NBCSN’s coverage of the 2019-20 NHL season continues with Wednesday’s matchup between the Los Angeles Kings and Vancouver Canucks. Coverage begins at 10 p.m. ET on NBCSN. You can watch the game online and on the NBC Sports app by clicking here.
Last season, only the Anaheim Ducks (199) scored fewer goals than the Los Angeles Kings (202). The Kings had one player hit the 60-point mark (Anze Kopitar) and their leading goal scorers were Kopitar and Dustin Brown, who both finished with 22 tallies in 2018-19. Those numbers don’t exactly jump off the page.
Los Angeles didn’t really make any big changes to their roster over the summer, so expectations were fairly low coming into this campaign. How could the offense get better if they didn’t add a scoring forward? How could the team go from the lottery to the playoffs in just one offseason? It’s still early, but head coach Todd McLellan has found a way to extract from offense from this group.
They have a 1-1-0 record through two games, but they’ve managed to find the back of the net nine times so far. Can they keep up that?
“Well, the start was growth. We were able to put a team on its heels,” McLellan said after last night’s overtime win over the Calgary Flames, per LA Kings Insider. “Being resilient later on in the game was important. Scoring on the power play, we count on the power play to get us something and we executed something we’ve worked on very well. There are other areas – there’s individual growth, better board work, better around our net, so there were a lot of areas that we improved on (Tuesday).”
The Kings have scored power play goals in each of their games and they both came off the stick of Drew Doughty. McLellan is correct when he says he needs to be able to rely on his power play more because they were ranked 27th in that category last year.
[COVERAGE BEGINS AT 10 P.M. ET ON NBCSN]
Is this sustainable? It’s way too early to tell. But they’re definitely off to an encouraging start.
One way they could continue to fill the net, is if they get a boost in production from Ilya Kovalchuk. The veteran winger has a goal and four points through two games and his line was even double-shifted at times during last night’s game. The 36-year-old had a tough year last year, as he managed to score just 16 goals and 34 points in 64 games. Nobody expects him to be a point-per-game player at this stage of his career, but him contributing with more regularity would be a welcome bonus for a squad that doesn’t typically score much.
“The three of them were challenged – (Kovalchuk), (Jeff Carter) and (Adrian) Kempe after the Edmonton game,” McLellan said. “I don’t think they were particularly pleased with their group’s play or maybe individual play, and we challenged ‘em, we gave ‘em another opportunity and they took advantage of it. So, we quickly recognized they were in the game and got them a lot of ice time. They earned it.”
We’ll find out if the trio can keep that going against an 0-2-0 Canucks squad.
Alex Faust and Ray Ferraro will have the call of Kings-Canucks from Rogers Arena in Vancouver, B.C.
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Joey Alfieri is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @joeyalfieri.