Blowout. Rout. Spanking. Ass-whooping. Shellacking. Complete and utter domination. Those are among some of the terms that could be used to describe the Kings’ 8-3 victory over the Ducks Tuesday night at Staples Center.

7 different King players had goals – Jack Johnson being the only player to tally twice, and Anze Kopitar had 4 assists. The Kings were 4-7 on the power play and were 3-3 on the Penalty Kill. Vying for opening day roster spots, rookies Andrei Loktionov and Kyle Clifford both had goals. The remaining King goals were scored by Dustin Brown, Wayne Simmonds, Ryan Smyth and Michal Handzus.

I’ll be honest every time: I loathe the Ducks. I am not fond of the vast majority of what’s left of their fans. Over at LetsGoKings.com, it’s become a game day tradition to post “What they’re saying” threads with comments taken from the opposing team’s various message boards. Every time time the Kings and Ducks play, these are pure hilarity, and Tuesday was no exception. Read for yourselves and enjoy.

Just as enjoyable to me as the Kings’ promise for the upcoming season, is the fact that the Ducks are utterly awful. They still play undisciplined goon hockey, resulting in a lot of dumb penalties. Their defense corps is atrocious. When Lubomir Visnovsky is your top defender, you know it’s going to be a long season. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Lubo as a King, but those days are long gone, and Visnovsky is not the player he was in those days, and in general isn’t suited to be a top pair guy. He’s got plenty of heart but at the end of the day, his best assets are in the opposite zone. While the Kings may win the Pacific Division this season, the Ducks may well finish last. That would be the icing on the cake for most Kings’ fans. Whatever is left of the Ducks’ bandwagon from 2007 will inevitably be even smaller come mid-season. Kings trips to the Honda Center will feel like home games (they already mostly do, minus the annoying Duck call horn and the terrible, tractor pull style PA announcer the Ducks employ). And me? Oh, I won’t complain a bit.

Kings move on to Las Vegas next, for the annual tradition known as Frozen Fury against the Colorado Avalanche. I won’t be there in person, but like many I’m hoping they’ll at least offer some sort of video stream of the game.

Go Kings!

JS

I’m normally pretty long winded here, but driving round trip to LA from San Diego on a work night has me exhausted, so I’ll keep it brief.

Kings lost 2-1 in OT tonight in Phoenix and 3-1 at home. Don’t have much comment on the road game, since I was at Staples watching the home game.

In brief about the LA game:

Phoenix skated a lot more guys looking for roster spots, and looked hungrier at times. They did an especially good job on defense. Goalie Al Montoya could’ve put up a hammock in front of the net most of the night. Other than the goal, the Kings’ best chances all missed the net. They sure teach those kids to collapse around the net though.

Brayden Schenn wants a roster spot in LA, now.

Doughty and Mitchell look pretty good together, but the team as a whole looked a bit sloppy at home.

Didn’t agree with all the calls, but the Kings took some absolutely STUPID penalties.

Jon Quick was very sharp for 55 minutes. He had a lapse in focus at the worst possible time, and gave up a bad goal on a Phoenix power play. Just happened to end up as the game winner.

Kyle Clifford and twitter favorite Paul Bissonnette had a pretty good scrap. Not sure it was worth the 17 minutes of penalties they assessed Clifford, but it was a crowd pleaser for sure.

Ryan Smyth played on the first penaltykill unit all night. Seriously, he did. He did the job, but hopefully that experiment was in light of Handzus, Stoll andf Ponikarovsky being in Phoenix.

Kings make their first round of cuts tomorrow, from what I understand.

More on tonight’s game, in more detail, when I’ve had some sleep (and preferably some coffee)

Go Kings.

-JS

It’s that time again. Hockey is upon us!

The Kings opened the 2010 preseason with a gritty comeback victory over the Colorado Avalanche at Pepsi Center in Denver. The Avalanche scored the first two goals of the game (Dupuis and former King Kyle Quincey) before the Kings scored 4 unanswered goals to take the tilt.

Michal Handzus, John Zeilier, Brad Richardson and Justin Williams scored goals for the Kings. Thomas Hickey and Jaret Stoll each had a pair of assists. Jonathan Bernier stopped 21 of 23 shots.

The victory was a nice one for a Kings’ lineup consisting mostly of players who will find themselves on the Manchester Monarchs’ roster for the season, with a few exceptions; up against a veteran laden lineup for Colorado.

