Penalty Kill Woes

One area outside of percentages where the Kings have struggled over their 5 game streak has been on the penalty kill. Before their 5 game skid, LA had been giving up 49 shots against per 60 minutes of PK time. That mark would put them around 10th in the NHL. Over the last 5 games that rate has sky rocketed to 65.5 shots allowed per 60 minutes of PK time. That mark would put them around last in the NHL. This is one area of the Kings game that can't simply be explained away by percentages.

In fact, goaltenders have saved .837 percent of shots against on the PK. Before the skid they were making saves at a .877 clip, not a dramatic difference over a small sample.

So it appears that the Kings penalty kill is out of whack and one thing that certainly doesn't help is that LA is currently the most penalized team in the league.

In order for LA to play their way out of this slump, they'll need to continue pushing the needle forward at even strength but also limit the amount of penalties they take. This shouldn't be difficult considering that the Kings have the puck more often than every other team in the league. And when they do take a penalty, they'll need to figure out how to stop bleeding shots and get back to being one of the better penalty killing units in the NHL.