Kings get one last chance to take a bite out of Sharks
The Kings are reeling from injuries and special-teams woes, so one might think they'd welcome a home game against a team near the bottom of the Pacific Division standings.
Except if that team were the San Jose Sharks.
Today's final meeting of the season between the clubs signifies an opportunity to salvage at least one win from a series the Sharks have dominated. They have won all three matchups, wedging a rally from a 3-1 deficit between blowout wins by scores of 6-2 and 5-0.
The teams will have met three times in the course of one week, and coach Todd McLellan said the Kings (3321-8) will need to round out their game. It has leaned heavily on checking and structure in the two most recent games, an overtime win against Florida and a shutout loss to Colorado.
“If the guys can put it all together, and we'll help them with that, then it should provide us with some confidence,” McLellan said. “Obviously, our next opponent, we haven't had a lot of luck against and we haven't played well against, so maybe that will get us jacked up a little bit.”
One thing that has been “jacked up” in the negative sense has been the Kings' special-teams performance. In the past month and a half, they've had the worst power play in the NHL by practically every statistical measure and have dangled near the bottom of the penalty-kill ranks as well. Their inconsistency in both areas has been exacerbated by injuries to 10 players, including their entire defense corps and one of their top wingers who plays in all situations.
Special teams have proven particularly problematic against the Sharks who, despite their 26-25-8 record and seventh position of eight teams in the division, have excelled on special teams. Their penalty kill ranks second in the NHL this season. Since the start of the 2022 calendar year, they've had the eighthbest power-play conversion rate in the league.
The Kings are intimately familiar with the top powerplay unit of Logan Couture, Timo Meier, Tomas Hertl, Brent Burns and Erik Karlsson. McLellan coached Burns, Couture and Hertl in San Jose, but more recently that group has nicked up the Kings for five power-play goals in three
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games, with the second unit adding a sixth. Meier scored three of those, including two that were part of a five-goal rampage in San Jose on Jan. 17.
On the Kings' injury front, defenseman Tobias Bjornfot was not placed on injured reserve, but Matt Roy finally was. Alex Edler participated fully in the morning skate ahead of Tuesday's loss to Colorado and appears on target for the projected late March return from a broken ankle sustained in December.
Honors society
Kings prospect and University of Minnesota sophomore Brock Faber was selected as the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year on Tuesday.
Faber, 19, was selected 45th overall by the Kings in the 2020 draft.
He recorded two goals and 11 assists in 28 games in leading a Golden Gophers defense that ranks in the top 10 nationally in goals against per game
Faber isn't the only player in the Kings' organization garnering recognition either.
Veteran goalie Jonathan Quick played in his 700th career game against Florida on Sunday, and will be honored by the team in a pregame ceremony today.
Quick is the 30th netminder to reach the 700-game mark, and the fourth American to achieve the milestone. The other three are John Vanbiesbrouck, Ryan Miller and Tom Barrasso. Quick is the only active goalie of the group, giving him an opportunity to close the 39-victory gap between his 352 wins and Miller's alltime best for an American of 391 victories. Quick already has the most shutouts of any U.S.-born goalie.
“It's remarkable, really. Quickie has played a hard 700; those 700 don't include all of those runs in the playoffs and all of that other stuff,” McLellan said Sunday. “The milestones for players, they should include all of those other games, because what's Quick at then, 775, almost to 800?”
Entering today's game, Quick has played 786 total NHL games — all in a Kings uniform. Plus he has played in seven games for Team USA. He won a Conn Smythe Trophy as the postseason MVP in the Kings' 2012 Stanley Cup triumph, and a second Cup in 2014.