When is Your Checking Line Not Your Checking Line?

I just noticed something fascinating in the Kings exotic stats numbers from the first four games. Actually, I noticed it after game three, but put off mentioning it because I thought maybe it was statistical white noise. I still think it might be. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me back up.

We all know which Kings line is the number one line. And we all know which line is the checking line. There has been much gnashing of teeth at the gall of Terry Murray to put our leading goal scorer on the third line, the checking line. (What, is he is insane? Etc.) I spent most of last year defending Frolov’s supposed defensive weaknesses by citing QUALCOMP stats which showed he drew the toughest defensive assignments of any Kings forward. And clearly when Murray reunited the Frolov/Handzus/Simmonds line for this season, we all knew it was more of the same.

Except it’s not. At least not so far.

I looked at the QUALCOMP numbers after the third game, and much to my surprise, who did I find at the top of the list, playing against the opponents’ highest rated forwards? Stoll/Brown/Purcell, that’s who.

And who was at the bottom of the list, getting the easiest opponents? Frolov/Handzus/Simmonds.

Could it be that Terry Murray has quietly switched his line-matching strategy, treating his publicly-labeled “checking line” like the number two offensive unit and his declared “#2″ line as the real checking line? The idea made me giggle at its shifty brilliance. But it also occurred to me that the numbers could be messed up in the following way: with such a small sample size, wasn’t it possible that the reason Purcell/Stoll/Brown were getting high QUALCOMP numbers was because they themselves (Pucell/Stoll/Brown) were underperforming, thus CAUSING their opponents to have higher ratings and artificially juicing their own QUALCOMP numbers due to their own suckiness? I decided to give it at least another game.

Looking at the numbers after last night’s game, Purcell/Stoll/Brown were still at the top of the forwards, with Frolov/Handzus/Simmonds creeping toward the middle of the pack and the Kopitar line edging toward the easiest opponents. This would of course corroborate the theory that the Stoll line has quietly become the checking line, while the other two lines are getting matched against the weaker opponents.

We’ll see how these numbers look when get farther along. It may still be statistical white noise. Meanwhile, I can enjoy the thought that this is really what Murray is doing; since, after all, I’ve always maintained that Brown is the ideal third-line winger despite the fact that we can never call him that; and we all know that Stoll is not really a top-six forward, while Frolov obviously is one, and Simmonds is playing more like one every day.

[POST GAME 5 UPDATE: Handzus and Frolov are still getting the weakest opponents, with Simmonds creeping up and the Brown line creeping down. The big change with game 5 is that the Kopitar line now has the highest QUALCOMP numbers, which makes sense to me since they are playing so well they're drawing the best the other team has to offer. Although the numbers after five games are not as persuasive as the numbers after three or four games, it's still remarkable that the Stoll line is drawing tougher assignments than the Handzus line. The comparison between Frolov of last year and Frolov of this year is especially striking, since he was the highest rated forward and now he's the lowest rated one -- in terms of the quality of opponent Murray is putting Fro out against. But like I said above, this is still very much "to be continued". The first five games could be an abberation and everything could soon level out.]

Roster I Wish Were Possible

Smyth/Kopitar/Williams

Purcell/Moller/Brown

Frolov/Handzus/Simmonds

Clune/Stoll/Westgarth

(Harrold, Lewis)

Johnson/Scuderi

Doughty/Greene

Hickey/SOD

(Drewiske)

Bernier

Quick

Or, as I like to think of it:

25/35/25

20/20/30

35/20/15

5/15/5

Kings Players With Height Rendered as Font Size

New Post, in which, instead of earning money, I decide to crunch cap figures related to the preposterous Sedin twins to L.A. UFA rumor

Here’s why I don’t think the swedish twins in socal rumor makes any sense, especially not Deano sense.

Math.

