Game Thread: San Jose Sharks(2) vs. Los Angeles Kings(3) | WCQF

[Cobiemonster]

What I remember about Quick from the last couple years is that he never gets scored on low. He does such a good job sealing up the bottom third of the net, and relies on his glove / blocker to block other shots. The reason it worked so well the last few years is the Kings had a tremendous physical D that made it near impossible to gain real-estate in front of Quick. Most of the shots against were from the point our outside the dots. For whatever reason, the Sharks had a TON of room in the Kings end in Games 1 and 2; and while considerably less, still were able to gain position in that real-estate last night.

Last year in that awesome 7 game series I remember there was no such thing as an uncontested shot vs LA in scoring position, and if you were lucky enough to get a rebound you were going to be mauled by at least one King. Last year, Hertl does not get three whacks from the crease area, Marleau probably doesn't get an uncontested backhand in close in OT, and Nieto- not Quick- is being bodied by the Kings defenseman.

This year, something is just different about the way LA is playing. They just seem like a less athletic team. Maybe they are burned out after two successive deep playoff runs? Maybe, as a Kings poster here mentioned, they haven't developed enough depth and are leaning too much on a small number of guys?

That being said, LA did play very well yesterday and that game could easily have gone their way. That was the type of game I was expecting all series.

Their defensemen are getting old - Willie Mitchell is 37, Matt Greene is getting up there and so is Robyn Regehr - all three of them have struggled and it's time for them to move on from them - they traded for Brayden McNabb at the deadline and he has a chance to be a top four guy in the future, I hope they give him every chance to be on the defense next season - and with some of the cap space they can use by letting those d-men go, they should make every effort to sign Matt Niskanen

Also, offense wasn't the problem in the second half, when they got Marian Gaborik he made a huge difference - I think Justin Williams is tradeable and if you can get a top four d-man for him or at least some good picks then I'd do it - it would open up a spot for Tanner Pearson - some of the younger guys need to start playing - they don't need these real old veterans anymore, a lot of these guys have played in big playoff games so they should be the leaders on this team anyways - take the younger players under their wing now

Jonathan Quick is still a great goaltender - in a year where the Kings gave up the least amount of goals in the league and yet their defense was subpar, it goes to show you that the defense is the issue - they completely sucked in front of him lately

 

[DragonfromTO]

Their defensemen are getting old - Willie Mitchell is 37, Matt Greene is getting up there and so is Robyn Regehr - all three of them have struggled and it's time for them to move on from them - they traded for Brayden McNabb at the deadline and he has a chance to be a top four guy in the future, I hope they give him every chance to be on the defense next season - and with some of the cap space they can use by letting those d-men go, they should make every effort to sign Matt Niskanen

Also, offense wasn't the problem in the second half, when they got Marian Gaborik he made a huge difference - I think Justin Williams is tradeable and if you can get a top four d-man for him or at least some good picks then I'd do it - it would open up a spot for Tanner Pearson - some of the younger guys need to start playing - they don't need these real old veterans anymore, a lot of these guys have played in big playoff games so they should be the leaders on this team anyways - take the younger players under their wing now

Jonathan Quick is still a great goaltender - in a year where the Kings gave up the least amount of goals in the league and yet their defense was subpar, it goes to show you that the defense is the issue - they completely sucked in front of him lately

I hate to keep pointing this out, but... 26.2 shots allowed per game! I would honestly kill someone for that kind of subpar defensive performance in Toronto. Seriously, send me the person's info in private and they're fucking finished, I'll even post pictures of the body.

 

[sabresfaninthesouth]

Their defensemen are getting old - Willie Mitchell is 37, Matt Greene is getting up there and so is Robyn Regehr - all three of them have struggled and it's time for them to move on from them - they traded for Brayden McNabb at the deadline and he has a chance to be a top four guy in the future, I hope they give him every chance to be on the defense next season - and with some of the cap space they can use by letting those d-men go, they should make every effort to sign Matt Niskanen

Also, offense wasn't the problem in the second half, when they got Marian Gaborik he made a huge difference - I think Justin Williams is tradeable and if you can get a top four d-man for him or at least some good picks then I'd do it - it would open up a spot for Tanner Pearson - some of the younger guys need to start playing - they don't need these real old veterans anymore, a lot of these guys have played in big playoff games so they should be the leaders on this team anyways - take the younger players under their wing now

Jonathan Quick is still a great goaltender - in a year where the Kings gave up the least amount of goals in the league and yet their defense was subpar, it goes to show you that the defense is the issue - they completely sucked in front of him lately

Sorry to tell you, but no he doesn't. Not on a good team at least. He could barely crack the lineup despite playing for the worst team in the league. The change of scenery might do him some good, but it looks like he's going to be another big D-man who fails to develop into a true NHL caliber player.

