The Throne Room

The Kings' congratulate Jon Quick after he stopped Minnesota's Antti Miettinen to preserve a 3-2 shootout win. (Photo - AP)

The Comeback Kids. 8 games into the 2010-11 season, it’s already an appropriate nickname for this Kings’ team – and tonight, as much as ever. The Kings dug themselves a hole early as Minnesota scored twice in the first 10 minutes of the game. But the Kings battled back, remained composed, and got a power play goal late in the period, to cut the Wild’s lead in half.

The second period contained some controversy as well. Dustin Brown made a hit in open ice on the Wild’s Antti Miettinen that the on ice officials ruled a dangerous hit to the head. Brown was assessed a five minute major and an automatic game misconduct. Having seen the hit on replay, Brown appeared to make shoulder to shoulder contact with Miettinen. It was stated by Versus’ TV analysts Keith Jones and Eddie Olczyk and reiterated by Brown in his postgame interview with Rich Hammond – Brown is a tenacious hitter and had he hit Miettinen in the head, he probably would’ve left the ice on a stretcher. The play will be reviewed automatically by the league, and Brown should be safe from suspension, although as inconsistent as the league has been this year (i.e. not reviewing the Erik Cole hit on Doughty), you never know.

Already without Drew Doughty – who was placed on IR retroactive to 10/21 earlier today (more on that later), and without Captain Brown the rest of the game, the Kings dictated much of the remaining tempo of the game. They kept the Wild’s league leading power play off the board tonight, and scored 2 power play goals of their own, including an Anze Kopitar 5 on 3 goal that knotted the game with under a minute remaining in the second period.

The third period and OT went scoreless. The shootout round offered up what we’ve come to expect from Anze Kopitar. Kopi is just plain slick when it comes to the shootout, and tonight was no exception – he coasted in and went forehand-backhand and beat Wild goalie Niklas Backstrom between the pads. As usual, he made it look effortless. Minnesota’s Mikko Koivu evened the shootout at one with a hard backhand that went off the cuff of Quick’s glove and in. Jack Johnson was stopped by Backstrom and Minnesota’s Matt Cullen beat Quick low stick side to give the Wild a 2-1 edge after two rounds. The Kings’ Jaret Stoll responded with a bullet that beat Backstrom, followed by a glove stop by Quick on Marek Zidlicky to take the shootout into sudden death frames. Justin Williams was stopped by Backstrom and Brent Burns shot wide to bring on a 5th round. Michal Handzus caught Backstrom committed to the pokecheck and buried it past him to give the Kings’ the lead, then Jon Quick made a great left pad save on Miettinen to clinch the win. Comeback complete.

The victory put the Kings alone atop the Pacific Division and sent Quick’s record in road shootout games to 8-1 all time.

So, the Kings head to Chicago for a Wednesday game between two of the West’s premiere teams. Kings had hoped to get Doughty back, but with his being placed on IR today, the earliest he might be available is Thursday in Dallas if he can be cleared in time. My suspicion is that Doughty will return Saturday at home against New Jersey.

In the meantime, Jake Muzzin has been recalled and will join the Kings in Chicago.

Expect to see Quick in Chicago and Bernier in Dallas this week, unless Murray decides Dallas is more important as a division foe.

6-2 and alone in the first looks good, even if it’s early.

Go Kings!

JS

The Kings picked up a big two points Tuesday night in Minnesota to stay 4 points back of 8th place Dallas in the Western Conference playoff race. The only disappointment if any was that it took a shootout to decide the game, giving the Wild an extra point in the process. Every cloud does have a silver lining though – Minnesota’s point gained keeps Anaheim on the outside.

The Wild opened the scoring in the 2nd period on a rare defensive mistake by Drew Doughty. Doughty looked to chip the puck off the halfwall into the Minnesota zone and Mikko Koivu was opportunistic, stealing possession of the puck and passing it to fellow Finn Anti Miettinen who patiently waited for Jon Quick to slide by and tucked it into the net. It was the 7th shorthanded goal the Kings have allowed this season.

The Kings tied the game at 1 just about 10 minutes later on a strange goal that Minnesota defenseman Kim Jonsson poked past goaltender Nicklas Backstrom. Jack Johnson, the last King to touch the puck, got credit for the tying goal.

The 3rd period and OT had both Quick and Backstrom making a handful of dandy saves to carry the game into a shootout, with Backstrom’s biggest stop of the game coming on a breakaway by Patrick O’ Sullivan who received a beautiful feed from Anze Kopitar in the overtime period.