Sadly, since there was no TV feed for the game, there’s not much analysis to be provided.

Kings will play a split squad series with Phoenix today. The lineup that the Kings will ice at Jobing.com Arena will look much like last night’s lineup, and Jonathan Bernier will play at least two periods again tonight.

In LA at Staples, the Kings’ roster looks more like the regular season incarnation, and Jon Quick will go the distance in goal.

Those of you who will be at Staples tonight, I will see you there.

Go Kings!

-JS

I got up at 0 dark 30 this morning and headed up to El Segundo for the Kings’ second annual iteration of Hockey Fest at the Toyota Sports Center in El Segundo. I saw nearly every giant in the Kings’ blogging community there, met a handful of people who knew of my tiny little blip on the Kings’ blogosphere. Pretty cool I think, considering I posted nothing from mid April until a week ago, and don’t have the exposure or the following that most of them do. Gives me something to aspire to, although realistically my real life job and the fact that I live two hours away in San Diego makes it difficult to provide the same type of content that the LA-based bloggers, especially those with media credentials, can give to you, the fans. Regardless I love doing this, and when someone says “hey, aren’t you the Throne Room guy?” it makes my day.

But enough about me! On to the festivities. I’m sure my fellow bloggers and podcasters at Life in Hockeywood, KingsCast, Frozen Royalty, The Royal Half and Matthew Barry at Hockeybuzz will be able to provide plenty of quotes, maybe some audio andor video and interview content from the day’s events (and if there’s anyone I left out, forgive me). I’m going to focus on a few points and the fan experience of the event overall.

The doors opened just after 8AM and people began taking seats for the State of the Kings panel, featuring Dean Lombardi, Ron Hextall and Jeff Solomon. There were far less Kovalchuk questions than one would anticipate (a good thing), and we got to see a rather candid side of Dean Lombardi discussing his gripes about the current CBA. I’m hoping someone got some audio or video from this, as Dean got rather worked up about it, and I think the fans appreciated seeing that from Dean. Probably the most pressing question on every Kings fan’s mind was “are we going to bring in another skilled top 6 forward?”. This was asked of Lombardi in a couple of different ways. Dean shot down the idea of bringing back Patrick O’Sullivan, which isn’t any surprise to the rational among us. He also indicated that Scott Parse is going to get every chance to be the team’s second line Left Wing, and that there aren’t many sellers right now, but that the Kings realize they need to improve 5 on 5 scoring (without raising 5 on 5 goals against). I take this to mean that they’re looking but won’t be hasty to make a move. In the meantime, Parse (who showed up wearing #21, changed from last season’s #63) will get a chance to make some noise. Nothing new here, really.

Next up was the first Autograph session of the day, featuring Jonathan Quick, Anze Kopitar, Davis Drewiske, Jonathan Bernier, Scott Parse, Rich Clune and Michal Handzus. My only gripe about the day’s events in El Segundo was the condensed schedule (last year the event was spread over 2 days). It was impossible to get to every panel, every autograph session, etc in the day. Lines for autograph sessions began forming long before the sessions themselves started, and if you wanted to see the entirety of any of the Speaker Series panels, you were likely forgoing a chance to get autographs and pictures with your favorite Kings’ players and alumni. The first autograph session was the only one I was able to get into, and not only did you have to choose to leave State of the Kings’ a bit early to get in line, once you’re there, you had to choose which group of players whose autographs you wanted. So, if like me, you wanted to get both Jon Quick and Jon Bernier’s autograph, you were SOL unless you had somebody in the other players’ line who you could pass off your memorabilia too – and even then, staff was limiting guests to one signature from each player. I get that we have Meet the Players (if you’re a season ticket holder) and Tip-A-King, but not everyone gets to go to those and while I give the Kings’ organization high marks for the event as a whole, the autograph sessions were kind of a sore spot I thought.

The Speaker Series panels, I thought, were excellent in contrast. The Kids Press Conference with Matt Greene, Wayne Simmonds, Jack Johnson and Brad Richardson was very well done. Matt Greene might be the funniest guy in all of hockey. He had the whole crowd in stitches with his wisecracking antics, and one can’t help but wonder if he couldn’t make a career in stand-up for himself once his hockey playing days are over. This panel was great for kids and grown-ups alike. The “Life of a King” panel with Luc Robitaille, Jay Wells and Marty McSorley was awesome; and while the “Winning Ways” panel with Jaret Stoll, Ryan Smyth, Justin Williams and Rob Scuderi was perhaps a bit more dull, it was certainly entertaining.