The twins want $12MM/year. The Kings, after re-signing Johnson and Purcell, then adding $12MM for the Sedins, would be at at least $58MM. $59MM if Hickey makes the team. So we have to dump one big salary. There are exactly three candidates for dumping: Stoll, Frolov and Johnson. (Handzus has a NTC but maybe he could be shipped to a contender and he would be happy.) I would get rid of Stoll, because if you don’t, there is no place for Schenn to play EVER, since both [whichever Sedin is a center] and Kopitar would be your 1 and 2 centers for the next decade. So let’s say we dump Stoll for picks. Now we’re under the cap. And this is your Los Angeles Kings for 2009-2010:

Twin1/Twin2/Moller

Frolov/Kopitar/Williams

Purcell/Lewis/Brown

Cliche/Handzus/Simmonds

Johnson/Doughty

Quincey/Greene

Hickey/SOD

Drewiske

Quick

Ersberg

Not a bad line-up. However:

Now it’s next summer, June 30, 2010. The cap IS coming down. To around $50MM, maybe lower. The Kings are at $50MM now, but they have to re-sign Frolov, Cliche, Lewis, Quincey and Quick. Conservatively, that’s 5, 1, 1.5, 3 and 3MM. $13.5MM. Add that to $50MM, you’ve got $63.5MM. You’re $13.5MM over the cap.

Oops.

Now, Lombardi will have seen this coming a mile away. And he will conclude, in order not to be completely f***ed in 2010-2011, he’s going to have to have shed a bunch of salary during 2009-2010. Three players with decent salaries. Frolov is obvious, Johnson also…and…I don’t know…who’s left? We already dealt Stoll in the summer of ’09, and Williams and Handzus are ear-marked for jettisoning the following season (see The Doughty/Moller/Simmonds Nightmare of 2011, below). So I guess you dump Greene and hope that Teubert is ready to take his place.

Now you’re back under the cap, and your 2010-2011 Los Angeles Kings look like this:

Twin 1/Twin 2/Moller

Purcell/Kopitar/Williams

Clifford/Schenn/Brown

Lewis/Handzus/Simmonds

Drewiske/Doughty

Quincey/Voynov

Hickey/Teubert

Quick

Bernier

Also not bad. However:

Now it’s summer of 2011, two years from now. Moller, Simmonds and Doughty are RFA. That’s another $9-10MM in cap space you need to create, at least. And if the twins don’t stink, Moller may be a thirty (or, worse, forty) goal scorer by then. But let’s be conservative. Call it $10MM of space we need to clear. 75% of that we clear by because Handzus and Williams are off the books as UFAs (probably traded for picks at the previous deadline, unless of course we’re on a cup run). So figure you lose those guys and re-sign the three kids and your cap goes up another three million.

And someone has to go. Who? Do you let one of Moller or Simmonds walk? I would cry. Purcell is affordable, since he will still be playing on the contract he gets this summer (unless he only signs for two years, in which case, he’ll be a UFA I think). Maybe you don’t re-sign Purcell (or trade, whatever) and trade another defenseman. Who’s expendable? Who knows. Say it’s Drewiske.

So, here’s your 2011-2012 Los Angeles Kings:

Twin 1/Twin 2/Moller

Wudrick/Kopitar/Loktionov

Clifford/Schenn/Brown

someone cheap/Lewis/Simmonds

Quincey/Doughty

Hickey/Teubert

Voynov/someone cheap

Quick

Bernier

Could be a great team. And all you have to do is:

Deal Stoll now. Deal Frolov, Johnson and Greene before next season’s trade deadline. Deal Handzus, Williams, Purcell and Drewiske before the deadline of 2010-11. Or else just let them all walk (well, not Drewiske, who will probably still be under contract).

Oh, and all these trades will be for picks and prospects, because we won’t be able to take any salary back. So it will literally be trade after trade after trade of “why did we just give up [core player x] for a measly 2nd round pick?”

Answer: because we’ll be over a barrel.

[Hilarious bonus irony: it used to be that teams in playoff contention picked up a few pieces to gear up for the playoffs, and teams that were out of contention dumped salary; NOW, we'll be dumping some of our best players exactly at the time we're gearing up for the playoffs. We'll be fighting for home ice advantage in the post-season, and we'll be SELLERS? How much fun will that be?]

And when Schenn, Loktionov, Voynov, Hickey and Teubert come up for contracts, and the Sedins are literally unmovable because of their huge contracts with 7 years left on them, you have absolutely no choice but to deal…

…Kopitar and Brown.

