers the first half of the year, but things are slowly more balanced now. It’s a little different from how he had the Devils playing last year, as they forced a lot of offense & created a ton off slower, controlled breakouts. Whereas in Nashville it’s been a more patient approach with forcing turnovers & quickly attacking the other way.
Overall, Jersey’s offense has been fine, but they have fallen off in terms of breakouts, exits & creating offense from their own zone. Nashville hasn’t created much in transition that way either, but they are one of the better teams in the league at exiting the zone while the Devils are one of the most turnover-prone teams in the league on breakouts & one of the worst teams in the league at giving up shots from plays starting in the neutral zone. Maybe there’s something to it.