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Dean Lombardi used Terry Murray's system to evaluate Brian Boyle, Matt Moulson and Teddy Purcell, each of whom was dismissed because they couldn't do what they had always been able to do well (score goals) while also doing what Murray wanted them to do (play the system). Moulson was never Mr Defense; Boyle tried hard to fit in a 4th line role, and never really got it (while providing some good comedy by looking grief-stricken while punching people); Purcell was defensively pretty good in his final Kings season. But none of them could score while playing D, so now they're somewhere else. To some extent, the issue of why they didn't stick with the Kings is irrelevant since there wasn't really room in the top-six for them anyway. The path to the top-six would have included a lengthy sojourn on the third line, a la Wayne Simmonds, and none of those guys was really suited to that task. So I am not grinding my teeth over the fact that these guys moved on. But I am interested in the idea that in order to get to the top-six you essentially have to prove yourself by playing on a line that plays all-defense-all-the-time. Or else we're talking about the fourth line -- the enforcers, energy guys and AHL snipers line -- where your outlook is even less hopeful. 

Purcell is an interesting case in that regard, because he actually played well on the defensive side of the puck, but ultimately was undone by his inability to score while doing so. He was given some opportunities to play with the big boys, but just as (or more?) often he was playing on the fourth line with fists of ham and just about zero chance to get any offense going. The Terry Murray credo -- which we saw applied to Alexei Ponikarovsky this year, Frolov in years past, Purcell in his last year -- seemed to be "just score anyway." As in, play defense against tougher opposition and score like you did in the minors with no linemates to work with. 

That's a pretty tall order, but that doesn't mean it's not the right call by Murray. After all, these are grown-ups and professionals. A high degree of execution is in order, isn't it? This got me thinking about the assumptions built into Murray's expectations of his players. And I kept coming back to the same question:

Should every player be required to pass the same defensive "aptitude tests"? 

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Bourne Blog: Lightning can’t become slaves to their system - Puck Daddy - NHL Blog - Yahoo! Sports

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned by anyone else or not, but Guy Boucher likes his team to play a 1-3-1 in the neutral zone. [...] The 1-3-1 is a nice, active system; but like all systems, it can be beat if an opponent executes a few [specific] maneuvers.

In this case, a well-timed chip and support with speed can leave a team with puck possession while heading towards the offensive zone, and that lucky player may occasionally find himself facing a lone defender on the backend.

Rotation has to be flawless to stop that.

Successful teams are usually adept at making adjustments. When a forward is bringing the puck up the ice and he knows exactly what defensive scheme he's up against, it becomes a matter of simple execution; and simple execution is far easier to accomplish than having to read and react, then execute. 

[...]

The thing is, I think the Kings have managed the worst of both worlds. When things fall apart, it seems that (1) opponents have solved the system and the defensive system doesn't adapt, while (2) frustrated by lack of offense, players abandon the system in order to "put the team on their shoulders," which results in defensive break-downs. The first is the system not working because of a failure to adapt; the second is the system not working because of a failure of execution. 

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Evaluation: Dean Lombardi " LA Kings Insider

The good: In terms of drafting the development of young players, Lombardi’s tenure has been a success. He has brought in players such as Drew Doughty, Alec Martinez, Jonathan Bernier, Kyle Clifford, Trevor Lewis and Oscar Moller, as well as developing players such as Anze Kopitar and Jonathan Quick (picks made late in the Dave Taylor era) and Jack Johnson.

Lombardi traded for Johnson,

I don't know why Wayne Simmonds is left off the list of players Lombardi has "brought in." He's also done remarkably well with non-1st round picks; in addition to Moller and Simmonds (both 2nd round), there's Voynov (2nd round), Loktionov (5th round), Maxim Kitsyn (7th round), Linden Vey (4th) and Tyler Toffoli (2nd). Yes, I know those prospects have not graduated to the NHL and anything is possible, I also know that having so many potential steals in later rounds is unusual. 

In essence, Lombardi is doing exactly what he said he would, rebuild the team from the back end first. The Kings’ goaltending and defense is fully constructed and would appear to be in strong shape for years to come, and players such as Brayden Schenn and Andrei Loktionov appear ready to boost the forward ranks. 

