Kings Season In Flux

Well lets take a look first at the offense, when the Kings had their playoff run last spring they had 3 lines that were putting up offense, Jozef Stumpel was centering Ziggy Palffy and Adam Deadmarsh, Bryan Smolinski was on a “stopper unit” 2nd line with Nelson Emerson and Glen Murray, and rookie Eric Belanger was centering Luc Robitaille and Ian Laperriere to form an all French-Canadian 3rd line. Right now three of those guys (Robitaille, Stumpel and Murray) are no longer with the club and Emerson is out indefinitely with a head injury. Once Jason Allison gets his legs back and gets used to this team the Kings will boast one of the deadliest 1st lines in the NHL with Allison between Palffy and Deadmarsh, the problem lies in the 2nd and 3rd lines. Bryan Smolinski and Steve Heinze are quality 2nd line forwards, the problem is they have yet to find a consistent linemate since Murray was dealt. Jaroslav Bednar an overage Czech who lead the Finnish League in goals has been a bust with only 1 assist in 10 games, journeyman Randy Robitaille can fill in when called upon but cannot be expected to be a regular scoring line contributor. The Kings need to address this problem shortly, they are clearly a 2nd line LW short of 2 full scoring lines, which you need to have to win in the NHL.

On the blueline the Kings have been strong for the most part, keeping the shot totals down and playing a sound positional game. Aaron Miller returned last night vs. Detroit and his strong defensive play will help even more. Offensively its been the Mathieu Schneider show, I’ve been a huge Schneider supporter ever since he got here, Mathieu is playing as well on the blueline this year as anyone in the NHL. The problem is Schneider is getting little support, Phillipe Boucher has stepped up and played well, he gets a lot of shots off but has yet to score a goal through 17 games. Lubomir Visnovsky and Jaroslav Modry are both talented 3rd pair guys who can move the puck and generate offense, one of them has to start doing it.

Between the pipes, Felix Potvin has been a problem. Maybe we were spoiled last spring with the way Felix played, because shots he stopped last season he isn’t stopping right now. Potvin is giving up soft goals and is again being beat glove-side high, a weakness the Avalanche exploited in last years playoffs. Potvin and the lack of consistent offense are killing the Kings early on in the 2002 season.

Prospect News

Alexander Frolov continues to shine in the Russian Super League and has clearly established himself as the Crown Jewel of the farm system. The 19 year old leads the league in goals and reports say he has established himself as one of the go to guys on his team. Boy wouldn’t Frolov fill that huge hole on the LW right now?

Yanick Lehoux is tough to get a read on, he has 21G and 34pts and 19 games. By no means are these bad numbers but some expected even more from Lehoux. With Stephen Weiss being allowed to tryout for the WJC team it could hurt Yanic’s chances of making the team.

Tomas Zizka is a team best +6 for the Manchester Monarch’s, and is really the Kings only legit prospect down there right now. With another defense injury we could see Zizka up.

Jen Karlsson’s scoring struggles have to be worrying Kings management, the Kings took a chance that last year was just a bad year for the tough Swedish winger, but its looking more and more like Jens lacks a consistent scoring touch.