Are the Los Angeles Kings the best team in the Western Conference?
The Los Angeles Kings continue to look like a powerhouse in the Western Conference, as they’ve rattled off their third straight win, eighth win in nine games, and more significantly, their 11th straight road win to start the season, which is a new NHL record.
Tyler Yaremchuk and Colby Cohen talked about the Kings in their Western Conference power rankings, and explained why they think L.A. is the best team in the West.
Tyler Yaremchuk: Let’s dig into our top five West teams. We both had the same team at number one, and it’s the L.A. Kings. 16-4-3 on the year, getting Vezina-caliber goaltending so far from Cam Talbot, a blueline that’s deep, a forward group that just absolutely kills you with their size. It’s hard to make an argument against L.A. at one.
Colby Cohen: You add Pierre-Luc Dubois to the mix, he’s such a good power forward…
Tyler Yaremchuk: Quintin Byfield’s breakout…
Colby Cohen: And I think these are players that can do it in the playoffs. They’re big-bodied guys, they’re not afraid to score goals in traffic, these aren’t perimeter goal-scoring, soft types of players, so they’re complete, they’re deep. They’ve given up 53 goals against, there’s nobody else in the 50s in the entire NHL. Talbot is playing incredible.
Look, Rob Blake has had a vision, and you watch that team in the neutral zone, they are just stifling. They give up absolutely nothing. Teams that generate in the neutral zone like Vegas, who I think is their greatest competition to win the Cup this season, or at least come out of the West, and their guys like Eichel, Marchessault and Stone like to get going through the neutral zone, and they like to make plays off the rush. It doesn’t happen against the way this L.A. team defends. They play that sort of 1-1-3 in the neutral zone. I remember last season at times being between the benches against L.A., I’m like “this is brutal to play against”. They just give absolutely nothing.
You can watch the full episode here…