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