EL SEGUNDO, Calif. -- Immediately after the Los Angeles Kings’ fifth straight season with a first-round playoff exit, this time via a sweep by the Colorado Avalanche, Drew Doughty didn’t have any answers.
“Obviously, we want more and want to win a playoff series or two, and I don’t have any answers as to why it’s not happening,” he said. “But we gotta make it happen.”
At Wednesday’s exit interviews, after a few days to reflect, he still hadn’t found much more.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t have a complete answer for you, but I guess we got to work our butts off this summer and be better next year.”
The Kings are somewhat stuck in a loop, but this season was statistically the worst of the past five. They had the fewest points out of those five seasons, and didn’t even win a playoff game, much less a series. The season will be defined by missed opportunities, such as overtime losses, and the team’s desperate attempts to use those close results as a sign that they were nearing a breakthrough which never actually came.
That mentality carried over to the playoffs, in which three of their four losses were narrow, but still losses nonetheless.
“Obviously, we got swept, but I think that those games were close,” forward Trevor Moore said. “And maybe that’s loser talk. But I feel like in the first three games, we really had a chance to win all those games, so playing against the best team in the league — and again, we didn’t win the games — but it felt like we could have.”
Over time, the constant loser points and partial-credit games wore on the team, particularly after the margins in the Pacific Division were so slim that flipping just a few of those games could have potentially changed their playoff matchup and altered their season entirely. Perhaps the close losing begot more close losing.
“I feel like I’ve never had this kind of season where every game is so close,” forward Joel Armia said. “There was a lot of mental battle for the group too, because you knew that you’re so close to winning games, and then you just lose it [in] overtime or whatever.”
For his part, defenseman Mikey Anderson spoke positively of the team’s off-ice culture, expressing hope that it can in some way set a foundation for better results on the ice.
“The way the wives interact, the way the kids interact, those guys have built a family behind closed doors that not everyone sees,” he said. “Obviously, yeah, we have to figure it out on the ice, we have to win [in the playoffs]. You can’t just keep getting in and losing. But I think a lot of the play out there, it starts with what you have in the room, and you watch the way those guys are, as teammates, as people. And I think, for me, that’s a big thing you want to try and carry on.”
As for the actual product, the Kings tried a few different methods to shake things up and get on a winning track. They fired their coach, made multiple trades and recalled a few different players from the minor leagues.
Throughout the season, however, one very notable thing didn’t change: the phrase “we’re right there.” Both coaches and players used it throughout the season, whether as a coping mechanism or a genuine rallying cry, and it became a symbol of the volume of close losses. And yes, it came up during the exit interviews.
“I think we think we’re right there,” forward Adrian Kempe said. “I think we play good enough. I think we’re a playoff team every season. We’re confident in that. And obviously, like I said, we played good enough to win this year, too, just maybe didn’t put us in a good situation when the playoffs started. We’re playing one of the best teams in the league, so obviously it’s tough, tough beating them, but I feel like we’re still a playoff team every season.”
As far as the nature of Kings’ losses and the similar ways they exit the playoffs, the idea of being “right there” is technically true on some level. But their captain is retiring and a coaching search is in the works, meaning plenty of other resetting needs to be done. Right now, the Kings might be as far away as they’ve been in a long time.
In total, 17 players spoke at the exit interviews. You can watch complete footage of all of them on The Sporting Tribune YouTube channel.