After a less than stellar performance in Vancouver on Thanksgiving day that saw them lose 4-1, the Kings have bounced back nicely with two hard contested wins.

If you took one positive from the Turkey Day stinker in B.C. it was the strong play of Jon Quick and Wayne Simmonds. These two carried themselves into and through Saturday’s contest with the Chicago Blackhawks at Staples Center. Simmonds scored the Kings’ lone goal in regulation and Quick allowed the Kings to take the game through overtime and into the shootout where he was perfect leading the Kings to victory, 2-1. While Anze Kopitar hasn’t scored a goal in 10 games now (ouch), he did manage to undress Cristobal Huet in round one of the shootout. Quick would stop Jonathan Toews and Jack Johnson, who for all his defensive zone blunders early this season is practically automatic one-on-one in the shootout, buried the puck past Huet with a beautiful backhand move. Quick stopped Patrick Kane cold to seal the deal.

Next, we bring on the Ducks in Anaheim. Ahh, Duck. It’s a four letter word that will bring the blood of most Kings’ fans to a boil instantly. Most of us were fans of the game before NHL Commish Gary Bettman got the genius idea to make an NHL team out of a really bad Disney movie. We hated the idea in the first place. We felt like their uniforms were an atrocity, their fans should stick to something less complicated, and we ridiculed them for having Tinkerbell congratulate goal scorers on their TV broadcasts. Some things never change…

The Ducks still have AWFUL uniforms, and the vast majority of their fans try to cover up for their lack of hockey knowledge by blaming the officials at every turn. While most with even remedial knowledge of the game watch Randy Carlyle’s club take a ton of undisciplined penalties and realize this is most often a recipe for disaster. Not the Ducks fan. This is perpetuated at the highest level by their TV play-by-play team of John Ahlers and Brian Hayward, quite possibly, or rather most definitely the most shamelessly homer-ish broadcast team in the NHL. When you have a fan base who, in the vast majority of cases understands very little about the sport of hockey being preached to by buffoons who whine at every penalty call, bitch every time an opposing player makes contact with one of their own, and co-signs every goon tactic Carlyle has bred into the Ducks, well, you get the point.

As this years opening installment of the “Freeway Faceoff” between the Kings and Ducks was at Honda Center, Kings fans were forced to deal with the stupidity of Ahlers and Hayward, or, more likely to mute their television sets and listen to the Kings’ radio feed anyway.

I found the score of tonight’s 4-3 Kings’ triumph in Anaheim to be a bit misleading. While it took Brad Richardson (that guy finally scored?) deflecting a Jack Johnson shot past Jonas Hiller with under 3 minutes remaining to decide the game’s outcome, it really wasn’t that close. Perhaps it would be fair to call the Ducks opportunistic tonight, as they took advantage of the bounces that went their direction and were close to gaining a single point from a game they had no business being in. The penalty call on Wayne Simmonds that led to the Ryan Whitney 5 on 3 goal for Anaheim was a gift (if Hayward says it’s a bad call, you KNOW something’s up), and two bounces that went in Anaheim’s direction led to the Ducks’ third goal of the night from Todd Marchant. For all intents and purposes, this should’ve been a 4-1 game.

For a minute, let me set aside my obvious disdain for the Ducks and focus on some positives: Jon Quick, for the last 3 games at least, has looked like the Jon Quick of last season. Perhaps it’s the sharp looking new set of gear, or more likely it’s that Quick is stabilizing and starting to do all the little things right. For the entire game against Chicago, Quick was flat out brilliant. Tonight in Anaheim, Quick’s 3rd period antics shut the door on a Duck team that was pressing hard for points. Quick is 3-0 lifetime against the Ducks, all three wins by the same 4-3 score.

Jack Johnson is starting to look good in his own zone. He’s always been a gifted puck mover with a cannon shot, but we’ve been waiting for Jack to come into his own defensively. Smart plays in the D-zone, well timed hits. Oh, and there’s the offense thing too.

Brad Richardson scored his first goal as a King. While Richardson has developed into a solid shutdown type center, his offensive numbers have not reflected that of someone worth giving up a second round pick for a Summer ago. He went all of last season without scoring a goal and while he’s had more opportunities of late, you wondered if he would ever get off the schneid. It couldn’t have happened at a better time.