This is why I think it’s a bad idea.

cut-and-paste of my own comment from Inside the Kings, just so I don’t forget I said it and because it’s so hard to find anything in the Inside the Kings archives

The season after next will be interesting cap-wise, as [commenter "src3" on the Inside the Kings "board" said] said. Not just because of Frolov being a UFA and the cap coming down a bit, but also because both Quincey and Quick will be RFA. Next year, Fro’s hit is 2.9, Quick’s .8, Quincey’s .6, and it would be reasonable to expect those three to be at cap hits of 5, 2.5 and 2.5, conservatively, with their new contracts. That’s AT LEAST $6MM more cap room we’re going to need, not next year, but the year after (which, after all, is really just next summer, one year from now — yikes).

Is DL factoring that into his thoughts about Frolov and whoever he’s going to bring in this year as a UFA (or via trade)? Absolutely. And clearly trading Frolov would make room for whatever will be necessary to do for the 2010 season. But, since DL has to think Frolov will be tradable at the deadline or even next summer, I don’t know that he’s really going to worry too much about that now. Actually, I think DL might make the calculation that putting Frolov and (to pick one of the UFA names) Hossa on the same line will drive Frolov’s numbers way up, thus driving his value up as well. In other words, it’s reasonable to assume that Frolov will be more valuable a year from now than he is now. And he’s pretty valuable now.

But let’s play the thought experiment:

Kings sign Hossa (or Havlat or Gaborik), re-sign Frolov, Purcell, Johnson and Boyle. Now, let’s skip the entire 09-10 season. It’s summer of ’10. Quick has had a great year, as have Quincey and Drewiske (all RFAs). They are resigned at 2.75, 2.5, 1.5. Frolov at 5. That’s a cap hit of $11.75. Let’s just say that’s a cap increase of $7MM. SOD retires.

Frolov/Kopitar/Hossa
Williams/Stoll/Brown
xx/Handzus/xx
xx/xx/xx

The xx’s are the smaller contracts (Moller, Boyle, Purcell, Simmonds, whoever we draft this year, etc.).

Here’s what I think the actual strategy will be (and, in fact, ought to be). Sign the big UFA, resign Frolov, go up to within a couple million of the cap ceiling. Clearly, next summer, something will have to give. Somebody’s big contract is going to have to go, maybe two somebodies. But does DL want to get rid of Frolov NOW because he’s got to pay Handzus for two more years? I don’t think so. Handzus, actually, I think is the most vulnerable of all the big salaries. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him traded at the deadline next year. I think Handzus was the team MVP last season by numerous measures; but he’s overpaid and he’s a third-line center ideally. Also, he’s a defensive specialist and will be attractive to someone at the deadline, as he supposedly was this year.

Trading Handzus would be, of course, entirely dependent on other centers stepping it up and proving themselves to be ready. Namely, Moller, Boyle, Lewis, Loktionov, Azevedo, someone we might be drafting in a month… 

Meanwhile, there are other candidates to be moved. Let’s say, for example, that we sign Hossa and keep Frolov, and next year we have our first line (with Kopitar) the likes of which we haven’t seen since Palffy/Alison/Deadmarsh. Now, what happens if Brown has a crappy year next season? He might be the one to get dealt. Let’s just say, Handzus is a rock and the first line is clicking… DL is going to be looking very closely at that group of Williams, Stoll and Brown. One of them would literally HAVE to be traded. Same thing is true on defense. If the prospects don’t pan out next season and don’t look like they’re progressing, veterans like Greene are safe. But if the prospects pick it up, Greene is another contract that can be dealt.

I think DL will play this out very deliberately and carefully. And you [SRC3] are certainly correct that if DL signs a UFA this July, next summer something’s gotta give. I just don’t think that means Frolov will be leaving. One of Frolov, Kopitar, Brown, Stoll, Handzus, Williams or Greene — definitely. In 2010. Not now.

Think of it the other way. You aren’t going to deny yourselves Hossa and Frolov this season because you might have to trade Handzus or Greene next season, right?

