I said after last Saturday’s win in Detroit that the Kings had to be careful to avoid the classic letdown game. With it’s next two games against teams currently headed nowhere fast, it’s always a possibility that after beating Detroit the Kings would expect two points just for showing up in Toronto and Columbus. After staving off slippery slope #1 in Toronto Tuesday night, the Kings pummeled Columbus 4-1 on Thursday to improve to 3-0 on the current road trip.

The game saw Anze Kopitar get his 100th and 101st goals in a King uniform as well as an outstanding performance by Jon Quick, who for all intents and purposes deserved a shutout. Two Sean O’Donnell mistakes, starting with a turnover in the defensive zone and culminating with O’Donnell putting the puck in his own net after Antoine Vermette’s shot glanced off the mask of Quick, put an end to the shutout bid. I said in many places last night that O’Donnell should buy Quick a new Rolex and a steak dinner for singlehandedly blowing the shutout for him.

Given his recent performance, I would be inclined to sit O’Donnell for a couple of games. He appears to be getting tired and the number of mistakes he’s making on the ice appears to be improving. Perhaps some rest would do him good. One problem with that – Jack Johnson left last night’s game in the second period with an upper body (arm) injury. Johnson was reported by Rich Hammond as skating in practice today, but his status is unknown until tomorrow’s morning skate. Either Randy Jones, or Davis Drewiske who has been cleared to play could take Johnson’s place in the lineup.

Next, it’s on to Boston and a shot at a season sweep of the Bruins. Boston hasn’t been playing good hockey lately, but they may get playmaker Marc Savard back from injury in time for tomorrow’s game, likely another matchup of U.S. Olympic teammates in goal, Jon Quick and Tim Thomas. After that it’s an afternoon tilt in New Jersey against the Devils. While I’d take neither game for granted, the Kings have won their last two games against Boston, and won handily last season at the Prudential Center against the Devils. A strong finish to this road trip would help put the Kings in solid playoff position going into the Olympic break in just over two weeks.

Go Kings!

-JS

Another costly loss. Seem like a theme lately? The 8th seed in the West is now 7 points away. With each loss the possibility of the playoffs gets more and more remote. While it was nice to see the scoring drought end, it was not pleasant watching the Kings lose to the Blue Jackets in Columbus.

I’ve not been one to pull many punches when it comes to my opinion about Columbus. They play in a division where they get to beat up on St. Louis and Nashville a combined 12 times a year. They play a trap-style system (hence why their goaltenders are always statistically good) and have a couple of talented guys up front who can put the puck in the net. They have exactly one player I would enjoy seeing on the Kings’ roster, Rick Nash. Nobody else on that team impresses me much if at all. Top to bottom I believe the Kings to be a more talented team, by a fairly large margin.

The the Kings were unable to put away a team that had been floundering coming into this afternoon is certainly disappointing. The Kings were able to get goals (Steve Mason looked particularly bad tonight) but they looked like an AHL team in stretches (including most of the 3rd period). Jon Quick won’t look good statistically from this performance, but when 4 of Columbus’ 5 goals are deflections and the 5th is a bang-bang play, you can’t place any blame on Quick. We’ve seen him make some of those saves but none would qualify as situations where the save is expected.

What gets me, what’s making me eat my heart out of my chest, giving me an upset stomach and keeping me awake nights is that it’s been shown to us that the Kings are capable of so much better. We’ve beaten some pretty damn good hockey teams on the road this season. We’ve also managed to play abysmally against some not so great hockey teams. In the end that will probably be the difference between getting in the playoffs and not for this team. Inconsistency is one of the hallmarks of a young and developing hockey team, and we’ve seen plenty of that. In reality there are a lot of positives I could focus on with the team this season, but it’s so disappointing to see things coming unraveled right now that it’s hard for someone who bleeds black and purple to see the forest for the trees perhaps. I want the playoffs, and I want them now. I think about what a huge boost it would be for the team and it’s fans, even if they end up Cannon Fodder for San Jose or Detroit in round one (especially since Anaheim doesn’t look like a good bet to get in at this point either).

Many of us started the season with few expectations of the team. It’s amazing how fast that can change. Yes, the playoffs would be great. Looks like we might just have to wait another year.

But hey, stranger things have happened, right?

Trade deadline hits in just over 13 hours. Let’s see what happens.

