Jerry S. Mendoza - AP

"Look Ma, no defense!" (AP Photo/Jerry S. Mendoza)

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As Earl detailed below, the Ducks have a terrible record against the Pacific Division and a particularly egregious record against the 2 good teams in California: 8 games, 0 wins, and a lot of laughter from LA and the Bay Area.  Why are the Ducks so terrible against their Pacific foes?  Well, some of it's luck, obviously; the Ducks are bad but they're not that bad.  But I think the real problem is that the Ducks don't match up well against either LA or San Jose because of their centers.  Both Joe Thornton and Anze Kopitar present a riddle that Anaheim coach Randy Carlyle can't solve because he doesn't have the chips to complete the puzzle.  The result?  Yatzee.*

*In my dreams I look exactly like Zapp Brannigan.

Here's a look at who scored in the last game between the Kings and the Ducks to illustrate my point.  Thoughts after:

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Rich Schultz - AP

This guy's still around? Great. (AP Photo/Rich Schultz)

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In my darkest moments, I think about what it'd be like to be a Devils fan.  It must be nice; they have the greatest goaltender of all time, a bunch of good young American players, they live in New Jersey... well, I guess it's not all great.  Anyway, the good people at In Lou We Trust were kind enough to answer a few questions about their crappy Eastern Conference team for our edification.  They should have a few answers about my team on their site if you need a primer on the Kings.  Read them both, dickhead.

 

1)  Zach Parise: great American, or greatest American?

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Mark J. Terrill - AP

90% of the time it works every time. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

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So I'm just trying clarify on this whole "Jonathan Quick is our unquestioned #1 starter" thing; we're just going to ignore the fact that he's not that good?  I mean, that's fine, I'm used to mediocre goaltending, I just wanted to make sure everyone knew it was a problem. 

Quick has started 47 of the Kings' 52 games this season and tonight he'll make it 48 of 53.  His traditional numbers are uninspiring: he's 21st in the league in goals against average, 27th in save percentage, and tied for 24th in shutouts.  He is tied for 4th in wins, but I like to think that in this day and age I don't have to explain why that's a meaningless measure of a goaltender's worth. 

I asked Hawerchuk from the fantastic Behind the Net blog the best way to evaluate a goaltender and he said to look at even-strength save percentage.  He thought 4 year's worth was best, but since Quick has only been in the league a year and a half (and also because I'm lazy) I just looked at this year's so far.  Quick has a .917 SV% at even stength, which is good for 18th among goalies who have played more than 10 games this season.  That doesn't seem that bad, so I was curious to see what was dragging Quick down.  It looks like what is dragging Quick down is his penalty kill save percentage, which is only .846, good for 38th in the league. That's not good. 

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Carlos Osorio - AP

Quick: Dude, you're missing your two front teeth! (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

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I've been trying to write out how Terry Murray has tweaked the lines to find success the past two games.  I can't find a good way to write it (probably because I'm a terrible writer) so I'm just going to put it in bullet-point form:

• The top line has changed from Smyth-Kopitar-Whoever to Richardson-Kopitar-Simmonds.  I like it for three reasons: one, it challenges Kopitar to create goals since he's paired with two players who go to the net (and he responded, having a hand in all 3 goals last game); two, I like the gumption a line shows when they're all kids.  It's like they don't realize what they're not supposed to do.
• The stopper line is now Frolov-Handzus-Parse.  Michal Handzus always draws the toughest offensive assignment from the other team since he's all good and shit and he usually has either Wayne Simmonds or Alex Frolov to help him out.  The emergence of Scott Parse as an OK player makes this line a pretty good stopper line.  Nothing special, but good enough that the other team can't forget about it.

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Oh shit, rain!  Run!!!

