Quick and belated grades from Saturday night’s 2-5 loss to the Canucks.
Game Grades
Forward Lines
- 1st line (Brown-Kopitar-Williams), Grade: D. Drew a difficult assignment. Hard-matched against the Sedin line and started more shifts in the defensive zone than in the offensive zone. Ice tilted heavily in the Sedin’s favor. Were able to keep chances down but generated no offense.
- 2nd Line (Lewis/Penner-Richards-Carter), Grade: C. Again Sutter split Lewis and Penner on this line. Penner ended up with 14 es minutes to Lewis’ 11. Overall, the line was played to a draw against the Hansen line. Richards was +5 in shot differential but -1 in chances.
- 3rd Line (Penner/Lewis-Stoll-King), Grade: D. Started 3 of their shifts in the offensive zone to only one in the defensive end and matched against the Lapierre line. Managed 0 shots on goal when on the ice together. Dwight King gained the zone 6 times and dumped it in 5 which served to prevent the unit from gaining any offensive momentum.
- 4th Line (Clifford-Fraser-Nolan), Grade: B. The best effort from this unit in a long time. Fraser gained the zone 4 times, 3 with possession–proving that the bottom 6 need not resort to dump-ins so often. This helped them win the possession battle but didn’t lead to very many quality opportunities.
Defensive Pairings
- Muzzin-Doughty, Grade: D. Lost both the possession and scoring chance battle while spending more time against the Hansen line than the Sedin line.
- Scuderi-Voynov, Grade: D. Spent all of their time against the Lapierre and Sedin lines and started 88% of their shifts in the offensive end (as compared to defensive zone starts). The result? Voynov -2 in attempts and chances.
- Ellerby-Drewiske, Grade A. The Kings managed more chances with Ellerby on the ice than any other player. Ellerby also had the best possession numbers as the Kings had the most attempts while he was on ice and the fewest attempts allowed among defenseman.
Power Play
- Grade: A. A goal, 3 chances and 6 shots in 6:39 of PP time. Kopitar still not getting involved with regard to shots on the PP. He was shutout and still only has 1 PP shot this season.
Penalty Kill
- Grade: A. 4:00 of PK time 2 shots on goal and only 1 chance. Penalty kill recovered from some recent poor showings with a strong effort against a dangerous unit. Of note, Ellerby saw substantial SH time.
Goaltending
- Grade: F. Jonathan Quick faced 10 shots on goal from within the scoring chance area and only saved 6 of them. His sv% for the game was .826. Bernier will start tonight against the Predators.
Overall Team Grade: D.
- The only real bright spots for the Kings were the play of their special teams and some of their depth players.
- Kings gained the zone 72 times at 5v5. That is the most they’ve gained in a game this year. They also were kept to only 0.28 shots per entry, that is the fewest they’ve managed this season.
- Vancouver gained the zone with control 43%, which is to be expected since they were playing with the lead the entire game. Kings only managed 44% in spite of playing catch-up.
Numbers
If you’re unfamiliar with shot attempts and scoring chances, check out these links to see why they are important: Corsi – Scoring Chances.
*numbers in paranthesis are scoring chances in all situations.
What grade would you give the Kings in their latest effort against the Canucks?
| A | 0 |
| B | 0 |
| C | 3 |
| D | 22 |
| F | 8 |