2024-25 Season Thread

[PuckinUgly57]

You can upgrade for an extra cost
Got tickets for the 2/24 Vegas and 3/13 Caps
Friend and I go together. Couldn’t upgrade for Caps game without buying a third ticket. They might release another batch soon. First day gets a ton of people buying. Friend got the upgrade for Vegas.

Thanks for the update, I'll probably go to a game in March and get better seats. Just have to time it with Ms Puck I for when she heads home from AZ.

 

[Kings4OT]

That really puts it into perspective. Of course everyone will point to the plus/minus with Stuetzle at a career -60 and Buster at a career +26 but a) the teams play two entirely different styles of games, b) the Sens haven't had reliable goaltending during his tenure there and c) plus/minus is a subjective stat and not really something that defines a player although the eye test does. Doughty is a -4 already but we know he isnt that type of player, when Durzi was here he was a -21 one season and it ass apparent he will never be counted on defensively.

Buster definitely is the better of the two defensively but again, he wasn't drafted to be Dunno 2.0 averaging 40 or less points a year especially considering the enormous number of opportunities he has gotten in recent years.

Stuetzle's. 89 PPG is literally identical to Kopitar's career PPG, and Kopitar in 2010 (5 years into his career) had 358 points in 393 GP or .91 PPG while still being defensively a rock.

I'm not making a comparison apples to apples, there will probably never be another Kopitar. But there are plenty of 1Cs in the league putting up numbers while not being defensive liabilities, there always has been. Getzlaf, Tavares in his prime, Bergeron, the list exists.

Buster is nowhere near that at all and doesn't appear to be Kopitar's successor.

Also Kopistar was ~ a -50 his first few seasons as well, I am definitely not comparing Stutzle to him....just more perspective and Timmeh also plays pk so hes not a total defensive liabilty and has gotten a few SHrs as well

 

[PuckinUgly57]

Also Kopistar was ~ a -50 his first few seasons as well, I am definitely not comparing Stutzle to him....just more perspective and Timmeh also plays pk so hes not a total defensive liabilty and has gotten a few SHrs as well

His first three years were brutal, -44 but by his fifth year he was a -13. Look at that time frame though, the Kings were rebuilding and terrible when Dumbo took over in 2006 (7 different goalies in 2007-08 which was an NHL record at the time) but made their first PO appearance under Dumbo in 2009-10 which coincides with the team getting defensively sound and Quick showing he will be their number one.

Exactly why I don't put too much stock into plus/minus, it's so subjective and dependent on so many team factors overall but Kopitar was already a defensive force by then. But hey, if Buster's putrid output but +26 is justification for his lack of production, whatever makes the apologists happy. Playing 200' hockey is a Kings expectation, so he doing exactly what he should be doing, he doesn't get a cookie for that.

I know what I'm seeing in this guy and to date it isn't good. If you remove his "breakout" 2023-24, you dont want to know what his career PPG drops to. I'll give you a hint though, it's low .30s. That one season extremely inflated that PPG nunber.

He simply has not delivered yet many of.his 2020 draft peers have. I'm so concerned that what we are seeing is who he is and it won't get much better. Not in LA anyway, he cannot drive his own line and that will be a serious problem here soon once Kopitar retires.