Edmonton Journal Brain Farts a Hemsky for Dustin Brown AND Matt Greene Trade Har De Har HAR

If the Oilers could get two front-line players for him, at least one a bigger, stronger body like winger Dustin Brown of the Los Angeles Kings and retrieve hard-nosed defenceman Matt Greene, too, would they consider it?

Is it that far-fetched? I don’t think so.

via Hemsky trade is plausible .

I do. Think it’s far fetched. Far fetched and stupid. I might not throw up at the idea of Hemsky for Matt Greene straight-up. Might not. But, might.

Crackpot Roster Musings: Kings 09-10

Assumptions: Kings sign one of Hossa, Gaborik or Havlat. Kings keep the number five pick and select MSP, Kane or Duchene, whoever is left. 

FORWARDS:

If Hossa or Havlat:

Frolov/Kopitar/Hossa-Havlat 

Williams/Stoll/Brown [North American drive-to-the-net ass-kicking, hits and goals]

Lewis/Handzus/Simmonds [shut-down]

Purcell/Loktionov/Moller [the real first line]

If Gaborik:

Frolov/Kopitar/Williams

Gaborik/Stoll/Brown

Lewis/Handzus/Simmonds

Purcell/Loktionov/Moller

[The #5 pick will obviously have the opportunity to dislodge one of Lewis, Purcell, Loktionov or Moller (or Wudrick, for that matter). I'm willing to imagine that one of the realistically too-young prospects surprises everyone and makes the team, but I've chosen Loktionov as my representative of that crackpot fantasy. Could easily be Kane, Duchene, MSP -- whichever one -- or Wudrick.]

DEFENSE:

Johnson/Doughty

Quincey/Greene

SOD/Hickey

Voynov/Drewiske

 

GOAL:

Quick

Ersberg

“Is this team really that promising?”

Ersberg (commenter on “Inside the Kings,” not the actual Ersberg) asked the following great questions in the Inside the Kings comments section:

“Does anyone else think the Kings seem to not have the type of offense that some teams have that can be a threat on almost any possession? They just seem anemic on O, [yet] they have a lot of the same guys as they did last season [who] scored a lot. [...] With [...] regard to our prospects [...] how are [they] going to get it done next season?

 [...] Is it, in fact, Terry’s system? Are we missing key guys? Are some of our ‘older, younger’ guys not what we thought they’d be (Kop, Fro, Brown, etc.)? Was it a fluke last season when guys like Brown scored 30+? Is it the guys below our top scorers [...] that are the issue[...]? [...] [D]o you feel our guys have a higher “ceilings” than what we’re seeing? Do you see guys like Johnson, Greene, Quincey getting better? What about Purcell, who’s 24(?) [...]? It seems like they’re trying real, real hard, but they end up coming short, which is why I believe they need some more changes and additional players.

Who do we add? Who goes? Who do you think will actually want to come here? [...] Is this team really that promising? Columbus [...] has had a lot of changes, some very young additions, and they are sitting in a playoff spot. I see the Kings being very much the same.

[...] In addition [...], ask yourselves this: when was the last team any sports team (4 major sports) went cheap, and won a championship? I’m thinking it was the Angels in 2002. It seems to me we’re a ‘cheap’ team.”

The problem on offense: certainly, part of the drop in production is due to TM’s defensive system. There’s really no way around that. You’re always going to sacrifice some offense when you play a tighter defense. As it has turned out, the Kings GF and GA have both dropped about 0.3 goals/game. So it’s basically a wash. However, notice that reducing both goals-for and goal-against by the same amount has resulted in better results (assuming the Kings don’t proceed to lose the next nine games). 

Looking at the offensive numbers: this season, the Kings have averaged 2.0 goals per 60 minutes of 5-on-5. Last season, they averaged 2.3. That’s all of our loss of production. Five-on-four, the Kings are up to 6.6 goals/60min from 5.8 the previous year. Five-on-three, we’re at 22.9, up from 21.0 [just to clarify, 22.9 goals/60, 5-on-3, means that if they were to play an entire game 5-on-3, they would score on average 22.9 goals]. In short, this season, the special teams are slightly better, and 5-on-5 we’re much worse. Of course, it’s 5-on-5 where the defensive system is in full force, so that’s another reason it must shoulder (at least) some of the blame. 