Dear Buffalo,

Hey buddy, how you doing?  Hope things are going well up there!  How's Niagra Falls, still... uh, falling?  Anyway, I was just writing to catch up and see how you're doing.  I see your boys the Sabres are doing pretty well, which is great for you guys.  I sure do love that Ryan Miller, even if though he tried to kill me once.  And that Tyler Myers kid is amazing for being so young, even though he's vastly, vastly inferior to Drew Doughty.  (Seriously, vastly.)  Really, things have been going great for you guys... wait, you hired Chan Gailey to coach the Bills?  Oops.

Hope the weather's OK over there, things have been pretty terrible here.  We have this crazy shit falling from the sky, it's called... let me look it up... rain?  It's like the Niagra Falls but it falls everywhere.  Seriously, people are losing their minds about it.  People aren't going to work, roads are flooding, and they even shut down the entire Long Beach State campus because of flooding.  I'm not positive but I think it's the greatest natural disaster of the past decade.  So yeah, everyone's real worried here; I mean, the ground is slippy!  How's the weather where you are?

Anyway, Buffalo, it was great catching up with you.  Just writing this letter reminds me of all the good times we had, like the time we got drunk and toilet papered Raleigh-Durham's house, or the time we put flaming poo on Cleveland's doorstep... oh, or the time we gang raped Flagstaff.  Good times.  Write back soon!

Sincerely,

Los Angeles

P.S. If you could tell the Sabres to start Patrick Lalime tonight I would really appreciate it.

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Gus Ruelas - AP

Nice work, Jack. (AP Photo/Gus Ruelas)

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Most people who read this blog regularly know that I dislike Jack Johnson.  Some people might even say I have a vendetta against him.  Maybe it's because I regularly call him a "dick" and an "asshole" and once wished cancer upon him.  But I started thinking, maybe it's not his on-ice play that makes me hate him, maybe I just don't like him because he has a stupid face and guys like him regularly pantsed me in high school ("Pantsy" is what they called me), and maybe he's actually good.  So I decided to be more like fellow blogger Quisp and looked up some stats.  Well, first I decided to be like Quisp so I fucked my dog, then I looked up some stats.  (Quisp: really nice guy jug of juice, but an animal fucker.  Felt like you should know.)

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Mark J. Terrill - AP

If you squint you can see Dustin Brown laughing on the bench. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

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Last game, Dustin Brown was hilarious.  In case you missed it, here's the play-by-play: Dustin Brown played his usual game where he hits people, jumps in on the rush, and misses the net wildly.  He finished an excellent play by Alexander Frolov to score, although he did it by beating Ryan Whitney to the net so it's not really that special.  Oh, and he trolled the fuck out of the Anaheim Ducks. 

You see, Dustin Brown is the person the opposing team would most like to fight.  You're not going to get someone like Kopitar or Doughty to fight, and doing so would simply galvanize the Kings.  Raitis Ivanans, Sean O'Donnell or Matt Greene will actually fight if you wanted them to, but they're not really that important.  But Dustin Brown is the captain, he upsets the other team when he hits people, and he just has one of those faces.  Yes, getting Dustin Brown to fight would be a triumph for the other team.

But, of course, Dustin Brown never quite goes far enough in his game to really justify someone fighting him.  He hits people but it's generally clean; he scrums after the whistle but he doesn't look at the other player.  Brown knows the other team really wants to get him off the ice so he knows to toe the line and make the other team cross it if they want to fight him.  This leads to incidents like in the game against Anaheim, where Brown goaded Ryan Carter into doing something stupid.  Carter was pissed because his team was getting buttfucked in front of 18,000 people and he was so pissed at Brown that he took a run at Brown along the boards in an attempt to get him to fight.  Brown didn't, of course, because why the fuck would he give Carter the satisfaction, and Carter was so pissed near the end of the game that he fought the one man who would drop his gloves: Raitis Ivanans.  Whoops.

People criticize Brown for not fighting, but personally I think it's hilarious.  Brown doesn't need to fight; he doesn't knee people or elbow them or anything like that.  What he does do is get players on the opposing team sidetracked from winning the game on the scoreboard because they're to busy trying to win the game on the ice.  Dustin Brown is a troll, and a very good one.

