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Los Angeles Kings need more offense from Drew Doughty in 2019

By Dave Stevenson

LOS ANGELES, CA - APRIL 6: Drew Doughty #8 of the Los Angeles Kings smiles during the third period of the game against the Vegas Golden Knights at STAPLES Center on April 6, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Adam Pantozzi/NHLI via Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES, CA - APRIL 6: Drew Doughty #8 of the Los Angeles Kings smiles during the third period of the game against the Vegas Golden Knights at STAPLES Center on April 6, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Adam Pantozzi/NHLI via Getty Images) /
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A bounceback season from Los Angeles Kings defenseman Drew Doughty could mean a return to the postseason.

Last season, the Los Angeles Kings were expected to be Stanley Cup contenders. They doubled down on an aging core by signing Ilya Kovalchuk. Instead, the Kings bottomed out and finished with one of the worst records in the NHL. Virtually no one played well for the Kings last year, but Drew Doughty had one of the worst seasons of his NHL career.

On paper, Doughty had 45 points, a decline of 15 points from the 2017-18 season. While this was his fifth-most productive season on offense, he was undeniably bad on defense. Doughty had a plus-minus rating of -34, by far the lowest of his career.

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He was especially poor at five-on-five, where he has usually been dominant. After five straight seasons of the Kings outscoring their opposition at five-on-five with Doughty on the ice, they were outscored 47 to 67. Among the 124 defensemen who played at least 1,000 minutes at five-on-five last season, Doughty finished 87th in goals scored while on the ice.

It gets even uglier if you look at his rate stats. Doughty played over 1,600 minutes at five-on-five last season. Among those 124 defensemen mentioned earlier, he had the fourth-lowest goals for per hour.

Doughty’s strength is not in his relative possession numbers, but he usually posts solid numbers there. Last season, this wasn’t the case. Doughty had a negative relative CorsiFor percentage, Shots For percentage, Goals For percentage, Scoring Chances For percentage, and even Expected Goals For percentage.

This largely revolves around his inability to create offense. Driving play up the ice has never been Doughty’s strong suit, but he’s usually been at least respectable in most play-driving stats (relative CorsiFor per hour, relative scoring chances for per hour, etc.). In the 2018-19 season, he finished among the worst in the league in most of those stats.

If there’s a bright spot, it’s this – Doughty is still very good defensively. His defensive impacts were above-average across the board. Granted, they weren’t up to his high standards but considering Doughty was playing a ton of minutes on a really bad team that struggled to get the puck out of their own zone and keep it in the offensive zone, they were fairly impressive.

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The Kings are in a unique spot right now. They would probably love to rebuild, but they simply can’t right now. That said, with a fairly wide-open Pacific Division, the Kings have a slight chance of making the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Doughty will have to be much better offensively for the Kings to make it. He has set a very high standard for himself over his career. Doughty’s got to find a way to match those expectations.

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