"Starbucks and Sandals"

[PuckinUgly57]

These were the words of a certain Dumbo when he took over as the Kings' GM regarding the culture of the Los Angeles Kings.

Fast forward and we all know what he did, beginning with jettisoning out the veterans, getting rid of guys like Patrick O'Sullivan, the bad seeds and what not and bringing in guys like Greene, Regehr, Stoll, Richards, Mitchell, Williams, etc. He even dumped the janitorial service straight down to replacing the trash cans (literally). The results spoke for themselves 6 years later when they would hoist their first Cup and then a second 24 months later.

That culture eroded, I think starting in 2016 or so when the Kings still seemed to believe they would coast through the season, turn it on in April and run the table. Not so much and entitlement took over the winning culture. I do't think I have ever seen a more uninspired bunch than the 2018-19 Kings. Pathetic.

Good article in The Athletic that confirms what many of us believed, myself included having mentioned this over the years - when guys like those above left, so did the accountability, team toughness, grit, attitude and balls to win at all costs.

Long read but well worth it. You're welcome for the non subscribers you cheap sons of bitches.

=)~~

Once the kings of culture, L.A. struggles with 'entitlement'...

Once the kings of culture, L.A. struggles with ‘entitlement’ and lost identity

Kings forward Tyler Toffoli simply spoke his mind at the team’s getaway day when he talked about poor practice habits.


“You guys saw our practices sometimes,” Toffoli said. “It was kind of pathetic a lot of the time, which is frustrating.”


Nobody else brought it up without prompting, and Toffoli just happened to be the one who decided to go public with the observation and point out how a group that prided itself on culture and hard work had fallen so far. The Kings couldn’t push themselves in an area where good teams excel.


“If you have bad practice habits, like, that is leadership,” said former Kings forward Mike Richards, who won the Stanley Cup in 2012 and 2014 with L.A. “A lot of practice habits, I think, is leadership. If that starts coming into your game — and I’ll take it back to the year that we won — if you start noticing it and it doesn’t get turned around, that kind of probably goes on the leadership.”


Toffoli’s public comments seemed to set off alarm bells for what became obvious over the course of last season – that the Kings’ winning culture, meticulously constructed by former general manager Dean Lombardi, is officially gone. Now, Los Angeles is a group trying to figure out a new culture, different from the one they basically lived off from 2012 until this season.


Richards pointed out that it can be hard to get up for practice if a team is far out of the playoff race, as the Kings were this season, but other players who were part of L.A.’s championship culture didn’t see it exactly the same way.


“Maybe I was in that situation once in Edmonton (being far out of the playoffs),” said Jarret Stoll, a Kings center from 2008-15, “but it’s whether or not you’re a good pro or you want to have a good attitude or not. You wake up in the morning and you’re either in a good mood or bad mood. But life’s pretty good. You’re a professional athlete. You’re making all kinds of money, you’re living in California, you’re healthy. I know you’re not where you want to be in the standings but you gotta find a way, any way possible, to come to the rink and have a good attitude and work hard.


Stoll, who does television work for the Kings and also helps with their player development, added, “I’m not going to comment about whatever comments were made, but that’s just what I feel. You gotta come and be a good pro, be a good leader to the young guys, and that’s what I would do.”


Robyn Regehr, who played on L.A.’s 2014 Stanley Cup team, said, “That’s concerning. Put it this way: I’ve never been on a very good team that had terrible practice habits. They just don’t go together.”


Some of the Kings’ current problems fall on Lombardi and the ‘win-now’ roster moves he made to keep L.A. competitive. It also should be noted that Lombardi demoted two-time Cup-winning captain Dustin Brown in 2016, and the Kings haven’t won a playoff game since then. The situation bottomed out under current general manager Rob Blake, and now it’s his issue to fix.


“For me, the entitlement aspect has to disappear,” Blake said at the end of the season. “We’re past the point of the championship teams. We’re gone. We’ve got to build something different. We have to restructure our roster, we all have to be on the same page, but you have to want to get better every day, and if you’re not, it’s not going to work.”