Another thing deserves mention, I think, and that's the number of undrafted UFA signings Lombardi has made. Martin Jones, Jake Muzzin, Peter Harrold, Davis Drewiske, Kevin Westgarth -- those last three guys being pretty useful pieces -- and two other excellent undrafted UFAs Lombardi signed, Teddy Purcell and Matt Moulson. (Don't get me started...)

The bad: Over the past five years, Lombardi has done little to change the "book" on him, that he’s great at drafting and developing but shaky in terms of trades and free agents. To be certain, acquisitions such as Justin Williams, Michal Handzus, Willie Mitchell, Rob Scuderi and Matt Greene have proven to be solid. So are Jarret Stoll and Ryan Smyth, but they’re also being paid a large amount of money for secondary roles.

Ryan Smyth cost us a little more than $3MM a year, because we gave them Tom Preissing. By the way, I just realized that Preissing's contract is done only now. We would still be paying that guy.

Anyway, my point is that the Smyth overpayment is actually underpayment. But, to be fair, you then have to mention the Preissing signing as one of the big busts, along with Nagy, and the Cloutier trade. 

[...] Then there’s Dustin Penner. Unless Penner turns things around next season, the most significant trade of the Lombardi era is going to go down as a flop.

Here's how I would rank Lombardi's most significant trades:

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Pretty much the last place I expect to find hockey content is Andrew Sullivan's political blog The Daily Dish. Nevertheless, Google Reader delivered not one, not two, but three hockey posts.

"Hockey Luvin Homos" - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

[A reader writes:] Check out this clip from the game last night, where the announcer discusses a couple of additions to the team this year that, uh, brought them over the hump. The dialog near the 30 second mark is too perfect.

Follow the link for the video. It's from last night's Kings game. It's not exactly clear from this one post, but Andrew Sullivan is a gay, conservative political writer, and his readers frequently send in funny gay-themed content from all corners of the web. In the next two posts (well, in the first one at least), Sullivan cites the op-ed piece in question as an example of how pervasive and/or accepted fat jokes are. 

Could An Obese Goalie Change Hockey? - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

Todd Gallagher says yes:

As strange as it may sound to anyone with a sense of decency, there is actually sound reasoning behind it. Because of the geometry of the game, the potential for one mammoth individual to change hockey is staggering. [...] Fill [the] net completely, and no goals can possibly be scored against your team. So why hasn't it happened yet? One answer is that professionalism and fair play prevent many sports teams from doing whatever it takes to win. This is also known as "having no imagination." Additionally, in hockey the worry of on-ice reprisal from bloodthirsty goons would weigh heavily on the mind of any player whose very existence violated the game's "unwritten rules."

What follows is an essay that proves one thing: mocking the obese in print is so accepted in society that the Wall Street Journal will print an entire article that relies on doing so throughout for a punchline.

And the follow up, in which readers write in:

Could An Obese Goalie Change Hockey? Ctd - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

A puckhead writes: [...]

"All organized leagues follow NHL size guidelines for pads, gloves, chest/arm protectors, pants, etc., and I can tell you that a human being who stands 6'+ tall and is 4'+ wide would never be able to physically fit into regulation equipment. And even if he/she could cram themselves into the gear, I'm sure there would be an immense amount of exposed skin where the poor bastard wouldn't even want to lay there on the ice getting peppered. [...]

Another writes:

"The 'fat goalie fallacy' is something familiar to most fans of hockey. It's the kind of stupid question that gets asked by those completely ignorant of the sport. Why is it so dumb? Because playing in goal is Hard Work. A fat slob of a goalie may block more of the net, but they would still need to have the athletic reflexes to catch 100-mile-an-hour slapshots, the strength to drop down [...] and bounce back up again [...], the skating ability to go side to side [...], and the endurance to play for a full 60 minutes [...]

