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LOS ANGELES – All empires collapse.
The Los Angeles Kings, as we knew them, are gone. At least they have the Stanley Cup banners and the memories.
The rise and fall of this team should serve as a warning to the upward climb of the Toronto Maple Leafs who put them away here without any regard on Tuesday night. When your window to compete for a championship opens, you must proceed with urgency. It can close faster than you ever imagined.
Los Angeles has won only one playoff since lifting the second of their two Cups in 2014. After a 5-1 loss to the Maple Leafs, they find themselves in the bottom of the standings. the NHL and seem to be in a bumpy lane. back to respectability.
"Certainly a bit surprised. I did not start the season thinking it would happen, "said defenseman Drew Doughty. "I have never experienced such a situation during my career. We have to get out – that's the end result – we do not have time to complain and ask ourselves what we could do differently? We just have to go and do it.
"It's just fighting harder and not wanting to lose, and it's really how to win hockey games. When all the guys go out there and play this way, you will not lose. "
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This is only part of the problem.
This team has aged quickly and does not seem to be designed to compete with fast opponents like Toronto. It is also limited because of the onerous contracts paid to the main pillars of the championship teams – veteran players who have not been supported by a sufficient infusion of young talent around them.
Basically, this is how the NHL is designed to work.
The salary cap is a mechanism to level the playing field by preventing teams from storing too much talent. This version of the Leafs has not yet won a playoff series and already feels trapped by William Nylander in Sweden because of a contractual stalemate that has its roots in Toronto's major concerns.
With Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner looking for new contracts before next season and John Tavares already receiving $ 11 million a year, General Manager Kyle Dubas kept the line on Nylander.
They could even be forced to trade with an imminent deadline on December 1st.
Despite all the good vibrations that accompanied their rich 12-6-0 start, Nylander's teammates are aware of the possibility that the 22-year-old will not come back.
"It sucks to think about it," Marner said. "I mean that we would miss him. He is part of this team. He plays an important role in our attack and he misses you every time on the ice. It's a decision of his life and he's going to do the right thing. "
Looking at the glory years of kings, what stands out is the speed with which they fly. With the emergence of young Doughty and Anze Kopitar, they lost in the first round of the playoffs in 2009-10 and 2010-11.
The following year, they finished eighth in the Western Conference and won the Stanley Cup. Then there was a race in the seventh game of the Western Final and another Cup in 2014. Since then? Nothing.
This is something to keep in mind with Toronto, who is now boasting about the kind of membership. The Leafs are gaining praise throughout the league right now.
"They have great speed, such as exceptional speed," said Kings acting coach Willie Desjardins. "They did a good job strengthening this team. They can come to you with a lot of different weapons. We have a lot of respect for them. "
They will have more for them after Tuesday's battle at Staples Center. The Leafs took a 2-0 lead before the game was seven minutes away with goals from Nazem Kadri and John Tavares on the power play.
They pushed it to 5-1 even before the night was half finished thanks to the victories of three points Morgan Rielly and Tavares, not to mention a double of Kadri and another of Andreas Johnsson.
It was the kind of defeat Doughty could see happen one day before the match.
"Toronto is one of the best offensive teams in the league," he said after Monday's practice. "If we want to start cheating on defense, we will lose very big."
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