Russell Morgan 
Special Teams
Special teams will need to improve if the LA Kings want to continue their push to the playoffs. Heading into the break, they have the league’s 24th ranked power play (16.3%) and the 29th ranked penalty kill (73.4%). Not great.
Power Play
Staying out of the box is key to helping your team win games. For the Kings, it may be advantageous to stop drawing penalties as well. Throughout the first half of the season, the power play has caused more harm than good. Consistently finding ways to halt the teams’ momentum and give up the league’s second-most shorthanded goals (7).
Looking up and down the lineup, there is a lack of natural goal-scoring ability and creativity customarily seen among the NHL’s best power play groups. But, one of the biggest problems and surprises with the power play this season is the lack of production from Dustin Brown.
Last season, Brown led the team with nine power play goals in 49 games, giving him 3.74 goals scored per 60 minutes. During the man advantage this season, he has one goal and no assists in 105:45 of ice time. Producing at a rate of 0.57 points per 60 minutes on the power play, last in the league for players with over 75 minutes played on the power play.
Not all hope is lost, though, Kings fans. The addition of Quinton Byfield will surely bring some much-needed skill and playmaking ability to the special team’s play. And with the long break, Head Coach Todd McLellan will have plenty of time to acclimate Byfield to his teammates and make a few tweaks to the lifeless power play.
Penalty Kill
The lack of execution on the penalty kill surprises me a lot more than the failures of the power play. This team oozes players who seem built for shorthanded success. Danault, Iafallo, Moore, Kopitar, Roy, Doughty are all players who play a solid defensive game. Even so, the LA Kings find themselves with their worst penalty kill since the 1986-87 season.
It is hard to pinpoint precisely what is wrong with the Kings’ penalty kill. LA uses the same strategies that gave them the seventh-best PK from last season (83.7%). Whether it is a lack of focus, a shortage of chemistry, or the absence of clutch goaltending, the deficient shorthanded play must improve.