Thoughts About The Kings' European Vacation

-Anze Kopitar is going to score 123 goals this season. You might want to trade for him in fantasy hockey.

-Justin Williams is a good passer. He's also good at finding the space that's created by Simon Gagne and Kopitar. Is it bad that I'm hoping he gets his annual injury around the end of November so he has time to rehab before the playoffs start?

-Mike Richards is pretty good... but I thought he'd be better. I think he's still getting his sea legs.

-Dustin Brown has looked horrible. Maybe that's why Richards hasn't looked that good.

-The bottom six has been horrible. They've had 11 shots on goal in the first 2 games.

-That part where they're throwing hats off the Eiffel Tower and the dog jumps off after one of them? Hahaha, that's so funny.

-Defensive pairing that was out against the Pominville-Adam-Vanek line through 2 periods and the outcome:

-Speaking of, Willie Mitchell and Drew Doughty were not on the ice for a goal against, even-strength or otherwise, in either game.

-Drew Doughty played 56:39 seconds in the 2 games. I don't think missing training camp hurt him too much.

-On the plus side, Terry Murray used Mike Richards as his shutdown center, dispelling my fears that he was going to use Jarret Stoll as a 3rd line center.

-Murray seems conflicted, though, because he has Doughty & Mitchell out there with Richards a lot of the time but he still wants Doughty out there with Kopitar because they're their 2 best offensive players, meaning that Johnson-Scuderi and Martinez-Greene get shutdown shifts

-Also, if that 3rd line is going to get easy minutes... why isn't Andrei Loktionov up again?

-The Kings ended up 1-1. That's fine. Hopefully they can end their upcoming 2-game jaunt through New Jersey & Philadelphia 2-2. Then they get to come home and sleep.