 

[Cobiemonster]

Sorry to tell you, but no he doesn't. Not on a good team at least. He could barely crack the lineup despite playing for the worst team in the league. The change of scenery might do him some good, but it looks like he's going to be another big D-man who fails to develop into a true NHL caliber player.

I doubt the Kings would trade Hudson Fasching(who they thought highly of) if they didn't think Brayden McNabb could be a top four d-man in this league - I do think the change of scenery could help, it's not always fair to judge him based on that entire clusterfuck in Buffalo - put him in a better environment and let's see what he does

 

[jstewismybastardson]

Jonathan Quick is still a great goaltender - in a year where the Kings gave up the least amount of goals in the league and yet their defense was subpar, it goes to show you that the defense is the issue - they completely sucked in front of him lately

did the subpar defense play better for the other goalies this season?

19 games is a very small sample ... but ...



Rk Player Season Age Tm Lg Nat. Pos GP W L T/O GA SA SV SV% GAA
1 Jonathan Quick 2013-14 28 LAK NHL US G 49 27 17 4 100 1183 1083 .915 2.07
2 Martin Jones 2013-14 24 LAK NHL G 19 12 6 0 33 500 467 .934 1.81
3 Ben Scrivens 2013-14 27 LAK NHL CA G 19 7 5 4 32 464 432 .931 1.97

 

[sabresfaninthesouth]

I doubt the Kings would trade Hudson Fasching(who they thought highly of) if they didn't think Brayden McNabb could be a top four d-man in this league - I do think the change of scenery could help, it's not always fair to judge him based on that entire clusterfuck in Buffalo - put him in a better environment and let's see what he does

They traded Fasching so that they could get their two 2nd round draft picks back.

 

[DragonfromTO]

did the subpar defense play better for the other goalies this season?

19 games is a very small sample ... but ...



Rk Player Season Age Tm Lg Nat. Pos GP W L T/O GA SA SV SV% GAA
1 Jonathan Quick 2013-14 28 LAK NHL US G 49 27 17 4 100 1183 1083 .915 2.07
2 Martin Jones 2013-14 24 LAK NHL G 19 12 6 0 33 500 467 .934 1.81
3 Ben Scrivens 2013-14 27 LAK NHL CA G 19 7 5 4 32 464 432 .931 1.97

Yep, Quick has had the worst GAA and SV% on the Kings for two years in a row now.

 

[Cobiemonster]

did the subpar defense play better for the other goalies this season?

19 games is a very small sample ... but ...



Rk Player Season Age Tm Lg Nat. Pos GP W L T/O GA SA SV SV% GAA
1 Jonathan Quick 2013-14 28 LAK NHL US G 49 27 17 4 100 1183 1083 .915 2.07
2 Martin Jones 2013-14 24 LAK NHL G 19 12 6 0 33 500 467 .934 1.81
3 Ben Scrivens 2013-14 27 LAK NHL CA G 19 7 5 4 32 464 432 .931 1.97

Kings were playing much better as a team when those other two goalies played because they committed to playing better defense - I think when Jonathan Quick's in net, sometimes they take it for granted that he's so good, that sometimes they don't play the stingiest defense

24.1, 26.3, 24.4 shots per game from 1 to 3 on the ranking

Also, remember, when Jonathan Quick got hurt and was out from mid-November to the beginning of January, the Kings were playing a lot of easier opponents - with him hurt, this is who they played in his absence:

BUF, NYI(2), NJ(2), NYR, TB, COL(2), VAN, SJ(2), CGY, STL(2), ANA, MTL, TOR, OTT, CHI(2), EDM, NSH and DAL

11 of those 24 games had teams that were not in the playoffs this season - after Jonathan Quick came back on the 4th of January against Vancouver, from there to the break, 14 of those 17 games were against playoff teams - that was a hellacious schedule when he came back and the team played like crap defensively in those games - I would have liked to have seen what the Kings would have done with Martin Jones and Ben Scrivens in net for this stretch when Quickie came back:

VAN, MIN, BOS, DET, VAN, at STL, at DET, at BOS, at CBJ, at ANA, ANA, at SJ, at PHX, PIT, PHI, CHI, CBJ

That was a ridiculous schedule and the Kings played awful in some of those games, which is attributed to the defense - his GAA is still fantastic, they need to start playing better defensively - of course there are a few goals here and there he'd like to have back but how can you argue with a 2.07 GAA? Even as good as the other two goalies were, how is 2.07 arguable?

