Guest Dennis Bernstein joined us for the April 19, 2014 edition of West Coast Bias on NHL Network Radio to discuss all the action taking place in the Stanley Cup Playoffs – including a deep dive on the Los Angeles Kings vs. San Jose Sharks, plus in-depth talk about the Dallas Stars vs. Anaheim Ducks.
Give it a listen using the player below or downloaded it for free on iTunes here.
One quick programming note, if you’ve missed any of our recent episodes, click HERE for links below to our chats with Heidi Androl, Bruce Boudreau, Charlie Coyle, James Duthie, Emerson Etem, Kerry Fraser, Stu Grimson, Colin Hanks, Greg Hetson, Guy Hebert, Kelly Hrudey, Bob McKenzie, Dustin Penner, Luc Robitaille, Bobby Ryan, Sheldon Souray, Tyler Seguin, Kevin Smith, Paul Stastney, Jarret Stoll, Doug Wilson and dozens of others.
We’ll be back next week with another live show.
Now on to this week’s show (be patient, make take a few seconds to load)…
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About John Hoven
There’s nothing wrong with Quick and Sutter is a competent coach. There are two basics problems that the Kings will have difficulty in overcoming to get past the Sharks and make it to the finals.
The first problem is that SJ, Chicago, and St. Louis all have deeper rosters and more overall talent than the Kings. Colorado is also moving in that direction but not yet a seasoned team. Currently only Kopi, JC, DD, and JQ are really top players. VV and AM are both good offensively but neither is that good defensively. MR, DB, and JW are performing at a less than top- six level. MG has not been onboard long enough to establish whether he can still play consistently as a top-six guy.
Neither MR or DB have played as well as 2012 when both were pounded in the Coyotes series conference finals. MR’s head took a beating from Doan that series (he had already been hurt) and DB was brutally boarded by Hanzel. Neither of them were as good in the finals. JW is simply not as good as before. How do you win the Cup with only two top-six forwards (Kopi-JC) when the rest of the forwards are only currently third and fourth line talents excepting TT and TP? The Kings have only 3 top-four defensemen (DD-VV, and possibly JM who is playing better). AM has talent but you can’t play those four together in the top pairings as none of them are big, physical players and are all better offensively than defensively?
DS is competent as a coach but lacked the vision to see he really needed TT and TP to be effective top-six guys for the playoffs. They have the talent. DS keep bringing them up and he kept benching them or moving TT around to both wings with different centers. Yes, DS was under pressure to win but his “old time” hockey mentality handcuffed him just as it did eventually in Calgary.
The talent disparity between the better teams and the Kings has become greater as they have worked in more young players to their lineups and the Kings haven’t. JQ can’t steal games as often as before so the Kings have a daunting task ahead of them until DL can improve the overall depth of the roster. He’s going to need to educate DS on this as well and that may be equally difficult.