The day ended with a pep rally, hosted by Kings TV analyst Jim Fox, where the Kings’ broadcast crews, coaching staff and management were all introduced to the public, as was the team: First a group of alumni, some prospects, and then the veterans; including the officials introductions of Alexei Ponikarovsky and Willie Mitchell as Kings.

HockeyFest also coincided with the first day of rookie camp for the Kings’ prospects, and those in attendance had a chance to see some future Kings at work. I didn’t get to spend as much time watching the rookies as I’d hoped, but I did take in some of their first ice session and almost the entire second session. Some quick thoughts: Thomas Hickey and Andrei Loktionov were the two best players on the ice Saturday, but Brandon Kozun and Corey Elkins were not far behind. Loktionov and Kozun were linemates and paired together in many of the drills, and they absolutely killed it I thought. With Brayden Schenn’s injury keeping him day to day right now, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Corey Elkins end up as the Kings’ 4th line center to start the season. He has all the makings of a solid, two-way NHL forward.

Hickey and Nicolas Deslauriers were the most impressive of the defensemen. I didn’t think any of the three goalies looked particularly sharp on day one, but of the three, Jean-Francois Berube seemed sharpest. Berube did the best job absorbing pucks and controlling rebounds. Martin Jones seemed to be playing too deep in his net and got beat by several high shots. Garett Zemlak, in LA on a tryout from Prince Albert of the WHL, was least impressive of the group.

These are just first impressions, and day one of any camp is hardly indicative of which of the kids will get invited to skate with the vets next week. If I were a betting man though, Loktionov, Hickey and Elkins all look like they have realistic chances to at least skate with the vets until the final roster moves are made.

All in all, I enjoyed this year’s HockeyFest a lot. Other than the uber condensed schedule making it difficult to get all the player autographs/pictures, I thought the Kings did a fantastic job with the event this year, and are doing a great job by reaching out to the fans. Good fan relations and an exciting, up and coming team will make getting seats at Staples Center a bit more difficult.

Even if you’re not a Led Zeppelin fan (shame on you!), that song title is an appropriate descriptor for the Kings 2010 offseason. I’m approaching the analogy in reverse as it better reflects the chronological order of events here. Sit back, relax, pour your favorite beverage and enjoy.

What Should Never Be

Kings’ fans the world over are likely ill by now from all the drama involving Ilya Kovalchuk. What it boils down to is simply this: Dean Lombardi made his best offer to kovalchuk and agent Jay Grossman – reported to be 13 years, 84.5 million dollars, and they instead chose to pursue the path of riches by signing with New Jersey for a record 17 years, $102 million. Of course, as we all know, that deal was rejected by the NHL for circumvention of the CBA, a decision upheld by arbitrator Richard Bloch. After weeks of civil unrest, the NHL and NHLPA finally reached agreement in the wee hours of the morning Saturday on an Amendment to the CBA re: long term contracts and along with it, approved a second Kovalchuk contract – this one for 15 years, $100 million. Make no mistake about it, the NHL made concessions in approving that deal. Since this is a Kings’ blog, I’m not going to write an infinite number of paragraphs explaining my point, since at this point we’re talking water under the bridge. All I will say is that the second contract, which the league APPROVED, is in many ways worse than the first. Again, water under the bridge, but I’ll admit that there was a part of me hoping to see Kovalchuk bolt for Russia – which would prove once and for all that he is in it solely for financial gain. But, we already knew that, right?

Now, onto the pertinent part – how this effects the Kings. Let’s be honest here. We can all scream about how Kovalchuk has never been a team player, doesn’t come through under pressure, et cetera. The truth of the matter is, if he’d been willing to play for a reasonable contract, he’d have been a nice addition to the team. Since he wasn’t, he’s not – and New Jersey just went through a whole lot of trouble to re-sign a player who didn’t get them out of the first round last season.

