It’s happened a little too often lately in the NHL, let alone to the Kings: An excellent game, very well played by both teams involved has it’s outcome decided by incompetent officiating. It happened to the Kings back on January 11th against San Jose, it happened to Boston at home tonight against Columbus, when a phantom high stick call against Milan Lucic gave Columbus a 4 minute power play in which they scored the game winning goal. And, it almost happened to the Kings tonight against Buffalo. Fortunately this time, the Kings would not allow themselves to be beaten by the officials.

The Kings played a very strong game and if one is to be honest, were the better team by a decent margin tonight. Buffalo, a very good team with an outstanding record against the Western Conference this season, took advantage of some favorable bounces – both by the puck and the guys in stripes.

Kings took a 1-0 lead in the first period when Drew Doughty’s point blast was redirected by Brad Richardson. The deflection was as perfect as they come, and exactly the type of play you need to beat a guy like Miller, who has been the NHL’s best goalie this season to date.

The Sabres got on the board in the first minute of the second period when Clarke MacArthur’s pass went off the stick of Sean O’Donnell past Jon Quick. The play wasn’t the worst of ideas by O’Donnell, but the puck took a bad bounce off the shaft of his stick and the game was tied. At that point, the officiating got very dicey. With Buffalo on the power play, Tomas Vanek was battling for position with Drew Doughty in front of the King net. Vanek cross checked Doughty from behind and sent him to the ice, leaving the Sabre forward all alone in front of Quick. Tim Connoly fed the puck from the right corner right on to Vanek’s stick and it was 2-1 Buffalo. The officials missed, or rather, decided not to call an obvious interference penalty against Vanek for a takedown that WWE mogul Vince McMahon would’ve been proud of. I’m all for “letting them play” but that non-call was just plain incompetent.

The zebras struck yet again when Oscar Moller appeared to have tipped the puck past Miller to tie the game at two. The play was reviewed and the NHL’s “War Room” in Toronto made the determination that Moller intentionally directed the puck in with his glove. The replay does clearly show contact between puck and glove, however it’s pretty clear that Moller is attempting to contact the puck with the shaft of his stick. What the replay officials were thinking at that point is just baffling. The goal was disallowed, zebras 2, Kings 1.

In an act of atonement for the Sabres first goal, Sean O’Donnell scored his second goal of the season with 55 seconds remaining in the second period on a blast over the shoulder of Miller, who had Michal Handzus perfectly stationed in front of him as a screen. Twice now in the last 4 games, the late goal in a period, which has often gone against the Kings this season, went the Kings’ way.

Sabres regained the lead again early in the 3rd period when Jason Pominville, driving to the net got tangled with Rob Scuderi and fell into Quick, preventing him from being able to square to the play. Sabres defenseman Craig Rivet flipped the puck past a sprawling Quick, off the crossbar and in. It was a play that I thought was at least borderline goaltender interference, but in real time it was truly difficult to tell whether or not he had been taken down by Scuderi. Replay shows Scuderi nary made contact with Pominville, but in this case it was close enough to allow for human error. Not the right call but if they were going to blow one, this one was at least close.

And yet the Kings roared back to tie the game yet again. Entering the Buffalo zone 3 on 2, Dustin Brown made a drop pass to Jaret Stoll, whose shot attempt deflected off a Sabre player and was tipped in by Ryan Smyth, who was unmolested at Miller’s right hand side. The officials again called for video review and you just had a feeling the way the game had been called that they were going to manufacture a reason to waive off the goal, as replay indicated it was an incidental deflection off Smyth’s skate. Thankfully, they got one right on the night and the game was tied.

Not to be understated was the play of both goaltenders. Jon Quick and Ryan Miller were both outstanding on the night, and with the score tied at 3 both made saves for their team that helped secure at least the single point getting out of regulation. Miller in particular saved the Sabre’s bacon in the overtime period on more than one occasion.

It seemed that beating Miller in the shootout would be a daunting task, but Anze Kopitar made it look easy, going to the backhand and roofing it past Miller. Drew Stafford scored on a snapshot for Buffalo to even the shootout at one. Jack Johnson was robbed by the flailing glove of Miller and Quick foiled Pominville’s shot attempt. Dustin Brown scored in his second straight shootout, choosing to deke the aggressive Miller, who had been coming far out of the net on the Kings’ shooters. Browns move was a success, as it banked off the right post and in. Jon Quick made a pad save on Tim Connolly that displayed Gumby-like flexibility to seal the win.