This is a major pivot for Blake, who on the day he was hired said the following:


“The culture is in place and I respect that culture, 100 percent. It’s a culture that you know has success … Sometimes you can come into maybe an organization and they haven’t won and they say they have this culture and that, but it has been proven here. Like I said, the core players like (Anze Kopitar) and Drew (Doughty) and Jeff (Carter) – they’ve been molded with that culture. It’s not coming out of them, so we’ll build on that.”


But this year, it became clear the culture was off right from the get-go. The team started 4-8-1 for John Stevens before he was fired and replaced by Willie Desjardins, who proved a poor fit as interim coach.


“My first reaction (to Toffoli’s comments) was that he was reacting like a whiney brat, but there’s a lot more that needs to be considered than where his stance is and who he’s referring to,” said a former NHL player who played over 1,000 games in the league. “If he has a problem with his teammates’ practice habits, he should stand up and do something about it. Looking at it again, if he’s talking about the coach, you can’t go up to the coach and say, ‘Your practices suck.’ But when you’re talking about your teammates, you certainly should stand up. That’s being a leader and saying, ‘Our practices do suck, let’s do something about it.’ Obviously I’m not in that room, but that’s how I see it from my experience as an NHL player.”


There were also two off-ice images that stuck out in terms of the Kings’ optics away from the rink.


One was Drew Doughty yelling at Houston Rockets star James Harden when Doughty, a Kings alternate captain, attended a Lakers-Rockets game mere hours after a loss to the Buffalo Sabres and an ensuing team meeting.

 

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The other was forward Ilya Kovalchuk posting an Instagram picture of him and his family getting ice cream after he and the team decided he would stay home on the last road trip of the year so he could work with a skills coach.



Players are free to do what they want in their free time, but visually, both looked poor considering the timing.


On the ice, Jonathan Quick didn’t appreciate Desjardins’ decision to not challenge for goaltender interference in late February, and publicly appeared to yell at the coach. Desjardins’ decision to healthy-scratch Kovalchuk and demote him was a flashpoint all year.


All in all, it felt like bizarre-o world for a team that was known for having strong leaders like Stoll, Regehr, Richards, Matt Greene and Justin Williams, who helped keep the ship steady. Former coach Darryl Sutter may have had the loudest voice in the franchise at the time, but the guys in the room also policed themselves in a way that got them to hockey’s ultimate goal and Sutter empowered that attitude.


“Our saying, just all within the room and the guys, was, ‘For the fellas,’” Regehr said of the 2014 squad. “Like, ‘Guys, let’s do this for the fellas,’ and the fellas were the guys in the room, your teammates and your friends. We wanted to do it for each other. If you ever have a chance to see one of the 2014 Stanley Cup rings that the players have, there’s actually a hashtag FTF on there that was added by the players that stands for ‘for the fellas,’ and that was kind of our attitude.”


Said Richards, “Darryl would push you to get your energy up and push you to finish your hits, but it was really in the dressing room where the players would call you out if you made some bad line changes or extending your shift or if you didn’t get pucks deep. So I think that was the difference. We kind of rallied once Darryl came in because (Terry Murray) was fired, and I think that really kind of kicked us into gear of what we needed to do. The coaches obviously had a big part of it, but the leadership, the Matt Greenes, the Willie Mitchells were just as much, if not more than the coaching staff, just (pushing) players to do the right things.”


The 2014 Kings team didn’t have any kind of entitlement issue – though they could have. That group was down 0-3 to the San Jose Sharks in the first round of the postseason, and a lot of the players on that squad had won the Cup in 2012. It would have been easy to just pack it in and go home for the offseason. But they didn’t, and they came back to win the series in seven games. What was their motivation?

 

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Said Richards, “I think a lot had to do with it being San Jose, just because they were a rival and we had such a hatred for each other, like they hated us, we hated them … And we had such a hatred for them and it was like, ‘There’s no way in hell we’re losing to these guys four games in a row.’”


Added Stoll, “If you’re not thinking that you want to win, if you’re not thinking that, you probably shouldn’t be an athlete. Whether you think you have the team or not, you play the games for a reason.


