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Los Angeles Kings November review, by the numbers

By Jamaal Artis

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - NOVEMBER 30: Adrian Kempe #9, Jack Campbell #36 and Drew Doughty #8 of the Los Angeles Kings reacts to the final whistle in celebration of a 2-1 Kings win over the Winnipeg Jets at Staples Center on November 30, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - NOVEMBER 30: Adrian Kempe #9, Jack Campbell #36 and Drew Doughty #8 of the Los Angeles Kings reacts to the final whistle in celebration of a 2-1 Kings win over the Winnipeg Jets at Staples Center on November 30, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images) /
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The NHL season is in full swing heading into December, meaning that we have a good inclination of who the Los Angeles Kings are this season.

The Los Angeles Kings ended the month of November in 28th place in the NHL. They are last in the Pacific Division, 13 points behind division leader the Edmonton Oilers. They are 27th in goals scored with 70 and are in 25th place in goals allowed with 89, a differential of -19, good (or bad) for 29th in the league.

To sum things up, the Kings are craptacularly bad as they go into their last month of NHL play of the decade. Despite all of the bad news, the month of November showed signs the team had improved.

The Kings went 7-5-2 in the month of November gaining 16 points twice what they accomplished in October and they were able to outscore their opponents by one 36 to 35. With 14 games played over the month, the Kings were essentially a .500 club way better than their putrid start in October.

Penalty Kill comes to life

Over the first month of the season, the once-vaunted penalty kill special teams of the Kings was absolutely terrible. The Kings were only able to kill off 71 percent of their penalties, giving up a league-worst 15 power-play goals.

Thankfully, the Kings decided to turn things around in the month of November, improving on the PK by killing off 84 percent of penalties, good for 12th; and bringing down the power-play goals to single digits at six, good enough for 9th in the league. If the Kings plan to turn things around this season improved special teams will go hand in hand with that.

The Captain Shall Lead Them

The best player on the team for the month was Anze Kopitar who had six goals and eight assists in the month for 14 points, giving him a point per game month. Hardly the stuff of legends, 14 points was only good for 30th amongst all NHL skaters but on a team as mediocre as the Kings, someone has to lead.

Regardless, Kopitar led by example in November and showed that as the leader of the team he let his skating do the talking and as a direct result the team had a better month.

Jonathan Quick not dead yet

To start the season it looked like the career of Quick in a Los Angeles Kings uniform was officially done. He had probably the worst month of his career in October going 2-6 with a 4.55 GAA and .858 save percentage.

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In November, Quick turned things around going 5-4-1 and a 2.42 GAA, good enough for 9th among goalies who started at least 10 games over the month. As long as the Kings continue to insist Quick is still a frontline starter, he needs to play more as he did in November than he did in October.

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