They just need to good enough. The team was one of the best in the league with Copley barely above .900.

I mean i wouldn't say one of the best in the league, they we're 5th in the west so probily 10th in the league overall. Now I don't think you need the best goalie in the league to win the cup if you've got a deep team but they need more consistency than copley.

Yeah.

Their biggest issue has been shutting down the Oilers when it counts

Copley gave them consistency, hence his 24-6-3 statline. The problem with LA (and they reason they were not higher than 5th in the west/10th overall) had to do with the goaltending PRIOR to Copley joining, which was absolutely atrocious.

Copley's near-league average goaltending was exactly what the Kings needed to steady the ship and play well. His record with them, even with a 0.903 save percentage, extrapolates out to a 121 point pace over the course of an 82 game season.

Korpiszn in Ottawa and Talbot szn in LA

If I am reading this right, LA has 24 million in space and 10 players signed next season. That fact along with the fact that their not exactly a young team. They may have a sizeable fall off in the near future

Both are going to have rough years

You're not wrong. And to be more precise on that, it's been shutting down McDavid and Draisaitl specifically when they are paired together.

Both of the past post-seasons, Games 1-3, Woodcroft has only played Connor and Leon on the same line during power plays. He's made an adjustment both times to play the two of them together as 5-on-5 partners Games 4-7 (6 last year), and the Kings have had absolutely no answer for it.

I really think that's why they went out and got PLD. He's going to play 3C for nearly the entire season, but I'd bet my mortgage that if the Kings play the two-headed monster of Connor/Leon again TMac will slide PLD up with Danault to at least attempt to keep those two in check better than Trevor Moore or Viktor Arvidsson could. Danault's proven adept at keeping 97 from scoring 3 points a game... until the two were placed together. LA's winger answer to that combo has been lacking. Hopefully not anymore.

Disagree especially on Korpi . Talbot is the clear backup in LA

that stat line is from the team playing very well infront of him, so like i said you don't need the best goalie, but .903 sv% is below league average and that needs to at least be average if they want to win the cup

Currently nobody that needs to be re-signed is going to demand a huge pay-day. LA WANTS Byfield to demand it, but his play thus far is leading me to believe he's going to get a bridge contract. Kaliyev is similar. But it's not like Kempe, Kopitar, PLD, Fiala, or Danault need to be part of that 24mil (that's 5 of the top-6), and the Kings also have their top 4 D-men, minus Matt Roy, locked down.

The cap is tight this year, but I expect there will be more space than expected to get a better goalie than Talbot/Copley next season. I wouldn't expect a fall-off yet. When Kopitar retires and a replacement is needed for 1C (if Byfield or PLD don't pan out).... that's another story.

Wdym?

Not really , they have Clarke and Spence and a lot of depth coming in . They’re very good longterm

A lot of old guys making big money for several years on this Squad still

Only Kopitar, Doughty, Talbot and Lewis are the old guys. Kempe (26) Fiala (27) Dubois (25) Anderson (24) Clarke (20) Byfield (20) Moore (28) Roy (expiring but probably be extended is 28) Gavrikov (27). Danault is 30 and maybe his scoring falls off in a year or two but along as his defensive game keeps up he will be fine. Arvidsson (30) probably not extended. Kaliyev (22) still upside with him. Spence (22).

And they still have the majority of their picks to trade and draft with.

Kings should've stacked Danualt and Kopi together TBH... Bc they were both shutting down those two individually but then Woodcroft figured out to stack them and overwhelm one of them

Another thing was that Doughty couldn't keep up with the fast play and Korpisalo would let in very weak goals

Overall, both those series were winnable for LA IMO, but their lack of adjustments failed them both times

Don’t worry if they have to in the playoffs , they could roll Dubois-Kopitar-Danault on 1 line lmao

Then it's up to LA to play that adjustment... IMO, EDM and LA should run 11-7 bc it plays to their individual advantages, LA with all their lockdown centres and EDM bc most of their offence revolves around 2 guys

Who knows they may run 11-7 with Clarke

Kopi just doesn't have the speed to keep up with those two anymore, which isn't a knock on him. Age waits for no man. That's why Danault has been tasked with matching up to McDavid.

I'm not sure I agree with your Doughty assessment. Nobody in the world can keep up with McDavid, but I thought Doughty did just as well as anyone could have. The penalty kill ruined LA more than anything else. But there's only so much that could have been done against that historic power play.

And I agree completely with the fact that they were winnable series. One of my biggest knocks on TMac is he doesn't make adjustments well. When he does, it's WAYYY to late. That's always been his M.O.

Vegas, who's significantly worse defensively than LA IMO was able to keep up with Drai and McDavid... They should have stacked Kopi or Kempe onto Danault's wing when those 2 were out...

Doughty, from what I remember, was invisible... Which hurts and is unexpected from a guy like him

Agreed... I think Gallant would be a good fit in LA bc of that

That would be the included in the plan to ensure he gets reps

I think Vegas has a 10x better coach that was able to create a legit gameplan around EDM. Not to mention their bottom 6 was deeper than LA's. And the final piece of the puzzle was the fact that their defenseman are essentially redwood trees. Huge guys who were able to keep Draisaitl and McDavid to the perimeter.

One of LA's weaknesses has been the size on the back-end. Bringing in Clarke over Durzi should help that, as will a full year of Gavrikov. And finally, Edler was just so... old haha. Great player for his time, but trying to keep up with the speed of EDM was not good for him.

And I looked at the stats for Drew. They do point to him struggling more than I remember.