 

[Cobiemonster]

Yep, Quick has had the worst GAA and SV% on the Kings for two years in a row now.

If we're going to go by this logic, then Henrik Lundqvist should get some thrown his way because Cam Talbot's numbers(GAA and %) are better than his this season

You could say the same about Chad Johnson's numbers as the backup to Tuukka Rask being identical as well - also Antti Raanta/Corey Crawford, Antti Niemi/Alex Stalock and even Ryan Miller/Brian Elliott

For example, a guy like Antti Niemi has had a pedigree for being a clutch goalie, why do you think the Sharks didn't start Alex Stalock, even with better numbers(I would assume)? Because Antti Niemi is good in the long run and he knows how to win big games - if they went with Alex Stalock, it would be like the Kings going with Martin Jones instead of Jonathan Quick - just because a guys numbers is better than the starter doesn't mean that the backup should be the starter - a shorter sample size means that they probably will be better in the short term because the team will play tighter defensively and the opponents a backup faces could be a bit easier than what the starter gets

I'm not degrading the backups either, I like all of the backups I've mentioned for the most part, it's just that at the end of the day, there's a reason why certain guys are starters and certain guys aren't - the ones who are starters know how to win big games and it's not all about the numbers

 

[Slimpikins]

From David Pollak's blog:

Consider: Each of the four Western Conference series have reached the fourth game. Here are the combined hit totals for both teams in all the action to this point –

St. Louis and Chicago: 181 hits.
Anaheim and Dallas: 187 hits.
Colorado and Minnesota: 189 hits.
San Jose and Los Angeles: 312 hits.

Not a misprint. The Sharks and Kings have bounced off each other with so much greater frequency that I had to double-check the math. No, not every hit was bone-jarring, but they do add up.

God damn. Sharks need to sweep on Thursday and get some rest. Let the other teams wear themselves out with physical play.

 

[mr.hockey4242]

Kings shouldn't have trade Fasching. He's gona be a great player.

 

[Cobiemonster]

From David Pollak's blog:

Consider: Each of the four Western Conference series have reached the fourth game. Here are the combined hit totals for both teams in all the action to this point –

St. Louis and Chicago: 181 hits.
Anaheim and Dallas: 187 hits.
Colorado and Minnesota: 189 hits.
San Jose and Los Angeles: 312 hits.

Not a misprint. The Sharks and Kings have bounced off each other with so much greater frequency that I had to double-check the math. No, not every hit was bone-jarring, but they do add up.

God damn. Sharks need to sweep on Thursday and get some rest. Let the other teams wear themselves out with physical play.

I'm surprised St. Louis/Chicago doesn't have more hits - maybe they score hits in the Sharks/Kings series more easily

 

[Slimpikins]

I thought about that but I don't think it would quite account for 120 hits over 3 games (40 hits per game). That's a pretty big disparity.

 

[DragonfromTO]

If we're going to go by this logic, then Henrik Lundqvist should get some thrown his way because Cam Talbot's numbers(GAA and %) are better than his this season

In the case of Lundqvist/Talbot we are talking about a much smaller sample, so the small sample size argument makes more sense. Quick's backups played 38 games this year and 14 last year, while Talbot played only 23 this year and Lundqvist outperformed Biron last year.

You could say the same about Chad Johnson's numbers as the backup to Tuukka Rask being identical as well - also Antti Raanta/Corey Crawford, Antti Niemi/Alex Stalock and even Ryan Miller/Brian Elliott

Let's look at these one by one. Rask's numbers were better than Johnson's this year, so I'm not sure why this is even being mentioned. Crawford's numbers this year were significantly better than Raanta's, Raanta's SV% was below .900 for Christ's sake. Stalock was better than Niemi but as in the case of Lundqvist/Talbot we're talking about a smaller sample this year (24 games for Stalock) and it's not the second consecutive year of his being outperformed. Miller's numbers over the entire year (not just the St. Louis portion) aren't bad at all and are right there with Elliot's.