-JS

Two games this season vs Columbus have largely been dominant performances for the Kings. The Jackets have fired 42 shots in two games against Los Angeles and have failed to score on any of them. Kings rookie netminder Jon Quick stopped 24 shots in this evening’s shutout win.

Quick was as solid as the Kings needed him to be, and he certainly had a lot of help from the defense, particularly on a couple of opportunities where he allowed the rebound to get away from him. Columbus thought they had broken Quick’s shutout in the third period but the referees waved the goal off claiming that Jackets’ superstar winger Rick Nash deflected it in with a high stick. The NHL’s war room confirmed the on ice officials call and Quick’s shutout remained intact. (Side note: I understand Columbus fans have a complex about disallowed goals after the Dallas game last week, but the no-goal call on Nash was the correct one).

What remains a mystery to me anyways is why analysts who cover the NHL are fast to heap praise on Columbus as a much improved team. Meanwhile the Kings are sitting two points ahead of Columbus now, one point out of a playoff spot (Minnesota and Colorado both have results pending at press time), yet have gone largely ignored by the hockey press save for the occasional press clipping or kind words during a telecast. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Columbus plays closer to the East Coast, where most of the NHL’s media coverage resides?

At any rate, the Kings have flat out dominated Columbus in the clubs’ two contests this season. Columbus goalie Steve Mason allowed a soft-ish goal to Kings enforcer Raitis Ivanans (his first in 35 games) after giving up a bad rebound on a weak point shot from Drew Doughty. Mason was undressed by O’Sullivan, who took a beautiful pass from Anze Kopitar, who in turn took a beautiful pass from Trevor Lewis (who has looked pretty impressive in his two games as a King thus far) and one-timed into the net; and on the Kings third goal – a 2 on 1 in which Anze Kopitar used his reach to extend around the diving Columbus defenseman and feed Peter Harrold, who waited for Mason to commit and walked right around him, leaving him “out of his jock” as they say in the hockey world. Great moment for Harrold, an Ohio native who’s family was in attendance. I will maintain that I still like Peter Harrold as a winger much more than I like him on defense, for what it’s worth. Tom Preissing got back intot he lineup tonight and did a respectable job, while Jon Zeilier was a healthy scratch.

A couple things that might inspire some hope: Rich Hammond’s “Inside The Kings” blog today reported that the Kings were in talks with Chicago to acquire goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin. Apparently talks ceased because Chicago’s asking price was more than what Dean Lombardi wanted to pay (speculated to be a prospect and a pick). Disappointing perhaps that a deal couldn’t be reached, but if this is indeed true it does show that Lombardi is trying to make a move to give the team a legitimate chance at the playoffs. Talks could always resume, or Lombardi could look elsewhere. I’m not necessarily of the opinion that the Kings need to acquire a guy who can play 60 games. I feel like Ersberg is good enopugh to give the team a chance to win, perhaps even steal some wins, and the Kings might be better suited looking for someone who can split time with him. If Khabibulin ends up here somehow, I won’t be complaining (provided of course what we give up for him isn’t gross overpayment).

Speaking of Ersberg, his recovery from a groin injury sustained last Monday night against San Jose seems to be going well and goaltending coach Bill Ranford expects he may be available shortly after Christmas, perhaps as early as Saturday in Phoenix. It will be somewhat interesting to see what the Kings do upon Ersberg’s return – do they send Quick back to Manchester or will they put LaBarbera on waivers and attempt to send him to Manchester? I’m hoping for the latter but it’s the least likely scenario at this point.

Kings return to Staples Center for an important divisional game against Phoenix Friday night.

-JS

Seeing a Jason LaBarbera shutout is a lot like sighting the Loch Ness Monster – the spectator is most often left in a dumbfounded state of disbelief about what he has just witnessed. He tries to tell himself it was something else until he eventually, reluctantly, comes to grips with what has taken place.

OK, maybe that analogy is a bit of a reach, but nonetheless LaBarbera did post his second shutout of the season at Staples last night. The Kings put a defensive stranglehold (cue Ted Nugent, somebody) on Columbus and got goals from Wayne Simmonds (wrist shot that Columbus goalie Steve Mason seemingly misplayed), Kyle Calder (a beautiful redirect of a Kyle Quincey point shot), and Anze Kopitar (empty net) to win 3-0.