The victory vaulted the Kings into 7th in the West, a point ahead of both Detroit and Calgary.

Next, the Kings begin a 5 game road trip in Detroit. If the Kings play as well as they did last game against Detroit, you have to figure Jimmy Howard can’t possibly be that hot twice. With both teams battling for postseason position, you have to figure revenge will be on the Kings’ minds Saturday. The game is a big test – Detroit has years of experience winning games that lead to playoff berths. These Kings are just getting their feet wet. The Kings haven’t won a game against Detroit since the end of the 2007-2008 campaign. They’re long overdue.

Kings in Detroit, Saturday afternoon at 4 on the West coast.

Go Kings!

-JS

Another road stinker, and I don’t have a whole lot to say about the game in general but one glaring stat stands out to me – Buffalo’s Ryan Miller stopped 40 shots, Jason LaBarbera on the other hand, stopped 10.

I’ve called for LaBarbera’s head enough times this season, to the point people are probably sick of hearing it, but it remains an ugly problem that won’t go away. When your team allows but 18 shots against and you give up 4 goals, it’s not only problematic but downright pathetic.

LaBarbera’s performance has been so awful of late that both the Los Angeles Times, AND ESPN’s Scott Burnside and Pierre LeBrun have taken notice this week. This excerpt from the ESPN Faceoff article sums up about exactly how I feel, and I know that I am not the only one:

Burnside: I was reading with interest the game story from The Los Angeles Times after the Kings lost to the Rangers in a shootout, and how the thing that is really holding the Kings back is the lack of consistent goaltending. Erik Ersberg is out and Jason LaBarbera hasn’t shown he’s an NHL starter, so maybe the long-awaited move of Nikolai Khabibulin out of Chicago could happen after the roster freeze. And that would pave the way for Nylander’s return to Chicago.

LeBrun: It wouldn’t surprise me if the Kings made a move for Khabibulin, or at least inquired. Pure speculation on my part, but I just think the Kings have surprised so far this season with a nice-looking young core that is emerging. But they’re not very good in goal. Given all the cap room the Kings have, GM Dean Lombardi could possibly send a positive message to his young players by adding Khabibulin for the short term. It would tell them he believes in them and their hard work matters. But that’s just me.

Merci, Pierre. As hard as this young team has worked, it’s pretty disconcerting that the organization continues to put a guy on the ice who costs the team points on a regular basis. I am of the opinion that Erik Ersberg has been very good on most nights in the King net, he gives the Kings a better chance to win on a game in/game out basis. If there are concerns about Ersberg being able to handle a big workload, and particularly now while he is out of the lineup, it feels like punishment to the team each time LaBarbera leads them onto the ice. I don’t think it’s a reach to say that continuing to play LaBarbera in ANY situation gives the appearance that the organization doesn’t care about winning. I don’t think that’s what they want portrayed to the fans and especially not to the players. Tonight’s game was a microcosm of LaBarbera’s career as a King. The team outshoots, outworks and outhustles Buffalo for most of the first period; LaBarbera gives up a crap goal and you can see the wind leaving the team’s sails. In tonight’s case, Ryan Miller was simply unbeatable but it doesn’t stop me from thinking “what if” we had gotten even decent goaltending.

Surely some will find the comparison unfair, but LaBarbera sure looks an awful lot like Dan Cloutier right now. The difference is, Cloutier managed to post a 320 win season in his career. The same will likely never be said about Jason LaBarbera.

Dean Lombardi can’t be oblivious to this. Terry Murray has sugar coated LaBarbera’s mediocrity for a lot of the season. Facts are facts, dude is simply not going to get it done. I feel like it sends a bad message to the team when management stands pat and refuses to at least attempt to reinforce a glaring weakness in the teams roster, either by making a trade or by giving one of the organization’s highly touted prospects a chance to shine.

If nothing else, the Kings brass got a good look at what goaltenders are supposed to do by watching Ryan Miller across the ice.

Kings are in Detroit tomorrow night. If LaBarbera’s game tonight wasn’t enough to convince Terry Murray to start Jonathan Quick for this game, it’s time to be worried…as if it wasn’t already.

-JS

Buffalo claimed Matt Ellis on waivers this morning, ending his brief tenure with the Kings. My guess is that the emergence of some of the younger forwards made this move possible. Ellis is a good 4th line guy with a lot of heart, he should do well in Buffalo.

Kings are now down to 35 players on their roster.

-JS