Dean Lombardi isn’t dumb. He knows he has a current Norris Trophy nominee and future Norris winner, likely multiple times, to get signed to an extension. He’s got another young defenseman who seems to finally be living up to a bit of his potential (let’s see if he can finish with a + rating this season) to extend, as well as one of his young promising Wingers who has split time on the team’s top line and the team’s shutdown line with substantial results. Yes, Drew Doughty is more important to the Kings, now and tomorrow, than Ilya Kovalchuk ever would have been. Jack Johnson has made great strides since the Olympics, and while there are rumblings (mostly unsubstantiated) that he doesn’t want to stay in LA long term, he is not sue to be a UFA for some time yet. If Lombardi is unable to get Johnson signed to a multi year extension, he is at the very least a tradable asset with a lot of value. Wayne Simmonds will look to crack the 20 goal mark in his third full season in the NHL, and is one of the team’s best rounded forwards, as well as a fan favorite.

In order to sign Kovalchuk (and there are those who believe his visit to LA was all song and dance to get New Jersey to increase their offer) the Kings would certainly have had to part with one or more of the aforementioned three players. Lombardi made the biggest offer possible in order to retain his core players. In the end it didn’t happen. Some are still disappointed.

I’ll maintain my opinion that it’d have been nice to have him, but not at the risk of blowing up an already pretty good roster. I’ll be reminding people of that after New Jersey suffers another first round collapse in 2001 as well, particularly East Coast based bloggers who have used the whole Koval-Gate situation as an excuse to slag the people of Southern California and the LA Kings organization.

What Is

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to the good stuff. Let’s be realistic for a second – the Kings didn’t need Kovalchuk to begin with. We’re talking about a team that scored the fifth most goals in the NHL in 2009-10. While the even strength scoring could use some improvement, the players already here are capable of that progression. If Anze Kopitar shows up to camp in even better shape than last season, there’s no reason to believe that he can’t exceed last season’s goal and point totals. Remember, Kopitar might’ve been the most dominant player in the entire NHL for the first third of 2009-10. What kept him from keeping up that level of performance? Some may point to Ryan Smyth’s injury, which was no doubt a factor. General consensus however seems to be that Kopitar’s conditioning, although improved, was not at it’s peak. I still believe that a well conditioned Kopitar with reliable linemates is potentially a 100 point player in this league.

Speaking about the forwards, the Kings lost Alexander Frolov as a free-agent to the Rangers, and opted not to re-sign Fredrik Modin or Jeff Halpern. Coming to the team this season is former Maple Leaf and Penguin Alexei Ponikarovsky. Poni may not have the offensive upside Frolov had, but he is a similar type player – a consistent 20 goal scorer who is by all accounts better defensively than Frolov and will be a PERFECT fit alongside Michal Handzus and Wayne Simmonds on the third, “checking” line.

Defensively, the Kings bid adieu to Sean O’Donnell and Randy Jones. OD is a great guy, and it would’ve been nice to see him finish his career where it started, but his game had obviously lost a step, and he heads off to Philadelphia for a season that is likely to be his last. Jones, who nobody in the stands at Staples is likely to miss, heads off to Tampa. For all the talk about Steve Yzerman being a genius GM, the Jones signing is enough to make everyone scratch their heads a bit. Incoming is veteran Willie Mitchell, a solid shutdown guy who will be a great addition to the Kings top 4. The season will start with 2 defensive rookies likely in the lineup while Matt Greene recovers from shoulder surgery.

While the additions of Ponikarovsky and Mitchell are solid ones, I don’t think Lombardi is done looking for a top 6 forward. If a deal can be made to benefit the Kings, Dean will make it. The name I’ve heard thrown about most is Tampa’s Ryan Malone – who I believe would be an absolute PERFECT fit with this team. Malone does have a no-trade clause however, so who knows if discussions will or have been taking place.

So now, the question I pose to you, the readers. Who is a realistic addition to the Kings’ roster, via trade, that you feel would help the Kings reach the next level?

Next up, I’ll talk about rookies hoping to make an impact during the 2010-2011 season.

Go Kings!

JS

I’m back from my blogging hiatus. As a fan, it took some time to cope with the first round loss to Vancouver. Fortunately, another exciting season is just around the corner, and I will be writing in the coming days some of my thoughts on what happened (Ponikarovsky, Mitchell), what didn’t happen (Kovalchuk) and what moves are yet to come.

On a side note – I’ve been having issues with dreaded SPAM on older blog posts. I am looking for a solution to this, if one doesn’t exist then I am going to consider moving The Throne Room to another platform.

Looking forward to another season. Go Kings!

JS