It’s getting to that time of the year as seasons conclude lets take a look at a featured prospect of the week. This week we are looking at the L.A Kings organization, and their 2022 4th rounder, UMass forward, Kenny Connors. The 2003 born prospect just recently signed with Kings on April 3rd after three seasons in the NCAA.
Kenny Connors
We here at Last Word on Sports had Connors ranked as the Kings 7th best prospect in 2023. Lets take a look at what to expect out of this prospect.
Expectations
The UMass Minutemen forward has had an all around solid year for the NCAA division one team. Enroute to the playoffs the Los Angeles Kings prospect posted career highs in all the main offensive stats with ten goals, nineteen assists good for twenty-nine points across forty games in 19:35 of average time on ice. That being said it is his play in the defensive zone that stood out the most.
Connors plays the college game of a high compete two way forward. His game is highlighted by his quality compete, notable puck skills, and solid defensive senses mixed in with elements of physicality. His barriers he will have to overcome at the next level will be offensive senses, average skating, and shooting tendencies.
Strengths
Compete/Physicality Elements
This compete level is most evident on the defensive side of the puck as he has high end play engagement on the forecheck and the back-check. This play engagement is paired with notable angles of attack that make him hard to avoid, gap management mixed with situational awareness, and absolute relentlessness attempts at play disruption on the puck carrier. One example of this relentlessness is the ability for Connors to generate quick reloads and get into effective defensive positioning. All of this combines to form a high motor player with quality defensive pressure exertion.
In zone play this compete level mirrors much of the transitional play mixed in with extra physical pressure, the willingness to enter shot blocking lanes, and a motor that consistently tracks defensive threats with good hustle, risk awareness, and notable endurance. This compete often blends with some physicality as well as exemplified by his shot blocking at 0.74 per game. Additionally this compete can also articulate itself in the form of physical pressure, grit, and battles for both body leverage and positioning in both the offensive and defensive zones.
Connors shows trends of a high frequency hitter, with decent form that uses an outward and down leverage (aided by his 6’02 and 207 pound frame), and decent enough balance/stability. This frequency is particularly best exemplified by his 1.54 hits per game. This physical frequency helps the previously mentioned play disruption on the defensive side, and helps with occasional support on the offensive side.
Notable hit absorption, and grit throughout his game as well, which is much needed as he receives 0.94 hits against per game.
Defensive Senses
In both transition and zone play Connors shows quality defensive senses as a capable high forward in his own zone.
He does this through a notable scan frequency which allows for higher end defensive awareness, lane recognition which he tends to neutralize with his active stick, and body positioning, and defensive responsibility. All of these combine to form quality risk awareness, which the 2003 born forward attempts to mitigate with stick tie ups, defensive pressure and the aforementioned relentlessness defensively with lateral angles of attack that challenges opponents to make play resulting in disruption of offensive pressure against for the UMass squad.
This aptitude in defensive senses contributes to his 1:33 of penalty kill time, and makes him an asset in his 7:48 of defensive zone play per game this past season. One area that he does lack in is high pace play anticipation, but this along with greater poise can come with time as a player matures.
Puck Skills
Unlike the other aspects that are mentioned his puck skills are best exemplified on the offensive side of the puck. Oftentimes Connors cheats on plays which can spring a quick up offensive transition play that is furthered by Connors quick(ish) option ID mixed with capable passing placement. Passing ability is smooth, and demonstrates some moderate passing creativity (bank, bounce, slip, and drop-back), through placement and execution specifically in transition play.
This passing aptitude is further reflected in his pass accuracy for this past season sitting at 88%. This passing aptitude is best articulated in Connors 2:51 of power play time, where he serves UMass as their power play quarterback, and play facilitator. Connor’s still demonstrates smoother passes, but limited vision/facilitation ability in established zone play hints at issues in recognizing passing and shooting lanes.
In other instances the young NCAA product also shows good handling mechanics. This handling is particularly effective due to its lower center of gravity, quality stick at hip puck positioning that minimizes loose movements, and solid puck control.
