Er, that was about the only time they've been competitive. If they could have capitalized on some of those opportunities and gone up 2-0 or 3-0, maybe the game looks different. I think frankly that's about the only game plan they can pull off that ends in victory. Not sure what else they can do to NOT gas themselves. Better to staple a Knight to the boards than let them keep skating with Kings chasing.
That's true, but correlation does not imply causation. I don't think that the fact that they hit everything and were competitive was because the one caused the other, but because both stemmed from coming out with determination and effort (because of being on home ice and down in the series). Nothing says that the only way to come out with determination and effort is to spend all of your energy hitting the other team, though.
Stevens definitely not a Sutter protege, if he was, this would have been more of a possession team all year instead of a collapse and pray team. That's a Terry Murray specialty. We went from top CF% team to middle of the pack/below. Sutter Kings were WAY different protecting leads, they kept coming.
If you're comparing the 2012-14 Kings that came in waves to this version, obviously the difference is striking, but there was also a striking difference between the 2012-14 and 2015-17 Kings, even though they were all Sutter teams. I'm comparing Stevens' team to Sutter's 2015-17 teams and seeing more similarities than differences. It's still defensive; it still relies on dumping and chasing, rather than carrying the puck into the zone; it still relies heavily on support and production from defensemen; it still uses its best players to kill penalties; it still has major problems with creating offense, and so on.