Kings Can’t Keep Doing This Stuff

It has been obvious all season, even before the Kings’ annual late-season collapse, that although Coach Andy Murray is a genuinely decent man, he and his assistants are not NHL-caliber coaches.

As in the 2003-04 season, even when the Kings jumped out to their early division-best record, they were consistently outplayed by teams far below them in the standings. They are almost always outshot, outnumbered in quality scoring chances, and spend far more than half of their games in their defensive zone.

And the continuing horror show of their power play and penalty killing scarcely need be mentioned; the former seems to revolve exclusively around getting “one-timers” from 50 feet away, the latter around collapsing down within 20 feet of the goal, while still letting opposing forwards go to the net unchallenged.

These strategic relics of hockey’s six-team era might still have some usefulness at the most junior level; in the NHL of today, they are cause for the most middling opposing team to lick its chops, while counting on an automatic differential of four to five goals a game.

JOHN BIRKE

Woodland Hills