Los Angeles Kings: What to take away after getting swept

After a long 82 game season, the Stanley Cup playoffs can reduce a team from contender to pretender in a mere week. For the Los Angeles Kings, the rude awakening came earlier than anyone had thought.

Boasting an 11 man contingent from their last Stanley Cup in 2014, it was thought the Los Angeles Kings postseason experience could negate a strong Vegas Golden Knights team that, despite 105 points and the Pacific Division title, was still an expansion team.

Unfortunately for the Los Angeles Kings and their fans, the Golden Knights outclassed them in almost every aspect of the game on the ice and Tuesday night the Knights made history by becoming the first expansion team to sweep their first playoff series.

After the four-game sweep fans are left to wonder, what happened?

Can’t win if you don’t score

Normally if you only give up seven goals over four games you are likely to come out a winner in at least one game. Unfortunately for the Kings they only scored three times in the four games themselves.

The Kings anemic offense lead to four one-goal losses, they were shutout twice, and only converted one power play in 14 chances. The Kings only lead for 33 of the 275 minutes of total ice time.

All these numbers sum up their worst scoring output in a seven-game series in team history. Frankly, the Los Angeles Kings just weren’t good enough on the offensive end of the ice to win the series.

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Don’t Blame Quick

The best player on the ice for the Kings this series was their goaltender Jonathan Quick. For the series, Quick posted a goals-against average (GAA) 1.55 with a .947 save percentage; his best numbers in both stats since his Cup-winning campaign in 2012.

Quick set a team record in the game two double-overtime loss with 54 saves, each game Quick kept the Kings in the game and had he not been on the ice the series sweep may have been worst.

Unfortunately for Quick, the Knights goaltender Marc Andre-Fleury was just a little better than he was.

Fleury had a GAA of 0.67 and a .977 save percentage, frankly even with Quick standing on his head there was not much the Kings could do with Fleury playing the way he did.

Now What????

With their offense regressing at the absolute wrong time, and some depth on the defensive end. The Kings will have to make some moves to fix their scoring woes. Some fans aren’t going to want to see more of the Stanley Cup winning guys go, but that might be what it takes.

It might mean losing Alec Martinez who will be 31 next season could be expendable especially after providing zero offensive effort from the back line. If a forward has to be dealt it could be Tyler Tofolli who has scored zero goals in his last 14 playoff games, that isn’t good enough for one of the supposed top forwards of the team.

Next: Mid-round playmakers the Rams should consider

It’s a long way to October but expect changes to come.