For example, a guy like Antti Niemi has had a pedigree for being a clutch goalie, why do you think the Sharks didn't start Alex Stalock, even with better numbers(I would assume)? Because Antti Niemi is good in the long run and he knows how to win big games - if they went with Alex Stalock, it would be like the Kings going with Martin Jones instead of Jonathan Quick - just because a guys numbers is better than the starter doesn't mean that the backup should be the starter - a shorter sample size means that they probably will be better in the short term because the team will play tighter defensively and the opponents a backup faces could be a bit easier than what the starter gets

Backups also tend to get the back end of back-to-backs, when the team in front of them is probably tired.

If the Kings' backups were in fact facing easier opponents and/or the Kings were playing tighter defensively in front of them, shouldn't that show up in the shot totals allowed? This year I get 24.4 SA/60 when Quick played, 27.4 SA/60 for Jones, 28.6 SA/60 for Scrivens. If the Kings played tighter defense in front of Quick's backups there doesn't seem to be much evidence of it at first glance.

I'm not degrading the backups either, I like all of the backups I've mentioned for the most part, it's just that at the end of the day, there's a reason why certain guys are starters and certain guys aren't - the ones who are starters know how to win big games and it's not all about the numbers

I don't think that Martin Jones is better than Jonathan Quick. But if Quick's the best in the league as you say, shouldn't such an argument be completely indefensible in the first place?

 

[DragonfromTO]

In the case of Lundqvist/Talbot we are talking about a much smaller sample, so the small sample size argument makes more sense. Quick's backups played 38 games this year and 14 last year, while Talbot played only 23 this year and Lundqvist outperformed Biron last year.



Let's look at these one by one. Rask's numbers were better than Johnson's this year, so I'm not sure why this is even being mentioned. Crawford's numbers this year were significantly better than Raanta's, Raanta's SV% was below .900 for Christ's sake. Stalock was better than Niemi but as in the case of Lundqvist/Talbot we're talking about a smaller sample this year (24 games for Stalock) and it's not the second consecutive year of his being outperformed. Miller's numbers over the entire year (not just the St. Louis portion) aren't bad at all and are right there with Elliot's.



Backups also tend to get the back end of back-to-backs, when the team in front of them is probably tired.

If the Kings' backups were in fact facing easier opponents and/or the Kings were playing tighter defensively in front of them, shouldn't that show up in the shot totals allowed? This year I get 24.4 SA/60 when Quick played, 27.4 SA/60 for Jones, 28.6 SA/60 for Scrivens. If the Kings played tighter defense in front of Quick's backups there doesn't seem to be much evidence of it at first glance.



I don't think that Martin Jones is better than Jonathan Quick. But if Quick's the best in the league as you say, shouldn't such an argument be completely indefensible in the first place?

I would also add that of the six goalies you mentioned (Quick, Lundqvist, Rask, Crawford, Niemi, Miller) Quick had the worst SV% this season. And he also had the worst SV% last season. And really I'm not even sure that many people think of half of them (Crawford, Niemi, Miller) as "elite" anyway, and certainly not competitors for the title of "best in the league".

 

[Cobiemonster]

I would also add that of the six goalies you mentioned (Quick, Lundqvist, Rask, Crawford, Niemi, Miller) Quick had the worst SV% this season. And he also had the worst SV% last season. And really I'm not even sure that many people think of half of them (Crawford, Niemi, Miller) as "elite" anyway, and certainly not competitors for the title of "best in the league".

2008-2009 KINGS 44 21 18 - 2 4 103 1,200 .914 2.48 2,495
2009-2010 KINGS 72 39 24 - 7 4 180 1,927 .907 2.54 4,258
2010-2011 KINGS 61 35 22 - 3 6 134 1,631 .918 2.24 3,591
2011-2012 KINGS 69 35 21 - 13 10 133 1,863 .929 1.95 4,099
2012-2013 KINGS 37 18 13 - 4 1 87 889 .902 2.45 2,134
2013-2014 KINGS 49 27 17 - 4 6 100 1,183 .915 2.07 2,904

