GDT: 2023-24 season game 29 LA Kings vs Seattle Kraken @7:00pm 12/20/23

[bmr]

It was nice to hear the TV crew calling out PLD for playing like crap, unlike the crew from the San Jose game.

Yeah, the commentator on the ESPN+ feed (I think it was Cassie Campbell-Pascall) was blowing sunshine and rainbows on all the Kings players, including Dubois.

 

[Bandit]

So.....does anyone know what the best road record over a season is?

They could go undefeated on the road the rest of the way., won’t matter at all if they lose 9 out of every 15 at home.

 

[SherVaughn30]

Having watched Daccord all last year in person, the key is you have to get to him early. He thrives on work. So when I got home and saw the Kings had 30+ shots in less than two periods and there was no score I knew we were toast. He is a goalie you have to get to early otherwise he just grows in confidence.

He's also a goalie that overplays the puck. That is how Lizzote scored his shorty. Not TMac, but assistant in charge of the forwards. You tell the players to dump the in a spot that Daccord with play and watch his while being a bit of shadow to see where he plays it or passes it too. Lizzotte was floating and watched Daccord's direction of playing the puck. Lizzotte somewhat of a break that the Kraken player didn't receive the pass cleanly, he still did a great job of reading the play.

 

[FrozenKing18]

With the Caps, Mantha was the same problem as PLD. Laviolette did no good in getting Mantha going, but with a new, young coach in Spencer Carbery, the right buttons have been pushed so far to click with some line mates and have some successive offensive production. Those line mates happen to be young up and coming players for the Caps. Maybe PLD needs the same, but no guarantees. PLD is talented but I have noticed when he's given too much freedom with the puck, he tries to do too much like try to go through 2/3 players at once and lose the puck. Maybe he does that bcuz he doesn't trust his line mates? I have also seen at times he can make some good seem passes but his line mates mess up the possible good scoring chance. Since the Kings aint firing TMac any time soon, I would say to have PLD play in a shooter role while his line mates do the grunt work. Going back to Mantha, he started out on the 4th line to humble him and compliment offensively the hard working 4th liners. Once he built some chemistry with them, Mantha started to work his way up to a top 6 role after being humbled. As of late, Mantha has worked well with Connor McMichael being his center and Alexei Protas(6ft6in) being his opposite winger.

Coaching players is a tough job. Finding the right players that work together is not easy. Personally I think line match-ups and line combo's is a weakness of TMac. He has never been good making in-game adjustments. Tmac has yet to get the best out of Fiala/PLD and it's partial to hurting the team, magnified on nights where they lose to a team like the Kraken.

Oh forgot to mention Mantha was scratched a few times to send a message. Maybe PLD needs the same, but TMac has to have the pucks to do it!

One more thing Mantha of course a winger, while PLD is a center. Maybe PLD needs to be delegated to playing wing to limit his liabilities?

On the topic of players needing complementary wingers, someone refresh my memory. When we got Richards, we brought up Dwight King and Jordan Nolan to be his linemates. Why did they do that? I remember that line sticking for a bit until Carts arrived.

 

[David Lunch]

On the topic of players needing complementary wingers, someone refresh my memory. When we got Richards, we brought up Dwight King and Jordan Nolan to be his linemates. Why did they do that? I remember that line sticking for a bit until Carts arrived.

Well, it wasn’t immediate. King and Nolan didn’t join the team until after a few weeks of Sutter being hired, who then went to scout the kids in Manchester and told Dean he wanted those guys in LA.

 

[King'sPawn]

Well, it wasn’t immediate. King and Nolan didn’t join the team until after a few weeks of Sutter being hired, who then went to scout the kids in Manchester and told Dean he wanted those guys in LA.

Yeah. They also had Ethan Moreau and Trent Hunter as veteran depth - that depth caused Bud Holloway to flee to Sweden, which also upset Lombardi. He was going to be the next call up. This all contributed to paving the way for King and Nolan.

 

[David Lunch]

What a roster carousel that year started with, and by the end it was as (amazingly) inflexible as a rock!

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

I was SUPER mad about Bud Holloway, not sure if anyone remembers that

fwiw he's had a very strong career overseas, he only got that one game crack at the NHL with the canadiens and it seems like he didn't want to really stick around and hope someone gave him a real shot, probably made a much better living

 

[Telos]

Holloway was a bad one because he was never really given the chance, but I remember being more disappointed that Oscar Moller didn't stick and pan out. There was a little window there where I thought Moller was going to break out and be a top 6 scoring winger for us and I was getting frustrated that the Kings hadn't developed a productive forward outside of the first round other than Simmonds who still was a middle 6'er at the time.