On the not so positive side, 10 games without a goal for Kopi? Yes, he most definitely misses Ryan Smyth on that top line, but we’ve seen production from Kopi for 3 years sans Smyth, and it’s hard not to think Kopitar is either playing banged up or just not leaving it all on the ice every shift. Every game night I keep telling myself “Kopitar can’t stay off the scoresheet forever, and when he does get back on it he’ll come roaring back”. but I’m still waiting for that to happen. I think Anze is capable of scoring without Smytty, but his play in the offensive zone doesn’t have the look of confidence of late. While the Ducks had Hiller pulled at game’s end I was praying for Kopi to get an empty netter, just to break the spell and get him going again. It’s got to happen sooner or later. Sooner would be nice, as points aren’t easy to come by in the West.

4 goals tonight was the Kings’ biggest offensive output since November 16th in Florida. 4-3 has been the final score of the past 3 installments of the Freeway Faceoff, all in favor of the Kings.

No matter how you slice it, NOTHING, and I mean nothing, feels better than beating the Ducks, especially in their own barn, where you’re likely to see as many or more Kings fans in attendance than their own.

Next up, Jason Spezza, Alexei Kovalev and the Ottawa Senators at home on Thursday.

See you at Staples.

-JS

As frustrated as I am about the results of this road trip, it’s not as if I can rightfully lambaste the Kings for playing completely poorly the last 3 games. Each of them has been competitive if not close, the difference a matter of bounces. As disgusted I am that the playoffs seem this close and the team is all the sudden coming up short (especially in the goal scoring department), it’s not as if the Kings are mailing it in right now.

They are still getting very good goaltending. I thought Quick was outstanding in Chicago today with the exception of the third Blackhawk goal. The second goal was a bad bounce. As someone who has played goal for a long time and had that happen more times than I care to remember, it’s a tough break to catch when the puck goes off the post, and you knock it in the net trying to lay back and cover it. He more than kept the Kings in the game when they were outshot by a wide margin again, 38-24.

Speaking of goal posts, they were Chicago rookie Anti Niemi’s best friend Sunday. Brad Richardson (one of two Kings without a goal this season) and Alexander Frolov both hit posts on two of the Kings’ few scoring chances in the game. The Blackhawks’ defense did an outstanding job blocking shots in front of Niemi, and much like Chris Osgood in Detroit two days ago, most of the Kings’ shots were from the outside. Niemi’s 22 save debut couldn’t have been much easier for sure.

So, after Sunday’s 4-2 loss, the Kings will conclude their road trip Tuesday in Columbus, home of the West’s most overrated team. Nobody can convince me that the Blue Jackets are much more than a fluke, a team playing well defensively under Ken Hitchcock that has a bit of talent up front. Dan LaCosta’s brief recall this season and the stats he incurred in the Columbus net reinforce my point that Steve Mason’s statistics are more indicative of the team playing in front of him than his net worth itself. As evidenced by a couple of recent rough stretches, when the Jackets’ defense breaks down, so does Mason’s force field. Every time I look at the standings and see Columbus ahead of the Kings, I scratch my head (although it’s gotta be nice getting to beat up on St. Louis and Nashville 6 times a season). The Kings have dispatched Columbus with relative ease twice this season and fallen short once in one of their worst performances in 08-09. We know the Kings are capable of taking it to the Jackets, we know the Kings will get good goaltending (likely from Jon Quick), that they will play hard. What we don’t know is if they will score many goals. I say that not as a credit to the aforementioned Columbus goaltender, perhaps as a tip of the hat to Hitchcock’s system, but mostly based on the Kings current inability to score goals. It would be a shame to come home with only two points out of 10 on this road trip, but at this juncture, there is no sure thing.

Which brings me to the next topic. With 20 games (40 possible points) left, sitting only 6 points out of 8th in the West, what position are the Kings in come Wednesday’s trade deadline? The Kings’ obvious need is a winger who can score at will. We know that Dean Lombardi will not mortgage the future just to get the 8th seed, so it’s got to be someone who can be around for the long term – no rent-a-players. The Kings have a ton of prospects and picks they can part with. I thought today about guys in the organization I absolutely wouldn’t trade, no matter what. That list looks like:
Kopitar
Brown
Doughty
Quincey
Johnson
Greene
Frolov
Handzus
O’Sullivan
Stoll
Quick
Teubert
Voynov

Some may, and I’d say likely will disagree with that list but those guys in my estimation have been invaluable to the Kings’ success this season. I would imagine that Dena Lombardi’s “untouchables” list is much shorter than mine.

