LOS ANGELES, CA - APRIL 11: Drew Doughty #8 of the Los Angeles Kings high fives fans before a game against the San Jose Sharks at STAPLES Center on April 11, 2015 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Juan Ocampo/NHLI via Getty Images)

The Los Angeles Kings are the strangest non-playoff team in the NHL.

They were good this past season. Really good from a puck possession standpoint. They were the team that nobody wanted to face in the playoffs. If the Kings got into the postseason would you have picked them to win the Stanley Cup? I know I would have at very least placed them in the Final.

They had 95 points last season – the same amount as the season they won the Stanley Cup as the Western Conference’s eighth-seed in 2012.

The core of the team that won the organization’s second Stanley Cup one year ago today is still rock solid.

“They have tremendous pieces to the puzzle and have had, still have and will have moving in the future,” a Western Conference scout told Puck Daddy. “They’re a very complete team from top to bottom including in goal. There’s very little wrong with them.”

General manager Dean Lombardi believes in this group of players, and doesn’t think anything huge needs to truly change.

“I think if you look at our team, I don’t see major moves,” he said. “You never say never, and I hate to say it, but the truth is now that people are talking more in earnest, I don’t look at anything. It’s asking me to predict, ‘Do I see a major move?’ No. But I could get a phone call five minutes from now that I don’t expect. It’s happened before. But it’s certainly not the priority sitting here that I need to make a big move.”

But clearly, something misfired in 2014-15.

Some facts are obvious. For one, the Kings had an abysmal overtime and shootout record. A lot of that is luck, but 3-15 won’t help you make the playoffs.

Did they play too much hockey over the last few years with three straight trips to the Stanley Cup Final or Western Conference Final? Did off-ice issues derail Los Angeles? Did Mike Richards’ contract paralyze them?

We take a deeper look into why the Kings missed the playoffs this year and show how this team really isn’t that far off from competing again.

1. The Kings of the courtroom

In late October, Kings defenseman Slava Voynov was arrested, and eventually charged, with felony for corporal injury to a spouse with great bodily injury.

This threw the Kings into flux.

Los Angeles Kings defender Slava Voynov is shown in this Redondo Beach Police Department booking photo released to Reuters October 20, 2014. REUTERS/Redondo Beach Police Department/Handout via Reuters More

Voynov was initially suspended indefinitely with pay – and the Kings were charged with his $4.16 salary cap hit. They were eventually given cap relief. But hypothetically if the Kings made a move for a higher-salary defenseman, charges were dropped and the suspension was lifted, the Kings would have suddenly found themselves with Voynov’s cap hit again.

This uncertainty slowed LA’s decision-making process on how to address its defense after Voynov was arrested.

“I think everybody knows how good a defenseman Voynov has become,” the Western Conference scout said. “I think it was easy to speculate that would hurt them. I think it hurt them probably more than what was perhaps written or I thought about.”

Voynov apparently wasn’t the sole off-ice problem with the Kings.

Pending unrestricted free agent forward Jarret Stoll was arrested in April for possession of cocaine and Ecstasy at a Las Vegas area pool. He wasn’t likely to be re-signed, but it raised questions about the Kings and the team culture.

Said Kings captain Dustin Brown on Stoll to ESPN.com:

Story continues