Let’s Play “Kings Hockey” All the Time

By Jim Ellis
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Updated: October 9, 2016

When I was a kid in high school, I used to amaze my teachers, my schoolmates and even myself with how long I could procrastinate before pulling some great comeback: getting the term paper done at the last minute or going from a C average to completing with an A on the final report card. It was all so thrilling and awe-inspiring … until I became a senior, started liking a girl, and then messed it all up with a C- in Chemistry. Crap!

What does this have to do with the LA Kings? Everything, when you look at a trend that has seen its final days, we can only hope.

Final Frozen Fury match: a 2-1 loss in overtime to the Colorado Avalanche.

The meme = The Los Angeles Kings are a clutch team that plays best when its collective back is up against the wall. Where did that come from, and moreover, where has it gone? I believe the meme started around the end of the 2011/12 season when the Kings barely backed into the playoffs, only to become giant killers, knocking off each front-runner on the way to its first Stanley Cup. The next year sure helped with a deep run into the playoffs, only to lose to the ultimate champion Chicago Blackhawks in the Conference Finals.

Then came the 2013/14 season. Here is where the term “clutch” could truly take hold, for at least a few reasons:

The astonishing comebacks in the playoffs, including the Kings’ 4-3 series win over the San Jose Sharks after being down three games to none.
The raising of the Cup for the second time in three years.
The amount of times the fans had to actually clutch their chest in apparent cardiac arrests.

Then came the 2014/15 season. Oh man, what a disappointment. Even with an uneven and inconsistent regular season, the meme was still alive though, as fans rested on past laurels and comebacks, and believed strongly in a team that could inspire Facebook posts such as the one with Drew Doughty’s face and the words: “You may have forgotten how we play with our backs up against the wall.” Yes we believed … all the way until the third-to-last game against the Edmonton Oilers as Anze Kopitar, in uncharacteristic fashion, broke his stick over the net, right after the loss hit home.

And then came the 2015/16 season. Uh-oh. Shouldn’t there be that Jaws theme music arising about now, signifying the arrival of the killer shark? Yes, I said “shark,” a bad pun I realize, and even worse when you consider how the LA team lost against such a major rival. Having been embarrassed the previous year by not even making the playoffs (after a Cup season), the Kings were the second team, behind the Washington Capitals, to clinch a playoff birth. The players were taking this seriously and wouldn’t be embarrassed again. Then came the evaporation of a 14-point lead in the division; then came the loss to the Winnipeg Jets in the last game of the season. Then came the 4 – 1 first-round playoff series loss against the Sharks. Bye bye season. Farewell clutch. See ‘ya next year.

At the time of the collapse during the end of the season, Kings’ announcer Jimmy Fox noted the team might have fallen prey to a mental let down, or what he called “human nature.” But the Washington Capitals didn’t have “human nature” after it clinched its playoff spot. Weren’t they “humans” too?

In the most recent TV spot “Coffee With Bob,” Hall of Fame announcer Bob Miller chatted with LA Kings General Manager Dean Lombardi about the 2015/16 campaign, something Miller called “a pretty good regular season.”

Said Lombardi, “I don’t think it was a good regular season at all. Part of a great regular season is you are getting better throughout the whole season, and you are starting to peak at the right time. “ Noting the “blowing” of a 14-point division lead and the relinquishing of a 3-0 final game lead, the GM said, “There is nothing to be proud of I don’t care what your points are. You are talking about a team that built its reputation on clutch, for rising to the occasion.”

Here, Lombardi is one of the first to burst the bubble on the meme the team has spent seasons developing and fans have spent years in embracing.

So what is a team to do – here in the 2016/17 campaign – now that the old memes are wearing out? The final preseason games saw the Kings drop the last two Frozen Fury matches: 6-3 against the Dallas Stars and 2-1 in overtime against the Colorado Avalanche. Having lost these games, the Kings finished 3 – 5 for the preseason, the first time finishing with a losing preseason record since 1988. Crap!

The message is pretty clear by now. No more can a team wait until the last moments. What may have worked in some magical years previous, or for a couple high school classes of mine, does not work now. It also doesn’t work to push hard during a regular season only to let it fall by the wayside by season’s end.

So … what will work?

Perhaps the team must do what they’ve said so many times before: “play Kings hockey.” Grinding, checking, puck possession – at the right time, which just may have to be – in present day and age professional hockey – all the time.

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