“It doesn’t matter what team you are, who you’re playing against and what building you’re playing in, you gotta play the games and anything can happen, but we knew we had the team to win it, so there’s that motivation right there.”


At the start of this season, the Kings thought they could compete for the Stanley Cup. Team president Luc Robitaille said “yes” when asked by a reporter at the Kings’ State of the Franchise event if this was a Cup contender.


“If you have Kopitar, Carter and (Adrian) Kempe at center and your wingers produce what they’re expected to, we are,” Robitaille said. “We have the best defenseman (Doughty) in the world. We have one of the best pressure goalies (Quick) in the world and we are. We can compete with anyone.”


The miscalculation had to do with a lot of factors – age, lack of speed, etc. – but maybe the culture had fallen off so badly that it led to a disastrous year.


When the Kings were winning, the leadership came from the bottom up. Now it’s being asked to come from the top down, with Kopitar, Doughty, Quick and Carter. Though Brown remains, and has had two straight phenomenal years after Sutter and Lombardi were fired, him not being captain may have lessened his overall impact on the culture.


Have they successfully replaced the core leadership group from the Cup-winning teams? Last season provided a harsh lesson, that work needs to be done in this department – if all players are back next year. Neither Carter nor Quick has trade protection.


“I’m going to say there’s a reason for hope,” Kings television analyst Jim Fox said. “I’m sure there’s a lot of doubters out there and I have no qualms with the doubters. I don’t blame them for doubting it, but I don’t think they’re as far away as most people think they are.”


Part of the problem with rebuilding a culture like L.A.’s 2012 and 2014 teams involves the league’s current financial landscape. It’s nearly impossible to build a squad with depth veterans like those groups had. Guys who are ready to contribute on entry-level or low second deals are commodities, and a lot of winning squads are loaded with them on lower lines.


“If there’s any way you’re trying to compare it to now or trying to rebuild the culture, it’s completely different, completely different,” Fox said. “Your role players back then were veteran tested players, veterans … (Jordan) Nolan and (Dwight) King and then in ‘14 was Toffoli and (Tanner) Pearson. They came in and were young, but your role guys, you have Jarret Stoll and in ’14 you have Mike Richards as your fourth-line center. I know guys moved around. I just have a feeling that the experience factor then is much greater than it is now, and due to the salary cap situation I don’t think you can fill those roles with veteran players anymore, because usually veteran players cost too much money.”


Really, the only way to recreate what L.A. had is to completely strip the franchise down to the studs, which isn’t going to happen, and probably shouldn’t happen. After all, Kopitar and Doughty are a year removed from being named finalists for the Hart Trophy and Norris Trophy, respectively. Kopitar also won the Selke Trophy in 2018 (and 2016).


L.A. is going to need new coach Todd McLellan, an experienced and well-respected hand, to guide the group and set a tone. It’s going to need its youngsters to step up, and its older players to bear down. There is reason for hope within the team’s youth – guys like Jaret Anderson-Dolan and Rasmus Kupari are considered talented prospects. Los Angeles has the No. 5 pick in the upcoming NHL Draft. Also, the Kings have publicly acknowledged this is a problem and have said they are trying to fix it. Solutions generally come after an issue has been recognized and a path forward charted.


Things may eventually be different than with the recent Cup teams, but the Kings have to find their way on a new course.


“The tone can be set from the top and from the coach,” Regehr said, “But what the most effective way is is to have it internally for a team, coming from within, hopefully (from) the leadership group but not always. Sometimes it’s other guys that are pushing and trying to get things going, so when you have that internal push from other players as peers then that’s when you know you’re onto something big.”

 

[Stunner_At_Staples_Kings]

Some good stuff in here. No super revelations, but summed up nicely. You pretty much have guys talking about leaders from inside the room (Not just relying on coaching), but what I took from it especially was that you had leadership within each grouping (defense, and even within each forward line). Doughty is all-world, but he is not a good leader in that sense (Still immature with outbursts, still reckless at times etc.). I don't worry about Doughty's effectiveness, it's more so how he affects others. Like's he's not really leading the other pairings, and is more focused on his own game (Which is good and bad). Good because he cares and is passionate, but bad because he's so off the charts talented, that he's isn't really out there influencing the younger defenseman (My opinion). It would be hard to listen to guy like that. If Phaneuf wasn't so slow and terrible, I actually thought getting him might help add some leadership within that grouping.

