I consider this to be a tell.
Lombardi: success and disappointments ” LA Kings Insider
LOMBARDI: “In a backhanded way — and I said this during the season — I don’t like the fact that we put ourselves in situations where we had to face adversity, but I liked the way we dealt with it. […] it was almost like we had trouble dealing with success. I put success in quotes. We had the 12-3 (start), and there’s such a thing of feeling good about yourself in the wrong way. Then we had another stretch where we were really good, and it looked like we had learned from the first one, then we fell off and put ourselves to where we had to fight our way back and play at an incredibly high winning percentage to get in (to the playoffs). “Then you almost look at the playoffs too, a 4-0 lead (in Game 3). It’s almost like you’ve got a microcosm of some of the things you faced during the year. […] to be a really good team is to learn to be professional. If you look at the good teams, you have to define the problem and then recognize the signs that this is not going to seep in again. That’s the responsibility of your captains and your young people going, that when you get off to 12-3 and you start seeing that slide, knock it off. Detroit, when they’re in a slide, they’ve be .500, but you don’t go 0-8 or 0-9 or whatever. […] the playoffs start and we were very uncharacteristic in what is supposed to be a staple of our game.[…] We were fourth in the league in goals against, and we accomplished that. Then we got in the playoffs and we scored goals and all of a sudden we’re giving them up. So that’s something we’ve got to look at closely.
I think, as much as anything, Lombardi just upgraded his leadership group in a huge way.