Real quick Game 2 breakdown before tonight:
Line Matching Heat Map
Head-to-Head Scoring Chances:
via the very wonderul nhlnumbers.com. Thanks to Corey S., check out his GM2 breakdown here.
Positives
- The Kings were able to shutdown the Devils‘ top line. Most the their time came against the Kings 3rd line and 2nd pairing, both of which had a miserable game. One can assume that every other matchup had a very positive outcome against them in order to drive their numbers down to such a degree. This is good news for the Kings heading into home ice where they can now control who plays against who.
- The Richards line continues to be very solid. They were the only Kings line to come away with a positive grade in possession and completely annhilated the Devils’ fourth line in the few shifts they got against them. Will the Kings look to exploit that matchup at home?
- Even though the Kopitar lines’ possession numbers were suppresssed they were still able to win the scoring chance battle.
- Drew Doughty might have replaced Anze Kopitar at the top of my Kings’ Conn Smythe candidate list.
- The scariest result after the first two games of the final has got to be the play of the Mitchell-Voynov pair. The Devils forecheck continues to amplify their forechecking aggressiveness when they are on the ice and they have not handled it well. The Kings usually adept 3rd pairing was also off last night, so don’t expect any radical changes in ice time for either. We’ll see what Sutter does to counteract this at LA.
- The Kings’ depth lines really struggled. There has not been a game thus far in the playoffs where the Kings bottom six played so poorly and yet the Kings won. Still, this is not a trend that can continue. Pay close attention to how they fare tonight.
Negatives
Even Strength Line Combinations:
Kings Forwards:
- L1 = Brown-Kopitar-Williams
- L2 = Penner-Richards-Carter
- L3 = King-Stoll-Lewis
- L4 = Richardson-Fraser-Nolan/
Kings Defense:
- D1 = Scuderi-Doughty
- D2 = Mitchell-Voynov
- D3 = Martinez-Greene/
Devils Forwards:
- L1 = Parise-Zajac-Zubrus/Kovalchuk
- L2 = Kovalchuk/Zubrus-Henrique-Ponikarovsky
- L3 = Clarkson-Josefson-Elias
- L4 = Carter-Gionta-Bernier/
Devils Defense:
- D1 = Salvador-Zidlicky
- D2 = Greene-Fayne
- D3 = Volchenkov-Harrold/
Previous in the series: Preview(Parts 1,2,3 and 4) and Game 1.
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