The Kings Finally Won. 0-4-2 Was Mostly Bad Luck.

The Los Angeles Kings needed seven games to win one. They scored once in each of four straight losses, fell behind 2-0 in Washington on Tuesday, and then scored five in a row. Adrian Kempe had two, Artemi Panarin had a goal and two assists, and Peter Laviolette had his first win as coach of the Kings.

At 0-4-2 the start looked like proof of what we argued on opening week, that the Kings are not tanking, they are just worse. Worse is probably still true. The first seven games say the gap between how Los Angeles has played and what the scoreboard has shown is about as wide as anywhere in the league, and the clearest problem that luck does not explain is on the blue line.

How unlucky have the Kings been?

Very. By MoneyPuck's expected goals, Los Angeles has created 19.6 goals' worth of chances in all situations and allowed 20.7. A team that plays to those numbers is roughly even over seven games. The Kings are 17 for and 27 against.

Nearly all of that ten-goal hole comes from two places. The shooters have scored 2.6 fewer goals than their chances were worth, and the Kings have allowed 6.3 more than the chances against them were worth, 4.7 of those on the goaltenders and the rest into empty nets.

At five-on-five the Kings have converted 6.1 per cent of their shots, 30th in the league. That number does not hold for a team with Panarin and Kempe on it. Kempe has 23 shots and three goals. Quinton Byfield, who left Tuesday's game with an upper-body injury, has no five-on-five goals from more than a goal's worth of chances.

In net, Darcy Kuemper is at .867 through five appearances and Anton Forsberg at .883 through three. Together they are 4.7 goals below expected. Kuemper was a .922 goaltender two seasons ago and dropped to .891 last season, so some of this may be real. But the 30 saves he made on Tuesday, including a stop on Jakob Chychrun at the right post, are a reminder that seven games is a tiny sample for a goaltender.

What has actually gone wrong?

Two things the luck does not explain.

The first is the penalty kill. Los Angeles has allowed seven power-play goals in 33 minutes shorthanded, a rate of 12.6 per 60 minutes that ranks 27th. Some of that is goaltending too, but a penalty kill that leaks at this rate is losing the chances as well as the saves.

The second is the attack at even strength. The Kings rank 27th in five-on-five expected goals for per 60 minutes. Their defensive numbers are good, ninth in expected goals against, and that is why the overall share sits near 48 per cent instead of somewhere much uglier. The team is not getting caved in. It just does not create much, and it has drawn the fewest power-play minutes of any team but one, 30 in seven games.

That is a team without Anze Kopitar. Kopitar retired after last spring's first-round sweep by Colorado, and the Kings did not replace his centre minutes so much as spread them around. We said in August that the hole had Byfield's name on it. Byfield has spent most of this season on the right wing.

Is the top line the answer?

It is the best thing the Kings have. With Panarin on the ice at five-on-five, Los Angeles has 61 per cent of the expected goals, and Kempe's number is the same. Panarin has seven points in seven games and Kempe six. What the line has not done is win on the scoreboard. It has been on the ice for five Kings goals and seven against at five-on-five, a result its chances say should be reversed.

Los Angeles traded for Panarin in February and signed him to a two-year, $22 million extension, and the early returns support the bet. A 34-year-old driving 61 per cent of the chances on a team that is short of offence is exactly what the Kings were paying for.

Where is the real problem?

On the blue line, and it involves the captain. Drew Doughty plays more five-on-five minutes than any King, 17 a night, and Los Angeles has 39 per cent of the expected goals when he is out there. Mikey Anderson is at 42 per cent and Brian Dumoulin at 40.

The other side of the ledger looks very different. Brandt Clarke is at 67 per cent and Erik Gustafsson, who scored Tuesday's winner on the power play, is at 63.

Seven games will not settle a debate about a 36-year-old who has just been named captain. But Clarke's numbers fit what we wrote about him in August, that the succession that matters most in Los Angeles is on the back end. If Laviolette wants more offence, the cheapest place to find it is in Clarke's minutes.

The case that the Kings are just bad, stated fairly

The pessimistic view is that this is an old roster in its first season of a new system. Panarin is 34, Erik Haula 35, Mats Zuccarello 39 and Corey Perry 41. Both goaltenders are 34 or older. A team built like that does not get younger as the season goes on, and the 27th-ranked attack at five-on-five is a structural problem that better shooting luck only softens. The Kings won 90 points last season, their fewest in five years, and they have lost their best centre since.

The other side is the expected goal line. A team that breaks even on chances over seven games is a team that should be close to .500, and the Kings' defensive numbers have been better than respectable. The shooting will come back and the goaltending is unlikely to stay at .870.

Our view is in between. The Kings are not a 1-4-2 team. They are probably a team scrapping for the last wild-card spot, which is about where we had them before the season.

What to watch

Byfield's injury first, because the Kings cannot afford to lose another top-six forward. Then two numbers: the five-on-five shooting percentage climbing toward eight per cent, and whether Clarke's minutes start to grow at Doughty's expense. Every Kings number is on the team stats page, and the Pacific race is on the standings.