Actually, those numbers alone ought to be enough for those who are predisposed to blame TM to put the last few nails in the coffin. My purely statistical response to that would be, per above, to point out that a commensurate drop in offense and goals-against yields better results, in terms of wins/points. 

I would also say, in TM’s defense, that if the Kings had stuck to their defensive system even more than they have, they would be looking at the playoffs right now. Before the season started, I pointed out in the ItK comment section that if the Kings were able to reduce their goals-against from last season’s 3.24 (from memory, I could be off a few 1/100ths) to around 2.75 they would make the playoffs, 2.75 being the usual threshold for a playoff team. They were on track to do this for about half the season, I think, but they got sloppy. In this context, TM’s benching of Frolov makes a lot of sense. He (TM) knows that it’s the defense that’s going to make the difference. 

Underline: even with the drop-off of production, the Kings would have made the playoffs this year had they stuck to the system. That’s okay. It’s not a knock against the players that they didn’t just magically see the light. You have to learn by experience.

Re “are we missing key guys?” — DL made a revealing comment in an interview a few weeks ago that [paraphrase] Kopitar was basically a second-line center who has the potential to be a first-line center. The expectation has to be that he grows into the role of #1 center, otherwise frankly he’s not earning his contract. DL was just being honest (maybe too honest, since it opens him up to a lot of criticism — why pay that much for a #2 center, etc.). But I did get the feeling this season that Kopitar looked like the understudy suddenly forced to play the lead part. And he’s done okay, especially of late. But watching him in the #1 center role makes me (and I think a lot of other people) long for a game-changer. 

As a mental exercise, I sometimes try to imagine where our various guys would fit in on a powerhouse, elite team, say, Detroit. Kopitar would be a great #2 center on the wings. Brown, a great third line winger. Frolov, 2nd liner, but maybe still in the doghouse for his lapses (see Fedorov). Stoll, 3rd line center. Handzus, third line center. Williams, 2nd line, maybe third. Calder, scratch. Armstrong, waived. Ivanans, Westgarth, waived. Zeiler, waived (they waived Ellis, who is a better Zeiler). What this exercise reminds me is, on the Kings roadmap to Elite-ness-itude (-ity), we’ve already got ourselves a great third line, a great second line, and no first line.

And, boy, doesn’t it feel like that’s just what we have? 

I’m not saying Kopitar won’t grow into the #1 center role.  I think he will, actually. He’s still a kid. But, as far as “missing key guys” goes, I would say, yes, definitely, it’s time to get a true, top-line sniper, a finisher, a star. You do that, and you take the pressure off Kopitar, he won’t see the other team’s best shift after shift, and he will have room to grow. 

re “prospects, how are they going to get it done?” — Simmonds, Doughty and Quincey are unqualified successes this year. Purcell, Moller, Quick and Harrold are successes with asterisks attached. In Purcell’s case, it took him most of the season to get it together. Moller started strong and then had a run of bad luck (followed by TM’s odd insistence on keeping him out of the line-up because he wasn’t strong enough, as if this wasn’t also true at the beginning of the season when he was leading the Kings in PP goals, etc. — file that under “don’t get me started”). Quick was an instant star and then lost some of his star-power, but has still been huge. Harrold gets an asterisk because he’s a “veteran” prospect and he has the curse of doing a lot of things well, but nothing spectacularly well. He’s extremely useful, but easy to pencil out. Of those guys, can we expect them to get better? Absolutely. Simmonds and Moller, for one thing, are kids. They’re physically immature. They’re going to get bigger and stronger. Doughty, we forget that in addition to everything we’ve seen from him, he likes to check, and has been known (as we’ve seen in glimpses of him this season) to take over games. When he’s mature, he’s going to be that much more dominant. Johnson, whom you mentioned, has to play smarter, but that’s not unusual for young defensemen, and JJ is following a much more traditional d prospect path. We’re spoiled by Doughty stepping right in and playing a dominant role. That happens, well, almost never. 