These puck skills are also highlighted by quality puck protection, as Connors establishes frequent offensive zone entries along the boards. This protection articulates itself through quality angling, while establishing good inside body positioning, mixed in with higher end handling mechanics. This blends well with his hit absorption as Connors frequently demonstrated he can push through defenders pinches, or in worse case if he’s pinned this body positioning allows a quick panic pass out of pressure.
Limited pressure awareness is an issue that’s evident in his puck management game.
Limitations
Average Skating
Connor’s skating isn’t so much bad, its moderately good, but it could be better.
This starts at his posture, which shows ok ankle/lower body flection, but his stride is marred a bit by depth issues. Largely because he tends to dig in a bit deeper than ideal. This depth then makes his stride recovery slightly rigid, which influences his acceleration, and power generation moderately. That being said, both his acceleration and power generation are decent. He shows real bursts of lateral acceleration and decent crossover integration which allow for ok top speed at the NCAA level.
To better adjust for the pro-ranks some minor mechanical improvements to depth and stride recovery can make him an even more effective player. With those improvements his transition game will take another step forward.
Offensive Senses
Where Connors is a capable defensive orientated forward he tends to struggle on the offensive side of the puck due to limited offensive instincts, and awareness. Both of these issues also find themselves rooting in his below average play reading. This further exposes itself on the power play as the previously mentioned limitations in play facilitation demonstrate.
One of the most evident things in his offensive transition play after he secures a zone entry is if he makes a nifty pass or if he holds onto it. If he holds onto the puck it becomes evident he has issues with offensive instincts, as he rarely shows much of a plan, hinting at issues around offensive anticipation, and offensive play processing.
The American forward is much more successful as a touch and go offensive support player. Connor’s in-zone passing remains quite lateral and shows limited deception to it, showing below average offensive awareness and play creation. Even more telling of this limited play creation is the fact that he generates only 0.29 scoring chances per game. Especially when his power play role as facilitator is taken into account this is extremely low.
This limited offensive awareness is further hampered by his reactionary play reading, poor spatial awareness and limited off-puck option creation. Connor’s offensive positioning causes some issues too as he often searches for space unknowingly putting opponents between him and the puck carrier, which mitigates him as any sort of offensive threat. This also hints at below average offensive lane awareness.
Shooting
The Glenn Mills Pennsylvania product sure likes to shoot, averaging 4.8 shots per game. Unfortunately this tendency is also marred with poor shot selection, accuracy, and limited leverage.
Even when the Kings prospect isn’t rushed for a shot, he still often misses wide. This contributes to his 44% shooting accuracy. A large portion of this is due to half-effort shots either throwaway backhands, or poor leveraged snapshots. His upper body leverage is limited, and the release point resembles that of a straight upwards shovelling motion.
What further compounds Connor’s issues is the fact that he doesn’t know when to shoot either, as he struggles with shot lane identification, leading to a massive quantity of his shots just getting blocked, or having low end shot placement. This low quality shooting also helps explain his 0.22 expected goals for rating, and limited offensive output, as a poor shot often kills offensive pressure for the UMass minutemen too.
Connors does have a tendency to favour one time opportunities, and he has the power, and weight transfer, and hand eye to be deadly he just needs to work out the opportunity timing.
Expect the Reign coaches to fix these quality issues with his shot to some extent.
Verdict
Connors shows some NHL upside, but first he’ll need to adjust to the AHL first. At the AHL level the main barriers for him remain skating, offensive senses, and shooting. These limitations mean that he likely won’t find the scoresheet much, but he’ll be valued for keeping his opponents off of it. Perhaps Kenny’s is a player that can help reduce any defensive concerns with other young player, while possibly playing a role in the Kings get better in the near future.
Expected NHL ETA: 2+ years
Projection: Bottom-six shutdown forward, with possible top-nine ceiling.
Main Photo: Jayne Kamin-Oncea- Imagn Images
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