I was definitely worried with the Kings having blown three consecutive third period leads, up 2-0 going into the third. It’s been several games since LaBarbera has given up one of his regular soft goals and I was quite frankly sitting in my seat waiting for the dam to bust. And it didn’t. Kings limited Columbus’ scoring chances, bailed LaBarbera out a couple of times and physically dominated the Blue Jackets for the entire 60 minutes. It’s one of only a couple games this year, despite their .500 record, that the Kings have put in a full 60 minute effort.

Some thoughts from the game:

Both Doughty and Simmonds were teammates with Steve Mason (who was pretty unimpressive last night if you ask me) on Canada’s World Junior Squad last year. I wonder if Simmonds saw some sort of weakness on shots like that against Mason in practice and used that knowledge to his advantage? Either that or Mason completely misplayed the shot. I couldn’t help thinking tonight how much I would’ve loved to see Jonathan Bernier in goal for the Kings tonight facing Mason. I’m sure Jonathan would love to get his revenge after Craig Hartsburg went anti-Quebec and benched Bernier at the WJC’s last season. Guess we’ll have to wait to see that one, but you can probably guess who I think will be the better goalie in the long run.

The refs let the guys play tonight, lots of calls that could’ve gone both ways that didn’t get whistled, although I also thought a couple of the penalty calls were a bit marginal. Inconsistent officiating is an epidemic in the NHL this season. The league won’t allow criticism of it’s officials from coaches and/or players but someone has to call a spade a spade eventually. This was the closest to a well officiated game I’ve seen all year, and it was far from good.

Patrick O’Sullivan looked to be on a mission. He had more hustle than any King on the ice tonight. I thought if he reproduced his shootout move from last night against Garon, he probably smokes Mason. At any rate it was exciting to see it in person. Brownie had a lot of hustle tonight, like always. He shoots the puck from everywhere. He has to feel snakebitten right now, but eventually those are going to start going in for him. Kopitar still looks a little lost to me. He came close a couple times tonight but he certainly doesn’t look like the dominant offensive player we know he can be. That said he was awesome on the backcheck tonight and he is chipping in on defense effectively this season. The guy who impressed me most away from the puck – Alexander Frolov. His name won’t be on the scoresheet but he was great on the backcheck. I scratch my head a lot about Frolov. He might be the mosty talented player on the team overall and he has a habit of just dissapearing for games at a time. I think this is why Terry Murray has been so hard on him this season – he sees his potential and wants to get the most out of him. It definitely seemed to work tonight as Fro played a very effective and responsible defensive game. Michal Handzus has adapted to his role as a shut down center very well.

Last but certainly not least, I have to give props to Jason LaBarbera, who was the first star of the game tonight. Seeing Jason get a shutout is kind of like seeing Bigfoot. It’s rumored to exist, some people swear it’s real but research can only say “anything is possible”. Jason didn’t have a “dominant” game in the same way that you would say a guy like Luongo or Lundqvist does on his red hot nights. He did his job. His rebound control still scares the heck outta me sometimes. He isn’t a particularly adept puckhandler. Tonight however, he did all the Kings asked of him. He didn’t give up goals early and he was able to protect a lead. His best saves came in the first half of the game I thought. The Kings defense did a great job of limiting Columbus’ scoring chances. I kept waiting for Jason to lay the proverbial egg and it didn’t happen. When Sean O’Donnell turned the puck over in our zone in the third, I though for sure the Jackets were going to score. During his first ten game stretch this season, any mistakes the Kings D made ended up in the net. Tonight LaBarbera saved us an a couple of those occasions, and he also got bailed out by his D a couple times (notably Matt Greene in the second period). I give him credit for making all the saves he had to make tonight. I don’t think it’s accurate to say Jason won the game for us, more accurate would be that he didn’t lose the game for us like he has in other contests this season. That’s all we can ask of him. He probably knows it’s his last season in LA and if he plays well enough, he could earn himself a backup job someplace else. Hopefully that will provide adequate motivation.

A disappointing week of games at least ends on a strong note with three points earned in the last two games. Now, the Kings travel to Colorado on Monday. The Avalanche are in my opinion, the worst team in the West but the Kings can’t seem to beat them. Hopefully that changes on Monday night. Otherwise I’ll be searching for paper bags again.

Oh, did I mention I saw the Loch Ness Monster at Staples last night?

-JS