For the forwards, you see Kopitar is a great player, but he doesn't strike me as an overly talkative guy, or guy who is really imposing when it comes to fear.

I've said it previously, and it's nailed in this article, but Kings bottom 6 is just a big of an issue as their top guys, and there best hope is to get some grit added to this lineup. Everyone keeps trending towards speed-speed-speed, but I still think it's a balance in the end. Boston and St. Louis are pretty heavy teams to be honest. That's why a guy like Grundstrom is pretty exciting as a prospect. A guy who has some speed, sure, but who also hits, and wants to go to the net.

You look at all it takes to win, and you just sort of maybe appreciate how hard it was to make it happen to begin with. The balance of youth and veteran leadership, the clutch plays, the composure etc. It really is like catching lightning in a bottle, so I don't hold out super hope of them catching that again with how things look.

We also keep saying it, but on paper, this team shouldn't be as bad as they were/are but this has been a fair sample size the past 5 years, and it's maddening that that's just sort of who they are right now.

 

[PuckinUgly57]

Some good stuff in here. No super revelations, but summed up nicely. You pretty much have guys talking about leaders from inside the room (Not just relying on coaching), but what I took from it especially was that you had leadership within each grouping (defense, and even within each forward line). Doughty is all-world, but he is not a good leader in that sense (Still immature with outbursts, still reckless at times etc.). I don't worry about Doughty's effectiveness, it's more so how he affects others. Like's he's not really leading the other pairings, and is more focused on his own game (Which is good and bad). Good because he cares and is passionate, but bad because he's so off the charts talented, that he's isn't really out there influencing the younger defenseman (My opinion). It would be hard to listen to guy like that. If Phaneuf wasn't so slow and terrible, I actually thought getting him might help add some leadership within that grouping.

I think the bigger underlying issue not mentioned in the article, and one myself and others have mentioned, is that when the heart and soul guys - Williams, Mitchell, Scuderi, Stoll, Richards, Regehr, Fraser, even someone like Richardson - all phased out they were not replaced.

While I think Dumbo did a good job identifying and getting those leadership guys during the build (not a single one was drafted or developed by LA, they were all trades except Mitchell and Scuderi who were UFA signings), the plan was for whoever of the younger players coming up and making themselves part of the team (during this run it was guys like Simmonds, Pearson, Toffoli, Martinez, Doughty, Schenn, etc) to take that mantle from those being phased out but that didn't happen. Of course some guys left for trades and whatnot like Schenn and Simmonds but I'm specifically referring to the guys that stayed.

When Dumbo originally got those first guys, the Kings were rebuilding and had cap room to get them. Fast forward to after 2014 and because of the big dollar contracts (Quick for example - went from making $1.8 million and being a world class goalie to making $5.8 million and being a world class goalie), that luxury to sign a Scuderi type who led by example and held people accountable for 4 years/$13.6 million was gone. It now had to come from within from guys on ELCs or manageable bridge deals.

I think this is a huge issue that guys like Toffoli, Pearson, Voynov (by his own doing), etc. did not step up to the plate and fill those leadership voids left by the guys phasing out. Guys like Brown, Quick, Doughty, Martinez, Lewis and Kopitar did, but they assumed the main role and not the secondary roles anymore which was what Toffoli et al were supposed to do.

While I put some of the blame on them for not making that transition, some blame needs to be laid at the feet of guys like the Brown group for not being good teachers and in my opinion showing them properly how it's done. Now we have this dysfunctional locker room with no cap space to correct it created by that void in leadership transition and with the current leadership group failing to extend that hand down to the secondary guys.

Personally I don't feel guys like Toffoli would have accepted that hand anyway - that guy plays with fear and you can see it- so maybe something needs to be looked at there in terms of who they drafted. For a team who prides itself on "character" I see a lot of players on this team that don't fit that mold at all.

Here's looking at you Mike Futa, your draft classes have been questionable at best for the last 5-7 years.

