It’s time to fully admit the Los Angeles Kings are in a slump. The days of relying on exceptional defensive play to win games are behind this group because in order to win, you have to score goals. It doesn’t matter how good you are at keeping the puck out of your net if you can’t execute on the other side of the ice, and the Kings have continued to prove that pretty much for the entire month of January. Once again, offensive production was scarce, although this time it quite literally was nowhere to be found as the Kings were shut out 3-0 by the Florida Panthers. In 11 of their last 12 games, they have scored two or fewer goals and have been shut out twice. They have also now lost seven of their last nine.
The Kings are blowing away their games in hand as the teams in front of them in the standings start to pull further away and the ones who were once a fair bit behind them are now knocking on the front door. One thing has been clear for a while and it’s that this team needs a scoring winger, preferably a right-handed shot that can play on the power play. While that’s probably a trade deadline move, if the offense continues to struggle the way it has been, they might not be able to afford to wait that long.
Offense Has Gone Completely Ghost
It was quite similar to the game these two teams played exactly a week ago where a third-period push led the Kings to a 2-1 win. It was the same grinding, tight-checking game, except this time there wasn’t that much of an offensive push at all. There was nothing purposeful in the way the Kings tried to create offense, nothing that gave the Panthers a tough time defending.
It was a whole lot of nothing, especially from the trio of Trevor Moore, Phillip Danault, and Warren Foegele. Now Moore and Danault have struggled offensively all season and playing them together just amplified those struggles. They created nothing and almost every chance they had to gain the zone was broken up right at the blue line.
I don’t think I’ve disliked a line more than Moore-Danault-Foegele just by watching their inability to create anything so I took a look at a few numbers at 5on5.
– They generated the lowest amount of scoring chances with 1
– They were tied with the lowest SF (count of shot…
— Raz Devraj (@razdevraj) January 30, 2025
In a lot of these games where the Kings have had trouble scoring, it wasn’t due to a lack of effort. They were either met with a hot goalie or just were getting unlucky with the bounces but against the Panthers, it didn’t feel like they generated anything of quality. It was a whole lot of throwing anything and everything to the net without bodies in front or anyone crashing the net for the second chance opportunity. You can tell this team is frustrated with their lack of execution and it’s resulting in them trying to get as many pucks to the net as they can to see if one will bounce in for them, regardless of whether or not it’s actually a good scoring chance.
“At the end of the day, you got to bare down. We got to get more bodies to the net for sure I know this is the old saying but we had some shots at the end just floaters through, didn’t get any sticks on it or any bodies in front […] We’re in a bit of a goal-scoring slump but you know we need it from more guys, I think we had it too much from the same group of guys kind of mid-way through the season,” said Doughty.
“We’ve dried up right now, that’s obvious, but we won’t spend time dwelling on it. Just go out there and get ready to play the next game and make sure we’re doing the things that lead to creating offense. Getting in front of the goaltender is one of them. I think that’s probably the best thing you can do,” said Hiller.
Maybe it’s karma for benching their leader in points by a defenseman. When you can’t produce offense surely the solution is to scratch your best offensive defenseman. Right?
Look, playing against such a sound and well-rounded team like the Panthers is going to be frustrating. Generating offense against that team is extremely hard, but let’s not forget who waltzed around the offensive zone and set up the game-winning goal the last time the Kings played the Panthers. Oh yeah, that was Brandt Clarke.
Hiller had his reasons for sitting Clarke and they weren’t totally unwarranted. It’s just ironic that in a game where they were shut out and space in the offensive zone came at a premium, the one guy who could have made a difference in that area of the ice was sitting in the press box.
It’s a tough, tough league for a young guy, you know what I mean? He’s done great to get to this point, he finally got to be a healthy scratch, but he’s played really well. This league will wear you down as a young player and this will give himself a reset. We’ll see where it goes from here,” said Hiller when asked about Clarke being a healthy scratch.
Doughty Makes Season Debut
The one positive to come out of yesterday’s game was that Drew Doughty returned to the lineup. The fear was that it would take a bit for him to get up to speed and get back to playing like the Doughty everyone knows, but he didn’t look out of place at all. The plan according to Hiller over the past week was to ease Doughty in and not have him jump back into his normal “minute-eating role” right way. Well, that didn’t happen and it wasn’t really surprising either. Doughty in his first game back led the entire team in time on ice with 23:51.
“It felt amazing honestly but early on, that’s the most nervous I’ve been playing in a hockey game that first shift probably since honestly my first NHL game […] I got better as the game went on personally, felt better, more comfortable, and honestly by the third I felt completely myself,” said Doughty.
He started off on a pair with Jacob Moverare and also had a fair bit of time playing with Joel Edmundson. Doughty also went back to manning the point on the first power play unit. He led all defensemen in shots on goal with three and almost picked up his first point in the first period. It was an outstanding shift from Doughty where at one point he saved a goal and then ended up on the rush the other way, dishing one across to Alex Laferriere who did score. Unfortunately, Trevor Lewis was tripped into Panthers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky and the goal was called off. Not only was Doughty’s first point of the season taken away from him but that was the second time during this road trip that Laferriere has gotten a goal called back.
Against one of the best teams in the league, Doughty was perfectly fine. Although he did end up being a minus-2, he had no direct impact on causing any of the goals. For him to come in right away and play the number of minutes he did is a good sign for the Kings because his presence and swagger might just be the thing that helps this team get out of this slump.
Related: Kings News & Rumors: Doughty, Quarter-Century Team & Clarke
Things aren’t about to get any easier as the Kings are right back at it again tonight against the Tampa Bay Lightning, a team they played at the start of January and beat 2-1. It’s also important to note that the Kings who have lost two games in a row in regulation have yet to lose three games in a row in regulation this season.
A back-to-back while in a scoring slump against a team with the firepower that it has doesn’t seem like a good combination for the Kings, although a win tonight could give them some much-needed confidence to keep their ship from completely sinking.
