The Los Angeles Kings’ season is off to a rough start, and it might not be looking up for some time. The team announced today that Jonathan Quick is out indefinitely following surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his right knee. The team has recalled Peter Budaj, who will back up Jack Campbell in net for the Kings.
This is a crushing blow to a Kings team that is already at the bottom of the NHL standings thanks to an early season Quick injury and uninspired play by many of their key players. Los Angeles will now have to find a way to climb out of the basement with their best goaltender sidelined, and a duo in place that combined for a grand total of 13 NHL appearances last season. Campbell is completely unproven at the NHL level despite his early play, while Budaj is now 36 and has had a only a single successful season over the last several years.
The Kings do have talent on their roster, but not enough of it has shown through the early part of the year. Drew Doughty and newcomer Ilya Kovalchuk lead the team with eight points through the first 11 games, but younger players like Adrian Kempe and Michael Amadio have failed to take the necessary steps to elevate the team. Much of the rest of the core in Los Angeles is already on the wrong side of 30 and declining with age, leaving the coaching staff struggling to find any sense of consistency on a nightly basis.
While this season is certainly off to a rough start, and Quick’s injury only exacerbates that, there are at least rays of hope on the horizon. Gabe Vilardi has recently returned to the ice in a non-contact jersey, and prospects like Kale Clague and Rasmus Kupari are off to great starts in their respective professional leagues. Jaret Anderson-Dolan even has two goals in his first two games after being sent back to junior earlier this month, and should be part of the Canadian World Junior squad in a few months. The struggles of the NHL club can’t be fixed right away with any of those young players, but this season is also quite young. With talents like Doughty and Anze Kopitar still on the roster, the Kings could stage something of a comeback throughout the year—they’ll just have to do it without the services of Quick for the time being.
We’re dead.
This team was going nowhere anyways…. all this does is give the kings fans, who don’t really follow hockey and see the lack of talent on the team, the ability to say: “we would’ve been a playoff team but quick was injured early in the year and then hurt his knee right after that…”. Newsflash: quick is overused and wearing down…. and much like kopitar, kovalchyuk, brown, phanuef….. he is signed to a huge contract which is tying up the kings ability to add PLAYMAKERS AND SPEED, for the foreseeable future. As a kings fan myself, at least I’m aware of the dark days ahead. This could very well be a terrible 4-5 years for the kings. The league is younger, faster, and more skilled every year…. and the kings are going in the other direction. They have to cross their fingers and hope every single player from this past draft class (where they finally added speed, skill, etc) pans out like they hope. They don’t have the salary cap space to add anyone… they have to bank on every big draft prospect panning out. Not a likely scenario.
Yes speed is an issue but you are beating this drum way too hard. They just dont look motivated and have the same boring system that Sutter uses. Your really saying that Kovalchuk, Kopitar heck even Brown dont have skill? Phaneuf sure but he was brought in on a bad salary trade so its not like they used cap room to add him. They need a coach that actually knows how to run an offense. The talent is there.
I don’t think I wrote anywhere that those players DON’T have any skill. They are in the NHL, obviously they have skill. However, they all have a skill set that is outdated in terms of the trends of the NHL. Kopitar, brown, etc… they aren’t the type of players to enter the zone with speed while maintaining puck control… they are a dump, use their body, grind it out team for the most part. And while you need those TYPES of players…. of those are you main offensive weapons in today’s game, THAT is an issue. There’s a reason even the powerplay is a joke. There’s a reason, even after hiring an “offensive coordinator” that the offense doesn’t improve…. at some point, you simply don’t have the talent on the roster to do the things you’d like done. nobody is dumb enough to say “kopitar isn’t skilled”…. and while he’s a great two-way player, he’s not the kind of skill this team is lacking…. he’s actually the kind we have too much of. And that kind of skill… big body, control the puck down low, defensive minded forwards…. has resulted in poor offense for years. Kempe has speed…. that’s not what I’m saying. It’s a speed/skill factor that is missing. Being a fast skater isn’t everything. I think it might be you beating the speed drum a bit too hard….
This whole season there have been 2 games where the stuff you are taking about was prevalent. At Toronto and Winnipeg. Yes those are the teams that you would have to beat to do any damage, but i didn’t expect them to beat those teams. The 7-2 loss to NYI or 4-1 to BUF or 5-1 to OTT were all a flat out lack of effort and bad goaltending. Its so much more than skill/speed to lose games like that to meh teams.