ANAHEIM — A gentleman wearing a Jamie Drysdale Ducks sweater stepped into a nearly full elevator at Honda Center on Thursday night, a half-hour or so before faceoff, and said: “Any Kings’ fans in here willing to guarantee a win tonight?”
No, he wasn’t spoiling for a fight. The Columbus Blue Jackets entered the night a point ahead of the Ducks (they beat Pittsburgh), and the Chicago Blackhawks were even with Anaheim (they went to overtime with Philadelphia and picked up a point). A Ducks loss to their historic rivals from up the freeway would secure last place in the league and with it the best chance to win the draft lottery and select generational talent Connor Bedard.
Goin’ Yard for Bedard. That’s what it came down to for the Ducks, who went into a full-on rebuild this season and have endured more than a full season’s worth of growing pains.
In a sense, then, both the Kings and Ducks got what they (sort of) wanted Thursday night.
The Kings got the win, 5-3, featuring an Adrian Kempe hat trick, and will begin the playoffs on Monday night in Edmonton on a fairly positive note, winning their last two after a three-game skid that cost them not only a shot at the division title but home ice in the first round. The Ducks finished the regular season 32nd and last in the league, which will give them the best shot at drafting Bedard.
But Dallas Eakins will not be their coach going forward. The Ducks announced Friday morning that Eakins’ contract would not be renewed, with general manager Pat Verbeek giving the traditional separation statement: “This was a very difficult decision, one that comes after careful and considerable deliberation. At the end of the day, I simply feel that a fresh perspective and new voice will be beneficial for the team.”
It was almost preordained, and more a question of when. When a general manager inherits a coach and then plunges into a full scale rebuild, it’s generally a given that by the time the roster is ready to flourish, someone else will be in charge.
“Right now, for me, is a time to not jump and just move on and get into your next day,” Eakins said after Thursday night’s game. “I think now it’s really important to look back and reflect and really understand what it takes to be competitive in this league first, then to win in this league. They are very small things that have a really big effect on the scoreboard.
“There’s a number of things that we’ve got to do here. We’ve got to get stronger. We’ve got to understand how to manage the game. All things that I think we took steps forward in, but it just takes time. It’s not as simple as going and flicking the light switch…It just takes time and there’s lots of examples across the league. We need to be really patient.”
Eakins had said earlier in the week that he’d hoped to continue as coach but understood the way things work, and in any event hoped to remain with the organization in some capacity. He was a very successful 154-95-23 in four seasons with the Ducks’ AHL club in San Diego, but was 100-147-44 in his four seasons with a Ducks team in transition.
The Ducks were competitive, and feisty, Thursday night, but Kempe’s empty-net goal with a little more than a minute to play Thursday night assured the outcome. It was his 41st of the season, giving him his first career 40-goal campaign (following 35 last season) and continuing to burnish his reputation as an all-around player. He finished last spring a minus-2, but finished this regular season a plus-22 and also was third on the team in scoring (67 points) behind Anze Kopitar (75 with his 28th goal and two assists) and Kevin Fiala (23 goals and 72 points, but currently injured).
“A couple of years ago, I feel like I had a lot of good looks (but) always was a pass-first guy,” Kempe said. “And, you know, I figured out that if I try to put the puck on net a little more, it’ll go in. And, yeah, kind of a switch went off in my head, and coming into last year I think was the biggest step I took just in terms of volume shooting.”
The Kings had the good fortune to get out of Thursday night with everybody still ambulatory, which is always a plus. Health has been an issue down the stretch; in addition to Fiala, defenseman Alexander Edler and right wing Gabe Vilardi have been unavailable and were injury scratches Thursday night, and Mikey Anderson only recently returned from an injury suffered when Connor McDavid boarded him in Edmonton two weeks ago.
“The relief comes in the fact that … we’re as healthy now as we were coming into the game,” Kings coach Todd McLellan said. “I’d be lying if I said we weren’t concerned about that, a game that really doesn’t mean anything to either of the two teams playing. You hate to see somebody block a shot and go down or take a hit. But that’s where the relief comes from.
“I don’t think we can take a deep breath and relax. That would be a mistake for our group and we don’t have enough time to do that anyhow.”
But Thursday’s results did mean that the Kings were locked into a rematch with Edmonton, and that could be problematic. Never mind last year’s result, when the Oilers knocked out the Kings in seven games in the first round. These Oilers come into the postseason on an even more blistering pace, 18-2-1 and with nine straight victories to end the regular season. Their goalie, Stuart Skinner, has a .972 save percentage over his past five starts and stopped 63 of the 64 shots he faced in the two recent victories over the Kings.
A questioner suggested to McLellan on Thursday night that facing the Ducks’ young talent might have set the Kings up for their meeting with the Oilers. A few years from now, that might be true. Now, not so much.
“Oh, I don’t think there’s anything that sets you up for Edmonton,” he said. “It’s a different monster there, you know. … I think that they have a little bit of a different approach. Certainly, their power play’s a little more dangerous, and there’s just different elements.”
Simply put, what Edmonton has – building with talent around a budding superstar – is what Verbeek would like to emulate.
Bedard would be that superstar. He doesn’t turn 18 until July 17, but he finished his junior season with the Regina Pats with 71 goals and 143 points in 57 games – and added an exclamation point with nine goals and 14 assists in seven games for champion Canada at the World Junior Championships over the holidays.
How important was it to the Ducks to finish 32nd instead of 31st? In the NHL the last-place team has a 25.5% chance of getting the No. 1 pick out of the lottery. Chicago, by finishing 31st, has a 15.5% chance.
Then again, there was this sign held by a Ducks fan in the stands Thursday night: “Top Three Draft Pick – Better Than First-Round Playoff Loss.” That might depend on who you’re able to take with that pick. But you work with what you have.
“Everyone in here is competitive,” right wing Troy Terry said. “I think you can see it in our game. Whether we lost or not, what I was proud of is we kept battling until the end.
“… Especially last year it felt like we took a step (forward, only) to have it go backwards this year. Just to keep everyone in this room together, that’s something that we’re proud of. There’s a lot to address this summer about what we need to do moving forward.”
The first step is May 8, lottery night.
jalexander@scng.com
