What Went Wrong: The King's Farewell

Well, Kings, at least it wasn't Edmonton this time?

The two best position races during that tail end of the regular season: 3rd place in the Metro, which was a four-team race, and the 2nd Wild Card in the West, which was (for the most part) also a four team race. It was a hell of a logjam that late in the season between the Kings, the Nashville Predators, the San Jose Sharks, and the Winnipeg Jets, but on April 13, the Kings won that race. They outlasted the rest of that field and got in, and it was on the final day that LA was locked in as the 2nd Wild Card.

Now, once LA clinched, the side eyes and snide comments came in. "The Kings shouldn't have made it, they lost 20 times in OT!" "They only won 22 games in regulation!" Funny how no one says this about Vegas, who lost 17 games in OT/SO and won the Pacific. Let's get this out of the way. Yes, the Kings lost 20 games past regulation, so that's 20 standings points gone. Yes, they finished with 22 regulation wins (only the lowly, lowly Canucks have less). However, they won when it counted. They made it this far. You don't like it? Maybe the Preds, Sharks, and Jets should have played better.

So the Kings ended up facing the Colorado Avalanche in Round 1. Yeah. That, alone, is the answer to "What Went Wrong?" The only thing that went wrong for the Kings is that it went as well as it would for them. But for select fans who were acting like this would be or was a cakewalk, let's look at the facts. The Kings were in this series for quite a bit. The Kings only led for 3:21 in the entire series, but guess what? That's 3:21 longer than the Ottawa Senators. My fellow Avs fans who watched this series can tell you that the Kings could have won Game Two, and maybe could have won Game One. Both games were too frustratingly close. Strangely, LA's home games weren't so close.

The Kings' knack for letting down goalies continued for the second straight year. This year, the victim was Anton Forsberg. Though, the Avs fan in me was disappointed that we never faced our old championship goalie Darcy Kuemper in this series. Forsberg had a GAA of 2.70, and a .909 SV%. Those are good numbers. That's good enough to get some wins in the playoffs. However, Forsberg was 0-4. How? Well, scoring a grand total of five goals in the series will do it. Artemi Panarin had the first two goals, and gave LA their only lead in the series late in Game Two, which was the team's overall 21st OT loss of the season. Panarin had a total of three points in the series. Alex Laferriere was the points leader with four--all assists.

However, there is one more player I have to discuss:

Anze Kopitar. Love that guy. Enjoyed watching him for years. He was with the Kings through the good times and the bad times, and especially during two great ones in 2012 and 2014. With this defeat, Kopitar will officially call it a career. 20 years, all in a Kings uniform. The franchise's all time assists and points leader, and of course, a two-time Stanley Cup Champion. Kopitar didn't have a point in the playoffs, but you know what? He earned the right to scale back. You know who didn't earn that right? Adrian Kempe. He was too busy trying to pick fights with Makar to get points. Kempe had only two points, but had two bad turnovers in Game Three.

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Oh, and about the 2014 Cup? That remains the last time they won a series. Seven playoff appearances since then, including five straight currently, but no series wins. Even worse, with this sweep, the Kings have now lost eight straight playoff games dating back to last year. Again, at least it wasn't the Oilers this time, though this is now the fifth straight year that the Kings have lost to Brett Kulak. The Kings now have two things to do. One, prepare for the post-Kopitar era. And two, they have to again figure out what they have to do to finally win a playoff series. They have the players, they just need to get the offense going. This should be quite an interesting offseason for the Kings.