Doughty calls Kings' season 'pathetic, embarrassing'

Drew Doughty's frustration with the Los Angeles Kings having the worst record in the NHL led to the veteran defenseman mincing no words when it comes to the state of the team Thursday.

"It's pathetic, it's embarrassing, it's frustrating," Doughty told L.A. Kings Insider after the Kings fell to 10-18-1 with a 6-3 loss to the New Jersey Devils at Staples Center. "It's one thing to lose games when guys are competing. You can live with that. And you can live with doing good things, but when we're not doing well and we're not competing, you can't live with it, and we haven't lived with it since it started happening.
"It's going to take everyone to get us out of this, not just three or four guys."
The Kings are 1-4-0 in their past five games, 3-6-0 in their past nine games, and have scored two goals of fewer in five of their past six games.

Doughty, who won the Stanley Cup with the Kings in 2012 and 2014, said he was dissatisfied with Los Angeles' compete level.
"You see some guys playing physical, and the bottom line is that the Kings have to be a physical hockey team. We're not as skilled as the other teams, that's just the bottom line," he said. "We have to be a physical team. We have to be a hard team to play against. We have to have teams come in here and be like, 'Oh no, we've got to play the L.A. Kings again in their arena,' you know?
"I don't see enough physicality from our team. I don't see enough compete and that's why we're losing these games to teams that are fighting for the last spot with us in the standings too. I'm not talking about New Jersey necessarily, I'm talking about other teams, but how we're losing to these teams. It's not acceptable."
The Kings fired coach John Stevens on Nov. 4 and replaced him with Willie Desjardins, who is 6-10-0 since taking over.
Injuries also have been a factor. No. 1 goalie Jonathan Quick missed 12 games after having surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his knee Oct. 30, and forward Dustin Brown missed the first 10 games with a broken finger.
Doughty, who has 16 points (two goals, 14 assists) in 29 games this season, said it's up to the Kings to turn it around. Los Angeles hosts the Vegas Golden Knights on Saturday (4 p.m. ET; FS-W, ATTSN-RM, NHL.TV).
"It's frustrating, it's embarrassing, it's a lot of things," he said. "I just don't see enough emotion from the entire group to get us out of this. It's not going to take three or four different guys every night. It's got to take the entire group, and I know that no one's seeing the emotion out there.
"We're playing with a lack of emotion, and that's the bottom line."