EDMONTON — Drew Doughty is a true Canadian hockey player. An Olympic teamer, a Stanley Cup champ, as tough as he is skilled and missing a couple of teeth — so he even looks the part.
So when the Los Angeles Kings defenceman first learned of the soul-crushing system that his team was planning to employ, he reacted the way any right thinking lover of our beautiful game would react.
“When we brought in the system I wasn’t too keen on playing it, to be honest with you,” the cordial Doughty was saying Thursday morning in Edmonton, hours before his team lost a 4-1 decision to the Edmonton Oilers.
He has since warmed to it, and we’ll get to that. But for now Doughty truly believes, “It works for us, and I think a lot of these people are just (criticizing) it out of frustration. Because it’s working.”
The Kings 1-3-1 defensive system has been in the news this week, after Nikita Zadorov’s Vancouver Canucks were smothered in a 3-2 loss, and the big Russian defenceman gave this sour review of the Kings’ system:
“They don’t really make plays; they just rim the puck and sit back all game,” Zadorov said. “I mean, it’s their goal to don’t play hockey and don’t let the other team play hockey, pretty much.”
“Pretty absurd comments,” countered Doughty. “I will always believe that defence wins championships. And, we want our identity to be as a hard-checking, good two-way team.
“We’ve heard the frustration from so many top guys, in-game. Guys yelling at our bench: ‘What kind of hockey is this 1-3-1 crap?’ and whatnot. It puts a smile on our faces to frustrate them a little bit. But at the same time, it’s not like the 1-3-1 isn’t beatable. There are many ways to beat it, and I thought Edmonton did it pretty well in the playoffs last year, to be honest.”
After two playoff series’ the last two springs, Edmonton knows how to play the Kings. They have learned patience, thanks to the Kings, and won three of four meetings this season.
“We know how this game is going to go tonight,” Leon Draisaitl said after the morning skate. “We’ve done it so many times over the last two years. We know exactly how this game is going to go, and we’re going to be ready for it.”
So, for four nights a season — excluding playoffs — they dump and chase and grind and slog, a little piece of Draisaitl dying inside every time he gets to centre ice and has to dump the puck in.
“A little piece, yeah. It’s quite sad,” he said, only partly in jest.
On Thursday, Edmonton did what you have to do against the Kings, who eschew the forecheck and line up three players across the neutral zone like a picket fence. They scored first, scored again, dumped and chased, and forced L.A. to push for goals.
It’s a tug o’ war of styles, and the Oilers have figured out how to beat the Kings either way the game is played.
“We’ve played these guys lots of times, and we’ve played in these games. They’re tight-checking, and we’re comfortable in that,” said Connor McDavid, who had a goal and two assists.
A skilled Oilers team has now won six of the last seven meetings, going back to last year’s Round 1 series. The year before the Oilers beat L.A. in seven, and the Kings have been a third place team in the Pacific for three years running.
So, is the Kings style really “working?”
We’ve always said, it’s a beautiful game until some coach ruins it. Guys like Jacques Lemaire, a.k.a., The Mad Trapper, exist to drain the game of skill and excitement.
That torch has been passed down through the generations, and is now held high by the latest purveyor of some boring style meant to squeeze the enjoyment from the sport — the 2024 version of the Left Wing Lock — Kings coach Jim Hiller.
“One of my greatest mentors, Jacques Lemaire, he never called it a system. He said, ‘You play defence in the neutral zone.’ That’s what you do,” Hiller said. “You can do that a number of different ways, but the important part is you’re playing defence in the neutral zone when you don’t have the puck.”
Translated, they wait for the game to come to them, and force dump-ins. Then the game is fought out in the trenches, along the boards and in the corners, a style that punishes skill and requires many high flips and off-the-glass passes.
“We just do what we do. We try to do it well, and then we try to attack the other team when we got an opportunity and score goals when we have a chance,” Hiller said. “This is who we are.”
Which begs the question:
How’s it working for you, coach?
