Inevitable comparisons to last year’s Playoff run dominate the media coverage of the Defending Champions, and rightly so. Similarities and contrasts range the gamut: personnel, scoring, standings going in, home v. road records, etc. Perhaps no greater contrast, and no greater indicator of just how hard it is to repeat, is presented by the ways in which Coach Sutter is handling his player combinations, meaning forward lines and defense pairs, at even strength and on special teams.

In last year’s run, the forward lines were constant, nearly unchanged, throughout 4 series, 20 games, and the winning of a Stanley Cup. The only changes made for even strength play was to the forward lines, and were related to health: Clifford going out to injury, for example, or Gagne coming in after recuperation. On special teams, an adjustment was made against New Jersey to use straight line combinations, replacing all-star mixings, but in essence the forwards were always the same guys, and skated together in the same groupings, for the entire run.

The Defense pairs also remained the same for the entire run, even including special teams assignments: the same 6 guys dressed every game and played alongside the same partners, every game.

In last night’s game, there were more forward line combinations used than were used the entire 20-game run last year: I counted 23 distinct, intentional iterations used by Coach Sutter. Forget the bingo ball generator, this was more like radiated DNA after the puree cycle on a kitchen blender performing cell division in zero gravity.

The changes began in the 2nd period. Here is how the game was started:

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                        #9. – All of the above.

When the Kings are down a center or two at various times, eventually Depth becomes an issue, and it did; for the Sharks. Kopi went under the needle, so Sutter stitched together new forward lines until Kopi could return. Through the full game Sutter created 18 forward line groupings and iced 6 different Power Play configurations. The Sharks scored while Kopitar was gone taking the lead at 3-2 , but their 3rd goal was their last, and the Kings were only half done scoring.

The Player X Ray shows a healthy body of work:

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The Los Angeles Kings have a new scoring tandem; Mike Richards and Slava Voynov. The two combined for two goals against the San Jose Sharks, and Jonathan Quick earned a shutout, to win Game 1 of the Western Conference semi-final series at Staples Center. Both teams came in with 4-game Playoff win streaks. The Kings made theirs 5 in a row.

Outstanding performances fill this X Ray:

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