For the forwards, you see Kopitar is a great player, but he doesn't strike me as an overly talkative guy, or guy who is really imposing when it comes to fear.

Completely agree. He does lead by example but if you're a developing player you may not know what you're looking for and therefore at. He is meant to lead a veteran team, not one about to be full of younger players.

Generally speaking your captain should have talent but there is a reason why guys like Backes, Norstrom, etc wore Cs - they weren't overly skilled but heart is always on full display. With Kopitar he is so skilled it may look too easy to some, which is why that message may not be processed properly (Doughty also and this addresses your point, I completely get it).

I've said it previously, and it's nailed in this article, but Kings bottom 6 is just a big of an issue as their top guys, and there best hope is to get some grit added to this lineup. Everyone keeps trending towards speed-speed-speed, but I still think it's a balance in the end. Boston and St. Louis are pretty heavy teams to be honest. That's why a guy like Grundstrom is pretty exciting as a prospect. A guy who has some speed, sure, but who also hits, and wants to go to the net.

The Kings B6 is garbage, it has been since 2015 or so. The 2010-2014 teams had a nice blend of everything, but aftwr that the B6 just became a mish mash of cheap parts that didn't work well together and still doesn't but because the T6 is cap heavy there isn't much to invest in the B6 financially.

Boston and the Blues are both skilled, big, physical teams but they have augmented on the fly and their B6 lines are contributors and effective, which is what you need to win it all (like the 2012 and 2014 teams were). The difference is speed and they cut ties with players instead of being too emotional and loyal to them like Dumbo was which is handcuffing them now.

Grundstrom looks like he will be a M6 or T9 player moving up and down the lineup, I am not banking on him to be a T3 player. I did like what I saw from him however, he will most likely be a better version of 2003-2011 Brown.

I keep forgetting the Kings have TO's 1st round pick too (22nd overall). There have been some decent players taken 22nd overall (Adam Graves, Simon Gagne before he sucked balls in LA, Claude Giroux, Adam Foote, Max Pacioretty, Jordan Eberle, Olli Maata) so the Kings may get a decent player but the odds are slim being that late in the round. For every one of these guys there is a Lukas Kaspar or David Hale too.

But an extra shot is an extra shot. Ah Muzzin, the gift that keeps on giving.

=)~~

You look at all it takes to win, and you just sort of maybe appreciate how hard it was to make it happen to begin with. The balance of youth and veteran leadership, the clutch plays, the composure etc. It really is like catching lightning in a bottle, so I don't hold out super hope of them catching that again with how things look.

The Kings did it by setting a trend (heavy hockey), they failed by not adapting to an already changing trend to the speed and skill that was pretty obvious right around 2015.

I give Dumbo credit for doing what he did, but it's a lot easier to paint with a blank canvas than changing an existing painting altogether.

We also keep saying it, but on paper, this team shouldn't be as bad as they were/are but this has been a fair sample size the past 5 years, and it's maddening that that's just sort of who they are right now.

At this price point no way should this team have finished 30th, but I also think under the Dumbo regime they over invested in certain players which as we know is why this team cannot compete legitimately for a Cup at this time.

 

[Stunner_At_Staples_Kings]

They were having these debates on the radio earlier. Why Catchers in baseball, and usually role players are better coaches than superstars. It comes easy too superstars, so there isn't a lot to teach. Whereas role players are constantly scrapping and having to understand the league on all fronts in order to even keep their roster spot.

I would also throw in DRIVE. "It's hard to eat when your belly is full". I love that quote. It's something inherent, and sometimes even petty, but whatever sparks that drive is a lot of times the difference. "Hard work beats talent, when talent refuses to work hard". Like Michael Jordan was talented as heck, but it was his pettiness at always feeling slighted that drove him to that next level. Even in his Hall of Fame speech, he said "They never believed in me". But when you look at the story, it was that he wasn't on varsity in high school as a freshman. haha. That's some insane stuff right there. That means he only played varsity for 3 years instead of 4, and that as in high school. So then fast forward and that's what came up in his Hall of Fame speech. For all the love that Kobe gets, he was petty too. When he got his last ring, the first thing he said was it was one more than Shaq. So the fact that Shaq had one more than him after he won with the Heat, that just ate at Kobe. So then Kobe got 2 more, and that's the first thing he said in his first interview.

