How concerning is the Kings’ goaltending?

Now that the NHL season is over two weeks old, there’s enough action in the books to evaluate where some teams on either extreme end of the spectrum stand, and it’s clear that the Los Angeles Kings have been one of the NHL’s biggest disappointments.

The Kings don’t own a win through five games under new head coach Peter Laviolette, who has historically been highly effective in elevating his new teams in year one.

A big reason for the struggles has been the play of goalie Darcy Kuemper, who was chased from a 4-1 loss to the Edmonton Oilers on Tuesday night in an effort that saw his save percentage for the season fall to .847. The Kings’ are 31st in the league in team save percentage to this point.

On Wednesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton discussed whether or not there is good reason to believe that Kuemper and Forsberg can turn things around and help Los Angeles revitalize its season.

Tyler Yaremchuk: I’ve got a quick couple of concern-o-meters for you. [On a scale of 1-10] 1 is no concern at all, 10 is sound every alarm, this is a problem. Darcy Kuemper, pulled last night in the LA Kings’ loss to the Oilers after just the first period, and listen, early-season trends are one thing, but this is something for Kuemper, if you go back to January 1 of last year, .866 save percentage, 3.44 goals against average. Lost his job to Anton Forsberg down the stretch and into the playoffs. 1-10, Hutts, how concerning is the LA Kings’ goaltending?

Carter Hutton: 9? Like this is a real concern. This is a real concern for me, and it’s not just the goaltending, it’s the back end, but there’s a lot of age to Darcy Kuemper, too. And Darcy Kuemper is a goalie opposite of what we saw last night in Devon Levi, he’s a little slower. He’s very methodical and calculated in the way he plays, and again you can look at these numbers and there wasn’t a ton of shots, but let’s look at the quality of chances that Edmonton’s able to create. So it is a mix, but this is something that’s gone on for a while. It is concerning, and I wonder how long this stretch goes until there’s an answer where we give Carter George some minutes. Like we touched on to start this season, I think LA’s the furthest team away from winning the Stanley Cup, because they haven’t even started down the hill yet.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode below…