What do you think the issue is right now? Besides the Toronto game where they didnt show up for 2 periods they have been playing well and are still finding new ways to lose.
Its like todd purposely tries to sabotage the team. Its incredible to me and has been almost since his date of hire. The only reason i can come up why he does this is ego and the demonstration of his control. Its certainly not going to produce wins, positive morale or long term success
Id predict the Ewing effect - weve seen what happened when Drew went down in 2021-22
1st: 55, 80, 9
todd would probably say: itso when we have injuries, everybody will be used to playing with one another.
PLD's give a shit meter still at 0 so then all we have is 2 second lines and a third line.
Except that until Gavrikov got injured everyone in the Kings org was jerking each other off at how awesome it was that we had the exact same D pairs all year...
thats where PLD can do the least damage and maybe contribute.. 55 and 9 are decent defensively. Notice i have 22 with 2 responsible players. Kopi is not good with speedy players.. he is beter with methodical possession guys. Its the best of a bad situation.
Doesnt prove he's good with speedy players. How many goals did they score off the rush? I'd predict below average. The premise of that post was to think outside the box to incorporate guys like Dubois and Fiala in the best way possible. You got any better ideas?
This may be a where there's smoke there's fire type of thing. It would certainly explain the drastic disparity between the team's road and home performances. Since Todd can dictate match ups at home you'd likely see a greater effect at home than on the road where he's at the mercy of the other coach.
I got your point on effort and how things came easy early. I still dont like the line combos. If you had 9,80,55 you would have a very fast and very tall speed line.. something the Kings do not have at the moment - i think it would add a new dimension. Some of this is dictated by 22 and 80 lack of defense/common sense and not so much Kopi. Kopi is slowing down. He is still the best defensive fwd, faceoff guy, the best at catching passes, has a good shot.. but if you watch him, lots of plays die on his stick.. i think he would be better on more grinding line and uplift 78 and 34.
Agree not to blend them again so soon. Now the big question confronting Koala is how to incorporate Clarke with the least disruption to the pairings... and most impact to the PP.
Good teams have players with no problem breaking the 1-3-1.
I like that the best of all the realistic (something TM would do) options... mixing up 2 pairs mid season is a bit risky but its worth an experiment since they have a good record to absorb some more losses while they work it out. Ideally Clarke migrates to PP1 and DD to PP2.