Back to the Kings, I keep saying give it two summers. This one, and the next, and I do think it'll be a different tune we're singing. Guys like Lewis, who was probably one of my favorite Kings, just hasn't looked the same since that fall a year ago. His contract is up after next year, along with Clifford, and and a few others. I love Clifford, but for what he brings, there are cheaper options. Plus, if given some time in the league, some younger talent will emerge from previous drafts, this draft, and next year's. It was actually exciting having Kings prospects in the Memorial Cup, and seeing some Kings all lighting it up in the IIHF tourney. Some good things overall. This team was a nightmare this year, but the farm rebuild started 2 years ago, which is really an underrated positive.

 

[PuckinUgly57]

Good follow up to this one also from The Athletic.

I think it's hilarious that Toffoli was the one who made the practices comment, he could have used quite a bit more the last 2½ years seeing as how useless he's been. The irony.

Alec Martinez on Kings' culture drop-off: 'The entitlement...

Alec Martinez on Kings’ culture drop-off: ‘The entitlement thing is a valid point’

In a few days, Alec Martinez will remember what day it is again.


This week has been a time zone readjustment for him after playing at the IIHF World Championships in Slovakia for Team USA and spending some time in Europe afterward. The Kings defenseman came home and joked about showing up at a farmers market on the wrong day in Manhattan Beach.


There will be no such confusion about June 13.


“I stumble across the highlights and someone will tweet something at you,” Martinez said. “But I certainly don’t just sit around watching it. Every once in a while, it pops up on your Twitter, but I don’t hit play.”


Thursday, June 13 is the five-year anniversary of Game 5 of the Stanley Cup final against the New York Rangers, when Martinez scored the Cup-clinching goal for the Kings in double overtime. His Jazz Hands celebration was perfect punctuation and, well, led to a catchy nickname.


“I certainly appreciate both times we won,” Martinez said. “But when you’re a player, you still have an opportunity to do it again. I know I say this a lot but it’s just one of those things you might think about more or reflect on it more once you’re done playing.


“Everyone will always talk about two Cups, the two Cups. At some point, you look back at it and it’s like, ‘well, the last one was five years ago. And we’ve won one playoff game in five years.’ It’s just something that myself and quite a few of the guys have talked about.”


His observation served as a launching-off point for the next part of our wide-ranging conversation about the direction of the struggling Kings, who are coming off a 30th-place finish, a meaningful and unexpected drop-off in team and individual performance. Martinez is No. 2 in tenure on the Kings’ blue line – behind Drew Doughty – and the only other players who have been in Los Angeles longer are Dustin Brown, Anze Kopitar, Trevor Lewis and Jonathan Quick.


Martinez offers the same intelligent perspective of a Brown, a link to the past glory days and a barometer of the present.


Since the end of the regular season, there has been so much talk about entitlement, complacency and hunger – it sounds more like a soap opera plot than a hockey team losing its way. Colleague Josh Cooper recently spoke with several former Kings players about the issue of entitlement and the erosion of the Kings’ winning culture. Martinez is the first player to talk to The Athletic about those issues, including the topic of poor practice habits, since breakup day in April.


Time helps lend perspective, and so does the fact the Kings have won one playoff game in five years.


“I look at my individual career – that’s half my career – and quite frankly, that’s just unacceptable,” Martinez said. “Maybe the sense of entitlement, I guess that word is derived just from the fact that we didn’t adapt or maybe we didn’t do the things necessary to stay up to date. I truly believe in the group of guys that we have both on and off the ice. But I guess it’s just like anything; sometimes you’ve got to go through something like this to really get a kick in the rear.


“You look at a team like Boston right now. They were obviously really successful, but then they had some down years as well. And then now the past few years, they’ve been playing really good hockey. And everyone was doubting them saying their core is washed up, they are too old. You watch them in the playoffs, and you watch the series and all that and it’s clearly not the case. I don’t want to say natural progression because it shouldn’t happen but sometimes things like this happen.”