Prediction: Kings win, 4-2.  Milan Lucic or Zdeno Chara will go after Brown at least once today.  And they'll probably get a penalty.  And it'll be hilarious. 

Mark J. Terrill - AP

Mark Terrill finds something rarer than the dodo: Evgeni Nabokov making a save against the Kings. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

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The Kings are on a bit of a slump and have looked listless, lifeless, and lugubrious during this period.  Anze Kopitar has seemed lost for almost a month now, tallying 5 points in his last 10 games, of which 0 have been at even strength.  Alexander Frolov, our primary secondary scorer (what?), has only 4 points in his last 10, while Dustin Brown has managed 5 points in his last 10.  Those three are supposed to be the primary players on their respective lines and they haven't been getting the job done.  

To fix that, Terry Murray has dramatically shuffled the lines.  No longer do the Kings have a primary scoring line and a primary shutdown line; instead, they have what looks like three secondary scoring lines.  The lines, courtesy of Inside the Kings:

Frolov-Kopitar-Parse
Smyth-Stoll-Simmonds
Richardson-Handzus-Brown
Ivanans/Moller/Segal/Purcell

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Danny Moloshok - AP

Ow, my cock! (AP Photo/Danny Moloshok)

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I can't decide who I'm more proud of right now: our boys on Team USA for beating Team Canada and winning Gold, Matt Kemp for landing Rihanna, or me for making a sick glove save last night.  Seriously, dude was maybe 10 feet in front of me, right in the slot, and tried to bury one top corner.  I did one of those glove saves where you actually have to make a sweep with your glove to prevent your shoulder from popping out, not one of those bullshit glove saves where someone stops it and then makes a big dramatic arc with their glove because they're some douche bag French Canadian that hits his wife.  (God I just hate Patrick Roy so much.)

Anyway, this has been a great week for everyone (well, not Canada or Chris Brown) so we can only hope it continues tonight.  The Kings are hurting on the back end and will be missing Davis Drewiske, Randy Jones, and now Matt Greene.  Greene apparently had his back seize up on him yesterday, an injury most likely caused by having to carry his giant cock.  I mean, I assume.  It's not too bad for tonight, at least, since Matt Greene is a big slow dumbass who would get eaten alive by Detroit's forwards, but we need someone to get healthy pretty quick.  Tonight's potential third line pairing is Martinez-Harrold.  Yikes.

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I'm sick.

My normally hearty Northern European immune system has failed me and I'm sniffling like Joffrey Lupul after a trip to the bathroom.  Just add me to the list of those related to the Kings that have fallen victim to some sort of ailment or another, along with Jack Johnson and Jarret Stoll.  Stoll missed the game against Edmonton with a hamstring injury and it's 50/50 whether he'll play tonight.  Jack Johnson took a Sheldon Souray slap shot off the foot/ankle and it doesn't take a doctor to figure out what's wrong with him.  Alec Martinez (who himself missed about a month with an ankle injury earlier this season) was called up in Johnson's stead.

Every team goes through periods where they are hit especially hard by injuries and the Kings are no different.  For tonight the Kings could potentially be missing 6 players: Stoll, Johnson, poor Wayne Simmonds, Smyth, Andrei Loktionov, and Brandon Segal.  And that's not even counting Dustin Brown, who downplayed the injury he suffered in Tuesday's game by saying he just got the wind knocked out of him but I'm convinced he hurt his shoulder.  Corey Elkins, a 24-year old rookie, will be their 3rd line center; Davis Drewiske, a 25 year-old defenseman, will be playing a wing.  Trying times, indeed.

Luckily the Kings have an 8 day layoff after tonight's game.  During that time they will get Ryan Smyth, Jarret Stoll and Jack Johnson back and will be able to re-engineer their line-up to something resembling what they had opening night.  We're doomed tonight, barring Anze-related heroics, but things are looking up for the Kings.

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