EL SEGUNDO — On some alternate plane of reality, the Kings would have had a skate before Game 6 of their first-round playoff series against the Edmonton Oilers on Friday morning.
In the here and now, they were taking physicals while soaking in the gloom of being eliminated by the same opponent for a third straight season, leaving them adrift in a sea of uncertainty.
“I fully expected to be playing in a game today again, and we’re not. Now I’m going to go home, my kids are at school, and I basically have nothing to do,” defenseman Drew Doughty said. “It’s crap, I hate it and I don’t want this feeling anymore. I want to be continuing in the playoffs, and not sitting at home watching the playoffs.”
If Doughty’s tone sounded testy, it was probably because the Kings have endured this fate or worse for the entire decade that has elapsed since their second Stanley Cup triumph in three seasons back in 2014. They’ve made five playoff appearances since, winning just seven games and not a single series.
“You’ve got to build a culture, for sure. The turnaround of players, now, it’s a completely different team than it was 10 years ago,” team captain Anže Kopitar said. “It’s about building it, we had to build it 15 years ago and we’re going to have to build it now.”
Now, more than this week’s schedule and some player personnel might change for the Kings. They made one coaching swap in February and might very well make another – after letting go of Todd McLellan they applied the precarious “interim” tag to his successor Jim Hiller – and could next turn their attention to the front office. General Manager Rob Blake acknowledged at his last media availability, in early February, that his own job was on the line.
“There’s a little bit of concern because you’re not sure what’s really going to happen,” said leading goal-scorer Trevor Moore, who added that he would focus on summer training and that “the rest of the stuff will…
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