 

Because as kids we were not yet sensitive to the feelings of others -- and possibly because we did not realize how fat we ourselves might one day become -- we from time to time would theorize on the viability of the super-fat goalie question. Even at age seven or eight, we concluded that even someone as fat as Mr. Creosote would not be able to fill the entire goal hermetically, and even if such a person were found, the result would be death from internal injuries. 

Left-Handed Shots in Hockey (and of course they got the story wrong) - Behind The Net

There was a piece in the San Jose Mercury News yesterday on left-handed shots in hockey. Some insight: 

"Left-shot players far outnumber their right-shot counterparts. That disparity is especially seen among defensemen. "You can't help but notice," said Jason Demers, a right-shot Sharks defenseman. "But I have no idea why. Nobody knows for sure, but it's weird." It gets even weirder. Canadian and European hockey players tend to be left shot while more Americans are right shot. "I wish I had a good reason for why that is," said Mike Mountain, director of sticks and blades at Van Nuys-based Easton Sports. "But the reason there are more left-shot players in the NHL is because there are more from Canada and international markets than from the U.S.""

Except...It's not true. [...] Europeans are much more likely to be left-handed shots than Canadians and Americans - who each shoot left in the same proportion. [...] [D]efensemen are no more or less likely to shoot left-handed than centers: [...] I have noticed that among players who picked up the game in the US later in life, there are many more right-handed shots - most likely because right-handed people play right-handed in golf and baseball. But if you start playing hockey when [you're little], it's most likely that your coach will put a left-handed stick in your hands and you'll learn to play that way.

I am right-handed and a left-shot. I catch (a baseball, for instance) with my left hand. I throw with my right. It always made sense to me to shoot left because my strong hand (right) held the top of the stick, leaving (for example) my left hand to catch pucks or annoy people or whatever else it needed to do. I don't remember making a conscious decision to shoot this way or that way; I just picked up a stick and that was the way I did it. I probably didn't even know there was a left or right at the time.

If I had to guess, I would guess that the reason some right-handed people become right-shots is that parents buy them their equipment and just assume the kid shoots right because he's right handed. And some become right-shots because their brothers or sisters are right shots and they steal/borrow/inherit their sticks. And of course there used to be a strong prejudice against left-handedness (it being a sign of the devil and all), which caused a lot of parents to force their children to be right-handed despite their natural inclination. I wouldn't be surprised if that influenced parents as well. 

This is a half-baked theory if ever there was one. Feel free to chime in.

Is there a psychic in the house? " LA Kings Insider
What is the magic number of points needed to make the playoffs in the Western Conference? Right now, it’s on track to be 97. For a while, the Kings worked under the premise that it would be 95. That was reasonable, given that in the first five post-lockout seasons, the eighth-place teams in the Western Conference have finished, respectively, with 95, 96, 91, 91 and 95 points. Might it take more this season. Dallas, currently in ninth-place, is on a point-per-game trajectory that suggests a final point total of 96.8, which suggests that the eighth-place team might need 97. Now, the other side of that is that the number of late-season intra-division games — particularly in the Pacific Division — might slow that point pace. 

I started this post with the idea that Rich was wrong, but it turns out he's right. Then I had the idea that he was right, but being very conservative. But it turns out he might actually be underestimating the number. 

As it stands right now (Rich wrote this before last night's game), current point totals project to a three-way tie for 7th between ANA, DAL and NAS, at 97 points. That would mean that one of those teams would miss the playoffs with 97 points.

Based on that, 98 is a better target. And if you're a team looking for some kind of comfort zone, it's better to over-shoot than under-shoot. 

That said -- and nothing is certain in the wild West -- if I had to bet, I would bet on the 8th place team at no more than 96. But there's a catch...

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This is part two or three in a series, depending on where you start counting. First we ran a fantasy draft, with GMs me, Rudy and Niesy. Then we posted the results in a pretty chart. Now each GM has chosen lines and pairs, and re-assigned numbers where there was overlap.

The next step will be running some polls to get membership input on how the players should be ranked (calibrated) in terms of speed, strength, intelligence, shooting, passing, checking (etc.), because I will need this data in order to proceed to the ultimate joy: a simulated tournament with these teams in NHL 11.

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