While Quinton Byfield’s ripe blossoming is gaining considerable attention in Los Angeles, I examine another equally important underlying story.
Alex Turcotte is a damn good hockey player. The fifth overall pick for 2019 has had a well-documented injury history and up and down start to his career. When he’s healthy and going, he’s got an elite motor and plays well with high-end players. He has the vision to be a top-six player and a 2-way skillset that blends well with the Kings system.
Turcotte was moved to the top line in December during the King’s second seven-game road trip of the year, mainly due to Trevor Moore’s injury in the game against the New Jersey Devils. He would become dynamite next to Anze Kopitar and Adrian Kempe as the trio would carry for the Kings throughout the trip.
The Kings rarely have more than one, maybe at times, more than two lines heating up at the same time. During that trip, Byfield and his linemates Tanner Jeannot and Warren Foegele started to heat up as the team’s go-to line. Not that Byfield’s line heating up is the falling of grace for Turcotte, but since that time, Turcotte has seen a fall from grace.
Turcotte had a three-point night in Vancouver (1-2-3 +3) on January 16th. Since then (13 games), he’s registered a lone assist and is a minus-five. Since that Vancouver game, his high in ice time is 13:25 in a match vs Detroit at the end of January. He played 7:54 against the Vegas Golden Knights, only one shift in the final minute of the third period.
In a game where Turcotte had the fifth-highest Corsi (53.85%) among forwards and a solid Fenwick (55.56%), he was their lowest-utilized forward. It is not always the analytics that makes the best case for whether a player should be played more or not, but the fact of the matter is that Turcotte has gone stone-cold.
Turcotte’s production and predicament have become a larger-scale concern for the top line, which has become a revolving door on the off-wing next to Kopitar and Kempe. This boiled to a point where Hiller blended everyone to the point of either running into disaster or striking gold. The ladder would take into effect, having Byfield and Kevin Fiala paired with Kempe, which broke the back of the Knights.
So, while Byfield has gotten much-deserved glory, Turcotte has been wallowing toward a damaging decline in progression. Oddly enough, in December, Turcotte found his own set of glory moments with the squad to which his development trackway with the Kings would reflect that of Byfield’s: start at center, work to top winger, then perhaps, back to center. That plan with Turcotte has begun to fold, as the young centerman has now found himself scrapping for minutes in an 11-7 setup.
The good thing for Turcotte is that there is a ton of runway for his game to bounce back. I wouldn’t exactly just pencil Turcotte in as the future 2C yet, as Byfield is getting drawn in as the 1C in permanent marker, but there is still that vision in place. Though he is a team-first type of player who is most likely content with the team winning, Turcotte needs a bounce or a good game to get back on track and move forward with his future progression with the team.
