News came out recently the LA Kings have moved a couple of extra pieces for Ryan Smyth. Their top 6 now looks something like this:
Frolov-Kopitar-Brown
Smyth-Stoll-Williams
Scary. I count at least 4 or 5 guys who can take on heavy competition and keep their heads above water. Hell, I'm betting that first line could hang with some of the best in the league. None of those three guys scored at a good rate last year at ES, but they were all in the black in terms of corsi. The Kings outshot the opposition routinely despite being a bottom of the barrel club; it was a terrible ES SH% (a ghastly 6.8) that suppressed everyone's scoring. If this were, say, the Islanders inflicted with injury I'd admit that that pathetic success rate was indicative of a lack of skill - but, the Kings had a decent group of forwards (thus the outshooting) and I think it was just their time to be at the wrong end of the curve.
One guy to keep an eye on in particular is Dustin Brown. He led the league in terms of penalty differential by a country mile last year and he managed to fire 292 shots on net in just 80 games (Iginla had 289 in 82 by way of comparison). His PDO was 98.3, putting him in line for a rebound and the dude is 24 years old. He seems to have things figured out already and he's got a few more years to improve.
There's always a couple of Cinderella stories every NHL season. I half expect the Kings to be the WC's big mover next year, assuming Lombardi doesn't somehow fumble the ball at some point this summer.
