Little Loki went to Los Angeles, looking to score,
But Terry Murray told him, "I need more."
So Loki backchecked and swiped,
He passed and he sniped,
And then he got benched for Colin Fucking Fraser, which is one of the more baffling coaching decisions I've ever seen. Seriously, the Kings are trying to score and then they bench one of their better offensive players in favor of their 4th line center. It's been 2 days and I'm still mad about it. Terry Murray, you whore!
On the plus side, it looks like Andrei Loktionov is getting an opportunity to play with Simon Gagne and maybe Justin Williams, who is dealing with the after-effects of a shot off the hand in the last game. Hopefully that line clicks, and it should because all three forwards are very creative. Of course, that means they''lll probably get sat halfway through the second so Trevor Lewis can get more playing time.Willie Mitchell should also return tonight, which is good because Johnson-Voynov was freaking me out. They didn't do terrible or anything, but I was very uncomfortable when they were on the ice.
***
Everyone's talking about why the Kings aren't scoring and I'll be honest... I got nothing.
Well, I guess if I had to pick one thing it would be the fact that the Kings aren't breaking out of the zone quickly enough. They usually only have one forward high so instead they cycle the puck around until everyone gets where they need to be, but by the time they set up their break out the other team's already set up too and that makes it much more difficult to gain clean entry into the offensive zone. Murray needs to let his centers cheat a little more, much like Richards does when he's out there. And he needs to let them do it without benching them every time it doesn't work out. I think that, more than anything, would help the Kings get fast breaks and more goals. They're not the Lakers, they're not built to be a half court team. Let them loose.
Prediction: Kings win, 4-3. Goals by Gagne (x2), Brown and Doughty. I write a haiku expressing my frustration over Slava Voynov's current role on Saturday.
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