For as long as anyone could remember, the LA Kings have not always been the best in the NHL. There was a time when the Kings had acquired possibly one of the best players to ever play on the team, and he was Wayne Gretzky. After a long period of not playing well, Wayne Gretzky led the Kings to a point where they were competing for the Stanley Cup year in and year out. But even after Wayne Gretzky was gone, more recently they won the Stanley Cup in the 2013-2014 season. But since the 2014-2015 season started things haven’t been looking too well, and the Kings may not have a chance at this season’s Stanley Cup.
During last year’s season the Kings entered the playoffs as the pacific division’s third seed. They faced the San Jose Sharks in the first round winning the game seven to move on in the playoffs. Then after that they advanced to play the Anaheim Ducks, which they were able to beat them 4-0-1. After the game with the ducks they played against the Chicago Blackhawks in the Western Conference Finals in game 7, and eliminated them from the playoffs leading them to go to the championships. Finally in the championships they faced the New York Rangers and took them down by 3-2 to win the Stanley Cup. But now in the 2014-2015 season they are looking to come back to the championships, and to do that they need to make some changes. To make these changes happen the Kings has acquired Tampa Bay lightning’s second round pick, the Carolina Hurricane’s sixth round pick, and the New York Rangers seventh round pick.
The last team to repeat as Stanley Cup champions were the Detroit Red Wings in 1997 and 1998 season. But this season the LA Kings are going to try and change that. The Kings kept their core largely intact for a second consecutive run at the cup. If the Kings can claim the trophy again, it would be the club’s third in four years. Having Jonathan Quick’s big-game experience in hand gives Coach Darryl Sutter a reliable goaltender to rely on through the season.
Looking at this season record so far, they are ranked fourth in their division and seventh in their conference. After the incident with Slava Voynov, he was suspended from the NHL and that isn’t helping the team improve. And to add on to that, Mike Richards was dropped out of the team. Although things may not be looking too well for them, if you look at the teams previous seasons, you are able to see that the Kings start the season slow but end the season very strong. Currently their home record is 20-7-6 and their road record is 9-14-6, which means their overall record so far in this season is 29-21-12. Although they still have some time to make this record better, if you compare it to last year’s overall record you can see how they have to improve. In the 2013-2014 they were ranked third in their division and sixth in their conference. And they had a record of 23-14-4 at home and 23-14-4 on the road which meant overall they were 46-28-8.
Starting this season, the Los Angeles Kings did not start the season off too strong. But after some time they learned to adjust to what they’ve been doing wrong, and now they are doing much better than they were doing before.