Week in Review
by RudyKelly on Nov 30, 2009 11:39 AM PST
5 comments
Tuesday: The Kings call up Andrei Loktionov (yea!) and Brandon Segal (who?*) for their Western Canada road trip. Great expectations are had by all.
*Segal actually had a great week: he didn't score or anything, but he had a few good opportunities and threw his weight around nicely. I think he's locked up a spot for the foreseeable future.
Wednesday: Andrei Loktionov (no!) separates his shoulder and will miss 4 months. The Kings win in a lackluster effort for both them and the Oilers, 3-1. Goals are by Wayne Meat Train Simmonds (yea!), Matt Greene (wha?), and my main man Alexander Frolov.
Thursday: The Kings get handled by the Vancouver Canucks, 4-1. They have a few great opportunities but Roberto Luongo was excellent in net and holds the Kings to one lone goal, scored by Meat Train Simmonds (yea!!).
Friday: I go to the Ducks-Blackhawks game with Earl, his brother and a buddy of his. It was terrible: not only did the Ducks win, not only did Corey Perry extend his scoring streak, not only did the Blackhawks not score, but Kyle Calder (boo!) played well. Kyle Calder. Damn Earl for saying I was going, I think it was motivation. Also, it was funny that I went to the game with a bunch of Ducks fans and had to explain why they some times call off icing.
Saturday: The Kings play the Blackhawks and are fairly mediocre. They win the game on the back of Jonathan Quick, who followed up a solid week with a spectacular game against the Hawks. Quick stopped 22 of 23 against the Oilers, 30 of 33 against the Canucks, and 32 of 33 against the Blackhawks (he was also 2-for-2 in the shootout). Quick obviously read my criticism of his play and responded accordingly.
The Kings' lone goal in regulation was scored on a pretty play by Wayne Meat Train (yea!!!), who overall had 3 goals and an assist on the week. Simmonds, Dustin Brown (yea!) and Jack Johnson (eh) were the 3 stars for the week, while the traditional stars (Kopitar, Doughty, Williams) all took the week off. The Kings managed to gut through 3 pretty tough games to pick up 2 wins, but they can't score 5 goals in 3 games and expect to win 2 of them every week.
Overall, the Kings did what they needed to do: they played tough, defensive hockey and counterpunched when they needed to. This felt like a middle of the season episode, like that episode of Mad Men where they focused on Pete Campbell when he raped the au pair across the hall. Those episodes are great and are sometimes the best ones of the season, but the Kings need their stars to continue the season-long arc and get to the playoffs.
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had to explain why they some times call off icing
Are you just talking about if the goalie makes an attempt to play it?
by Mike in OC on Nov 30, 2009 4:59 PM PST reply actions 0 recs
No, they also call off icing if a defender has an opportunity to make a play on the puck but chooses to let it go by or if the guy icing the puck was trying to make a pass. They never call the latter, though, and it pisses me off. They waved off a ton of icing calls the first year after the lockout because guys were looking for the two-line pass but now they never do.
The West Coast is the Best Coast.
by RudyKelly on Nov 30, 2009 5:36 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs
Yeah I was unaware that people were unaware of these exceptions.
Because I use mouthwash. And sometimes, I floss.
by brokenyard on Nov 30, 2009 7:17 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs
Kings game Saturday was awesome. It was the loudest I’d ever heard Staples Center (I hadn’t gone to any of the early 2000s playoff games there, so keep that in mind). For once, it felt like the Kings were playing a great team, and they were actually supposed to win the game. Good signs for this team, and finally, Kings games are actually a good way to spend a night.
I didn’t see either of the Canada games (I have Center Ice, but my work schedule sucked last week), but from everything I’ve heard, they didn’t play that well.
Quick saved them last week, and whether or not he can be the future #1 is still to be seen. But for a Kings goaltender to start 27 of the first 29 games of the season is remarkable. We haven’t had a goaltender play 50+ games since Garon in ’05-06. That was the only time the Kings had done that since the 2001-02 season, the last time we made the playoffs, when Potvin played 71.
That was also the only time since the ‘01-02 season that the Kings have had a winning record. That isn’t a coincidence. It’s plain and simple: goaltender stability leads to a team’s success. Right now, we have stability, and maybe the best chance to make the playoffs since the Forum days.
Fuck you, Denis Gauthier. You suck at hockey... and life.
Get out of LA and never come back. Or sign with Anaheim... PLEASE??
by Kevin Y on Nov 30, 2009 7:15 PM PST reply actions 0 recs
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Pacific Standings
| GP | W | L | OTL | PT | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
San Jose
|
69 | 43 | 16 | 10 | 96 |
|
Phoenix
|
70 | 43 | 22 | 5 | 91 |
|
Los Angeles
|
68 | 40 | 23 | 5 | 85 |
|
Dallas
|
69 | 30 | 26 | 13 | 73 |
|
Anaheim
|
68 | 31 | 29 | 8 | 70 |
(updated 3.17.2010 at 5:57 AM PDT)
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