If you look at his numbers, this season was probably his second best season - if you project his total saves for 69 games(like he had in 2011-12), he would have had 1663 this season, which is about 200 less saves - I think he might put up a little better % with more shots on goal - if you look at those other guys, they probably get more shots on goal so that probably makes their sv% look a little better - that's why I think in Quick's case, you have to look deeper than those stats - save percentage is a tricky stat because you can give up 3 goals on 40 shots and end up with a .925% and then give up 2 goals on 20 shots and end up with a .900 save percentage - technically the goalie with the lesser save percentage ends up giving up less goals - Jonathan Quick's GAA is as good as anyone in the league, he just sees less shots and that's why his sv% is not as high as others, you won't get shutouts every night and people think if you don't get a lot of shots on goal, you should be able to stop them all, but sometimes you have to watch how the games develop - the Kings were not as tight defensively and while the numbers were similar, they gave up more grade A chances than normal - if the Kings didn't give up as many grade A chances this season, he might have a GAA under 2 like he did two years ago and a save percentage at around .920 - he still had six shutouts this season in on 49 starts, which is phenomenal

 

[DragonfromTO]

2008-2009 KINGS 44 21 18 - 2 4 103 1,200 .914 2.48 2,495
2009-2010 KINGS 72 39 24 - 7 4 180 1,927 .907 2.54 4,258
2010-2011 KINGS 61 35 22 - 3 6 134 1,631 .918 2.24 3,591
2011-2012 KINGS 69 35 21 - 13 10 133 1,863 .929 1.95 4,099
2012-2013 KINGS 37 18 13 - 4 1 87 889 .902 2.45 2,134
2013-2014 KINGS 49 27 17 - 4 6 100 1,183 .915 2.07 2,904

If you look at his numbers, this season was probably his second best season - if you project his total saves for 69 games(like he had in 2011-12), he would have had 1663 this season, which is about 200 less saves - I think he might put up a little better % with more shots on goal - if you look at those other guys, they probably get more shots on goal so that probably makes their sv% look a little better - that's why I think in Quick's case, you have to look deeper than those stats - save percentage is a tricky stat because you can give up 3 goals on 40 shots and end up with a .925% and then give up 2 goals on 20 shots and end up with a .900 save percentage - technically the goalie with the lesser save percentage ends up giving up less goals - Jonathan Quick's GAA is as good as anyone in the league, he just sees less shots and that's why his sv% is not as high as others, you won't get shutouts every night and people think if you don't get a lot of shots on goal, you should be able to stop them all, but sometimes you have to watch how the games develop - the Kings were not as tight defensively and while the numbers were similar, they gave up more grade A chances than normal - if the Kings didn't give up as many grade A chances this season, he might have a GAA under 2 like he did two years ago and a save percentage at around .920 - he still had six shutouts this season in on 49 starts, which is phenomenal

The question still remains though... if the problem is that the Kings gave up so many grade A chances this year, why didn't Martin Jones and Ben Scrivens allow more goals? And what was the reason for Quick's shitty performance last year?

 

[Cobiemonster]

The question still remains though... if the problem is that the Kings gave up so many grade A chances this year, why didn't Martin Jones and Ben Scrivens allow more goals? And what was the reason for Quick's shitty performance last year?

Because as I said earlier, the Kings had played much better when those other two guys were in net, and those guys didn't face the tough opponents that Quick did - the Kings started to play some crappy defense by the time Quick came back and it also came at the same time that they started playing some really good teams - it was murderers row all of January and that's where a lot of the struggles were

Last year, Quick was coming off of back surgery - that's why he didn't get going until the playoffs

 

[DragonfromTO]

Because as I said earlier, the Kings had played much better when those other two guys were in net, and those guys didn't face the tough opponents that Quick did - the Kings started to play some crappy defense by the time Quick came back and it also came at the same time that they started playing some really good teams - it was murderers row all of January and that's where a lot of the struggles were

Last year, Quick was coming off of back surgery - that's why he didn't get going until the playoffs

I think you're looking for reasons to confirm the opinion that you already had. He had a SV% barely above league average over 49 games, he didn't play all of those games against tough teams with crappy defense. I mean, how crappy could the lows have even been given that the average over the entire season was the second fewest shots allowed? And if Quick's backups faced all of the crappy teams with better defense in front of them, why did they face more shots in their games?

 

[DragonfromTO]

I think you're looking for reasons to confirm the opinion that you already had. He had a SV% barely above league average over 49 games, he didn't play all of those games against tough teams with crappy defense. I mean, how crappy could the lows have even been given that the average over the entire season was the second fewest shots allowed? And if Quick's backups faced all of the crappy teams with better defense in front of them, why did they face more shots in their games?

And if you're impressed by his 6 shutouts, didn't Scrivens + Jones have the same number in even fewer games/minutes?