Re the Kings being a “cheap” team — It’s hard to argue against that when the Kings have the lowest cap figure in the league. However, I must. First of all, next season, with Kopitar’s and Greene’s contracts kicking in, the Kings will not have the lowest cap figure anymore: they’ll be somewhere around $47-48MM, i.e. more or less halfway between the ceiling and the floor. If they sign a big UFA, they’ll be much, much closer to the ceiling. There’s a good chance the ceiling will come down season after next, and some have said as low as $52MM. This would mean many teams would have to shed salary in order to comply. I don’t think DL is cheap. I think he’s smart. There is simply no way in the post-lock-out NHL to have a team that has several superstar contracts (or even more than two — three is pushing it). You must have a balance between big names, medium names, role players and prospects. Look at Detroit: Holland cannot sign both Hossa and Franzen, unless he’s willing to forego team depth, which he clearly doesn’t want to do. The Kings could easily be in that position in two years, and, p.s. would have been for certain if they had given Cammellari the $6MM he asked for, given POS the $4MM or whatever and kept him, both of which would have meant giving Kopitar more, giving JJ more this summer, etc., etc.. 

The distance between floor and ceiling is quite small. DL kept near the floor this year. Signed Kopitar and is halfway to the ceiling. This summer, he could go all the way to the ceiling with one signing. 

Re “who would want to sign here?” — Let’s take Hossa as an example. Hossa wants to stay in Detroit. Detroit wants him. He’s willing to take less, but how much less is not known, and the talks have stalled. If Hossa doesn’t sign with Detroit, he’s going to seek more money elsewhere. The question is, (1) who wants him? (2) who’s attractive to him? and (3) who can afford him? 

Answer to #1: more or less, everybody. 

Answer to #2: first choice, a contender. Who are the contenders? San Jose, Washington, Calgary, Chicago, Boston, Vancouver, New Jersey, Pittsburgh. But see answer #3…

Answer to #3: none of the contenders have cap space to sign him. Will someone sign him and then put themselves in the Brian Burke position of having to trade assets when the entire world knows they are over a barrel? Probably, they won’t. Will someone go on a draft day fire sale to shed salary in order to make room for Hossa? Dangerous to do that, since you might not get Hossa, and then where will you be? 

Who has the cap space? A bunch of losers, that’s who. I’m including the Kings in that. A bunch of teams that aren’t going to look too attractive to Hossa. Among which, he may have to pick the team with the brightest future. The loser with the brightest future. Among said losers, there is no one regarded to have a brighter future than the Kings. 

That’s our hope. We have the cap space, we are the future, and we need to be successful now. Now is the time. 

That’s not a horrible pitch. Will it be good enough? Who knows.

re “next season…how are they going to get it done?” — For one thing, it will be a slightly different “they.” I believe DL will push very hard to bring a big UFA forward in. He needs to. As many have pointed out, not getting into the playoffs a year from now will be a failure placed solely at DL’s feet. The pressure is mounting and the team is going to have to produce next season. He’s going to try very hard to bring in some big-bucks snipery finish for the first line. Will he succeed? I am going to put my money on … probably. 

So, first piece of the puzzle is one big tasty UFA. Second piece of the puzzle is, no Calder, no Preissing, no Gauthier, no Armstrong, probably no Zeiler, maybe no Ivanans. Third piece, bigger, stronger, older Doughty, Moller and Simmonds. Purcell coming into his own. Lewis hopefully on the team full time on the third line. Hickey, Teubert, Voynov…one of them will make it, maybe even two. Jon Bernier…I still hold out hope that he will top them all in camp this September. 

The other issue, I think, is finding a workable fourth line that has an actual theme and purpose and use, as opposed to it just being a catch-all for players who are dressed but benched in the third period. I liked the old Donnelly/Millen third line idea, small/speedy tertiary scoring. I think there’s a version of the Kings with a Moller/Loktionov/Azevedo/Richardson type third line configuration, that would be terrifying and beautiful to behold. That would free up the fourth line to be a Handzus/Lewis/Simmonds/Brown/Wudrick type ordeal. Yes, okay, Brown on the fourth line. But I’m talking about rolling four lines all game, with much more balanced ice-time. Think Detroit. And let all the “unhealthy Detroit fixation” gossip begin.