LA Kings: Analyzing a potential first round matchup with Colorado

As the LA Kings struggle down the stretch, there’s a chance they could slip into a Wild Card position and, thus, a (possible) date with the defending Stanley Cup Champions, Colorado Avalanche.

Surely no one wants to play the Avs. They’re a team flush with talent (when healthy) and, as we know, are fresh off hoisting Lord Stanley’s Cup less than 12 months ago.

Right now, both teams are dealing with significant injuries, with the likes of Gabriel Landeskog, Cale Makar, Kevin Fiala, and Mikey Anderson all on the shelf. Setting those injuries aside for a moment and assuming each team sees some of their injured stars return, could a case be made that the matchup isn’t all that bad for the Kings, given the style of play between the LA Kings and Colorado Avalanche? Let’s take a look.

*Charts via All Three Zones

What the Avs do well

For starters, they have two 100-point scorers. Nathan MacKinnon (39 goals, 107 points) and Mikko Rantanen (54 goals, 102 points) have once again been two of the best players in the league. That’s not to mention one of the league’s best defensemen in Cale Makar, who has 66 points in 60 games himself.

When it comes to how the Avs try to beat you, as you can imagine, there are a lot of things that they do really well.

They control the neutral zone about as well as any team in the NHL. They don’t allow many scoring chances off of zone entries and they themselves create a lot of chances off of controlled entries.

Not only is Colorado effective through the neutral zone, but they’re one of the better teams in the NHL at pressuring opposing defensemen on a forecheck.

Pressuring defensemen on the forecheck is their best chance at attacking the Kings. We saw some of this when the two teams met in Colorado last month. The Kings won the game 5-2, but they were second-best much of the night possession-wise. Colorado had over a 62% CF% and 55% xGF% at 5-on-5 via Natural Stat Trick. They out-chanced LA 28-16, including 10-6 in the high-danger area.

Here’s MoneyPuck.com’s trusty Deserve-To-Win-O’Meter from that game:

In addition, Colorado has one of the top power plays in the NHL. The Avs are fifth overall on the season with the man advantage at 25.1% and second only to Edmonton since the trade deadline at 31.8%. This doesn’t bode well for an LA Kings penalty kill that continues to struggle. At 75.5%, LA’s PK sits at 25th in the NHL. Since the trade deadline, the Kings have seen some positives with their new acquisitions. The penalty kill has not been one of them. They are still 25th in the league since the deadline at an even worse 74.6%.

Defensively, Colorado operates much differently than the LA Kings. Their blueliners are much better skaters and at controlling the puck, particularly when it comes to retrievals.

Once their defensemen retrieve pucks, they are good skating and good puck-moving defensemen that allow them to exit the zone efficiently and with possession.

With some of the top talent in the world, the Kings will need to play the Avs at even strength. Even then, Colorado can beat you in multiple ways.

 

Where Colorado may struggle with the LA Kings

There are plenty of areas in that Colorado excels, but LA is more than capable of making life difficult for Colorado. The Avs can beat you on the rush and they can beat you on a forecheck. As noted above, Colorado is more likely to have success creating offense on the forecheck because of how strong LA’s neutral zone defense is.

With their stingy 1-3-1 neutral zone trap, the Kings are excellent at denying clean entries into their zone. This is something that the Avs have commented on recently:

This is why Colorado may turn more into chipping pucks in and putting pressure on the LA defense group. When LA gains possession of the puck in their own zone, they do a good job of getting the puck to the neutral zone to hit their forwards for rush attempts. However, puck retrievals are not LA’s strong suit.

When in the zone, Colorado is below average when it comes to connecting high-danger passes. This is something the LA defense is great at snuffing out.

As far as LA’s ability to create offense, Colorado isn’t a bad matchup. The Kings generate a high percentage of their chances off the rush, and Colorado’s defensemen, while good at retrieving pucks and making clean exits, don’t grade out too well in defending rush attempts. This plays into LA’s hands.

Here’s an example of LA scoring off the rush when the two teams met in Colorado last month.

For the Kings to succeed, they need to take advantage of the rush chances that they do get as I don’t see LA as being able to have long periods of sustained in-zone pressure in the Colorado zone. Similarly, the LA defensemen can not allow Colorado to spend as much time in their zone as they have at times this season.

Head-to-head

The two teams met three times this season, with LA winning two of them. Colorado did have the better possession metrics in the three meetings as LA held a 46.3% CF% and 46.9% xGF% at 5-on-5 in the three games (per Natural Stat Trick).

In the two games in Colorado, LA had just 42% CF% and 40% xGF% at 5-on-5 per Natural Stat Trick.

Lastly, here’s a side-by-side snapshot of how the two teams matchup:

In summary, in many things Colorado does well, LA is capable of negating. Colorado is one of the best teams in the league at making plays off of zone entries. That plays right into LA’s 1-3-1 neutral zone. The Avs are an excellent team at puck retrievals on dump-ins. Well, the Kings aren’t much of a dump-it-in team. Colorado is below average at zone entry denials, the Kings are a downhill team when they have the puck through the neutral zone and will look to exploit that Avs deficiency off the rush.

The Avs already struggle at connecting high-danger passes; there’s no one better than LA at making sure those don’t happen.

This series could be determined by how well LA’s defensemen are able to transition pucks from their own zone to the neutral zone. If Colorado is able to pressure the Kings’ defensemen enough to keep pucks in LA’s zone, it could be a short series. If LA’s defensemen are able to retrieve pucks efficiently and get them to their forwards, they have the ability to beat Colorado off the rush in transition.

Colorado would have home ice in this series, so their being able to dictate matchups and how the game is played is a little more likely.

(Main Photo Credit: Michael Martin/NHLI via Getty Images)

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