Martinez had a slightly different view on the issue of hunger/complacency.


“The entitlement thing is a valid point,” he said. “I have a hard time buying the hunger argument and maybe that’s just me. Maybe it’s something that varies from guy to guy, but I don’t think that there’s a lack of hunger in the room. I mean the whole thing where it’s like, ‘Oh you win once or twice, you become complacent.’ Winning is so much fun that you want to do it again.


“I know everyone’s different, but as an athlete you want to win. That goes from something as simple as a puck battle to a game to a season to a series to a (Stanley) Cup. You just want to win. I have a hard time buying the hunger thing because I don’t think that there’s anyone in that locker room that was content with what happened this year.”


I asked Martinez about what teammate Tyler Toffoli had said on breakup day about poor practice habits, having used the word ‘pathetic.’


Toffoli, of course, wasn’t wrong.


His burst of candor was attention-grabbing, to say the least. New Kings coach Todd McLellan will walk in the door with instant credibility, but he can only do so much if the core players don’t learn from the mistakes they made under John Stevens and interim coach Willie Desjardins this past season.


“Every coach has their own style and things like that,” Martinez said. “I’m not here bad-mouthing anyone. I know that the way that we practiced translated into games. When you lack accountability, and if you’re sloppy in practice, you’re going to be sloppy in games. That’s something that you learn very early on. There is no switch to be flipped.


“It’s not like you can just half-ass practice and then all of a sudden when it becomes game time expect to be sharp and crisp. That was part of our issue this year and I guess in short, yes. I do think the practices were a part of our lack of success. But I also think that we did some certain things to address and they got better. Too little too late.


“We’ve obviously faced a little adversity, but I think that it’s also a good opportunity to reevaluate, look at things, and get better going forward. This year was this year. If you use it in the right way, then maybe we’re talking about it in a different light a few years from now.”


Martinez tackled a few other topics in addition to the organizational challenges that lie ahead for the Kings. Team USA lost to Russia, 4-3, in the quarterfinals in Slovakia and Martinez was able to play for one of his early mentors, Jeff Blashill, and was a teammate of defenseman Quinn Hughes, of the Canucks, and Jack Hughes, who is projected by many to be the No. 1 pick in the NHL Draft later this month in Vancouver. The Kings had the second-best odds of landing the top selection in the draft lottery, but fell to No. 5. Here’s what he had to say:

 

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On the World Championships


When you get the opportunity to represent your country and wear that jersey, it’s something special. I was really happy that I went. The way that year had gone, you leave the rink and you have a sour taste in your mouth. The World Championships provides you an opportunity to go into the summer with a little bit better feeling.


When I went last year, I didn’t know a single guy on the team. Which is kind of crazy to think. I got to know some new guys. For me, I played for one organization my whole career, played essentially one system, You go there and you meet other people around the game, other coaches and you see other coaching styles. You meet other general managers, see their styles, you play different systems, you play with different guys. It’s a good opportunity to kind of learn and grow that way.


On Team USA Coach Jeff Blashill of the Detroit Red Wings


I would say that he’s one of three guys that were really big in my development and responsible for why I’m here. He’s very methodical. He cares a lot. I think that he’s a really good quote unquote ‘new-age coach.’ He’s hard but in a good way. He can relate to guys. I’ve also seen him in a different capacity. I saw him as an assistant at Miami and. …. there were plenty of screaming matches that were very one-sided, on his part, which is good. But he also has the ability to kind of turn it off, too. He’s a good balance of that. Obviously I’m biased since I’ve had a relationship with him for a really long time. He’s come to both my Cup parties. … he’s almost a part of the family.”


On playing with brothers Jack Hughes and Quinn Hughes


I knew Quinn from last year. He was talking to me as a guy that was in college and had left early, just picking my brain a little bit. He’s a really good kid. I met Jack this time around. You can just tell they come from a good family. They’re obviously very good hockey players but you can tell that they’re good people. Some of the stuff that he (Jack) does out there. I would never even think about doing that. You can tell his habits are good too. I was really impressed. He’s a young kid. Hell, half the tournament he was wearing a full cage because he’s only 17.