4 Kings Playing Better than You Think

The eyeball test and box score stats. Most fans rely on some combination of these two things to evaluate players. That makes sense. Watching games and checking the box score is something that most of us have done for longer than we can remember. It’s easy. It’s convenient. It’s instinctive. It’s also misleading.

The eyeball test’s biggest weakness is that our memories betray us. The box score stats’ biggest weakness is that they are subject to many factors outside of a player’s control (e.g. playing time, quality of his teammates and quality of competition, shooting percentage, etc). These factors can make some players look a lot better than they actually are (e.g. Ville Leino in 2010-2011). They can also cause some players to have seasons or even careers that go criminally unnoticed (e.g. TJ Brodie).

So which Kings players have been getting more flak than they deserve? I’m going to focus on 4 key players who have combined for 2 goals total – Nick Shore, Dustin Brown, Christian Ehrhoff and Marian Gaborik. I’ll explain how much slack we should cut them, and whether we can expect them to put points on the board any time soon.

First, let’s take a look at why I singled out these four.

All 4 guys have been positive drivers of play this year in comparison to the average Kings player, as they’ve all been out-shooting the opposition and creating chances. But all have had various reasons why their point totals are low.