McLellan’s shake-up stirs Kings
Team gets first win after coach makes significant changes to the lineup.
Kings coach Todd McLellan didn’t want to overreact to his team’s 0-1-2 start to the season. Penalties had been the group’s biggest problem, not widespread underperformance.
“I think we’re sitting here with a record that isn’t necessarily indicative of our play,” he said Thursday morning. “I think the penalties itself are really hurting our team.”
Nonetheless, McLellan made significant lineup changes for the first time this year in the Kings’ 4-2 win against the Colorado Avalanche at Staples Center on Thursday night. As he promised pregame, he didn’t “put everything into a blender.” But he did give his forward combinations a stir.
Adrian Kempe moved to the top line with Anze Kopitar and Alex Iafallo and scored the game-winning goal. Dustin Brown and Lias Andersson flanked Gabriel Vilardi on the third line, which created some of the team’s best chances. Michael Amadio and Kale Clague also returned to the ice after previously being healthy scratched, contributing to the team’s first win of the season.
“It’s just trying to find a few more players, get them up and running a little bit better, a little bit quicker,” McLellan said. “Maybe needing more from other individuals. Can one line individually complement a pair right now, based on how they’re playing?”
Despite averaging the second-most penalty minutes per game in the league entering Thursday, the Kings’ evenstrength play had been decent. Six of their eight goals in their first three games — a slight scoring improvement over their 2.53 goals-per-game mark last season — came during five-on-five play.
But McLellan still saw reasons to tinker. He thought his top line could use more pace, for example, hence Kempe’s insertion for Brown.
Andersson moved up to the third line after impressing McLellan in his Kings debut Tuesday, while Carl Grundstrom maintained his spot in the lineup despite playing less than six minutes in the first game against the Avalanche.
And as Thursday’s game wore on, with the Kings falling behind 2-0 in the first before storming back with two power-play goals in the second, McLellan shuffled his defensemen pairings.
It was coupled with the Kings’ lowest penalty total of the season — they went to the box only four times, including just once in the third period — easing McLellan’s biggest frustration from the season’s opening three games.
“It’s taxing on our offensive players,” he said of all his team’s early-season penalty kills. “I can’t begin to judge where we’re at until we clean that up.”