Some speculate that Frolov may be dealt, and I hope this isn’t the case. Frolov still annoys the hell out of me with the whole loafing thing occasionally, but he is in my estimation, the most talented guy on the team, best puck-handler, and the most creative guy on the team (sometimes a bit too creative). I wouldn’t be surprised to see him get close to 40 goals this season, and his contract makes him a steal for someone of his talent.

I still think Bernier is going to have a long future in LA, but the emergence of Quick has perhaps turned him into a bargaining chip. The only way I would feel OK about the Kings dealing Jonathan is if he were part of a deal that brought in some MAJOR talent. Even then, if he were to turn into a star elsewhere I’d never let Lombardi live that decision down. Yes, Bernier is no sure thing, but until we see more than half a season of stellar play from Quick, I would hang onto Bernier. I would have no problem seeing any of the other developing goaltenders in the organization (Zatkoff, Jones, Taylor) dealt though.

It’s going to be an interesting week. I’m looking forward to seeing how the team responds, albeit with a fairly high level of skepticism.

Kings are in Columbus Tuesday afternoon.

If you watched “NHL On The Fly” Thursday night/Friday morning and listened to host Brian Duff and analysts Bill Berg and Craig Button, you could easily be left with the impression that the Chicago Blackhawks, by all rights a very good team, laid down on the ice and allowed the Kings to beat them. Of course, if you were there or if you managed to watch the game on Center Ice (there was no broadcast of the game on the Kings’ Southern California affiliate) you know different.

It could certainly be said that Chicago didn’t have their best game of the season tonight, but they still managed to do a lot of things right, including outshooting the Kings 33-26. The Kings simply outskated, outhustled, outmuscled, got some stellar goaltending and generally outplayed the Hawks (for the second time this season I might add) in Thursday night’s 5-2 victory. Kings also had some bounces go their way as well (although with at least 4 hit posts by LA shooters in the game, I guess Chicago wasn’t without it’s share of breaks either).

The Kings seemed to be flying through the neutral zone tonight. Although there were some long stretches in the latter half of period two and the first half of period three that were spent in the Kings’ zone, I was generally impressed with the Kings breakout tonight. They looked like a team that is confident in their offensive abilities – much different than the snakebitten team of a couple weeks ago. Defensively they did a great job of neutralizing Chicago’s impressive transition game as well. Even Peter Harrold, who I don’t consider as the most defensively sound guy on the block, made a couple of great defensive plays. Michal Handzus looked like an elite shut-down center tonight.

Jack Johnson looked particularly impressive. He moves the puck very well, looks 100% smarter and more decisive than he did this season prior to his injury (although the sample size was rather small). His spin-o-rama move in the first period drew a huge ovation from the sellout crowd at Staples, as did his bone jarring hit on Patrick Sharp in period two. Jack looks like RoboCop out there right now. It might be early to make such claims, but it appears his potential is coming to fruition nicely.

Dustin Brown scored in his 4th straight game. The NHL’s reigning First Star of the Week was first star of the game with 2 goals and an assist. The Brown-Stoll-Calder line looked particularly effective yet again (although I still with Calder could finish to save his skin).

Alexander Frolov I thought was the best King tonight, both with the puck and away from it. “Sasha” is such a smart hockey player. I think sometimes he tries to get too cute with the puck and it costs him, but in my estimation he is the Kings’ best finisher. He is going to get close to the 40 goal mark before the season ends.

Jon Quick was stellar in goal. The Kings made their share of mistakes, and there were the affore mentioned long stretches in the last half of period two and the first half of period three where the puck remained in the Kings’ zone. Quick was there to slam the door on each of those occasions. The goals against were 1. a power play one timer with two players obstructing his view, and 2. a deflection (at press time Sharp had credit for the goal but from my vantage point at Staples it sure looked like Jonathan Toews deflected that puck – haven’t watched the TV replay yet) or at the very least a screen directly in front of the goaltender. I thought in a game where the Kings were outshot, yet won convincingly, Quick was deserving of at least the second star of the game. His absence from tonight’s three stars was to me, conspicuous.

It’s time for the bevy of East Coast based hockey scribes and analysts to take notice. This is not last year’s Kings team. This is a team that competes hard, who’s bad-game losses this season could be counted on one hand right now. No, Chicago didn’t lay down tonight. They got beat by another young, up and coming hockey team that nobody is talking about.

The Kings head out on the road, without another contest at Staples until February 12th. It’s time to use this eastern swing as an opportunity to show some of the hockey media that these Kings are not to be taken lightly.

-JS