In the shootout, Minnesota elected to shoot last. Anze Kopitar was denied by Backstrom and the Wild’s Marek Zidlicky hit the goal post in the opening frame. Jack Johnson beat Backstrom on a move identical to the one in which he beat the Islanders’ Yann Danis just a couple weeks ago. Mikko Koivu shot over the net and the Kings would have two chances to clinch – the first of which failed when Patrick O’Sullivan couldn’t corral a bouncing puck and was forced to shoot into the right pas of Backstrom, and the second of which failed when Anti Miettinen beat Quick between the legs to even the shootout.

Drew Doughty, atoning for the defensive mistake that led to the first goal, put Minnesota on the brink of elimination again by scoring for the Kings on a play in which he lost control of the puck but it managed to slide between the pads of Backstrom. Jon Quick stopped Brent Burns to seal the victory for the Kings.

Quick in my estimation was very solid tonight. He made a number of saves late in the third period to prevent Minnesota from tallying to win the game. He appeared composed and didn’t seem to allow his shaky performance against Phoenix to impact him at all. Neither team had a ton of scoring chances but Backstrom is always tough to beat – after all it took a fluke goal to put the Kings in a position to win tonight.

Minnesota’s Cal Clutterbuck was somehow the second star of the game, although I’m really not sure what for. Clutterbuck is a diver reminiscent of former Olympian Greg Louganis. For a guy that’s leading the NHL in hits, he sure goes down easily.

Kings are 3-0 this season against Minnesota. They wrap up their season series at Staples Center on March 7th.

Kings are in Philadelphia tomorrow afternoon. Smart money would be on Ersberg to be in net for the second of back-to-backs, but Quick’s solid play tonight, as well as his stellar game against the Flyers at home back in January, might prompt Terry Murray to give him the reins again.

-JS

The Kings played a great game against one of the NHL’s stingiest defensive clubs tonight and emerged with a 5-2 victory over the Minnesota Wild. The game marks the biggest offensive outburst from the Kings since a 6-2 win over St. Louis back on the 11th of December.

The Kings got goals from Kyle Calder, Anze Kopitar, Derek Armstrong, Dustin Brown and Patrick O’Sullivan. Minnesota got goals from Owen Nolan and Marek Zidlicky, both on the power play and both on marginal at best penalty calls. Fortunately on this night the Kings played well enough to overcome the unsatisfactory officiating job.

Jon Quick stopped 25 of 27 shots. I would expect to see him in goal in Colorado tomorrow night, but given the Kings’ goaltenders’ record this season in back-to-backs, it might be worth Terry Murray’s time to consider giving Jonathan Bernier a start. That’s not an indictment of Quick, who I thought was outstanding tonight; merely a reflection on the number of times a Kings goalie has given a subpar performance and/or been pulled in the second half of back-to-backs. It would also be cool to at least get a look at Bernier vs. NHL competition. I have a theory, unpopular as it may be, that Bernier’s below average AHL stats may be more a result of boredom than anything else. This is just one goalie’s opinion anyway, I don’t have anything statistical or otherwise to back it up besides a hunch.

Now the Kings move on to Denver to face the Avalanche, against whom they are 0-2-1 this season. Let’s hope some of the momentum from tonight’s game carries into tomorrow night.

-JS

Minnesota is known, under coach Jacques Lemaire as a defense-first type of team. They are traditionally near the top of the league in goals against average (as is the case this season at 2.21 despite giving up 30.5 shots per game on average). They play a trapping style designed to limit the opposing offense’s chances, and if you get past that they’re backstopped by a stellar 30 year old Finn in Niklas Backstrom.

The Wild came into Los Angeles losers of three straight games and struggling to find their opponents’ net. The Kings and goaltender Erik Ersberg made sure that didn’t change before Minnesota left town. The Kings managed 43 shots against Minnesota’s stalwart defense and Ersberg stopped 33 of 34 shots in the Kings’ 3-1 victory over Minnesota.

Ersberg was the first star of the game. He looked completely in control of the game from opening faceoff to final buzzer. He shut out the Wild until Brent Burns power play goal with under two minutes remaining in the game. The Wild power play was a result of a 2 minute roughing minor assessed to Peter Harrold, who had jumped in to defend his teammate Patrick O’ Sullivan who had been hit from behind by Minnesota rookie Cal Clutterbuck. The power play was gift wrapped for the Wild when the officials chose to send Harrold to the box for roughing but NOT Clutterbuck for the hit from behind. Upon watching the hit on television (thank you DVR) it didn’t look quite as serious as it did in person, however it WAS a hit from behind and therefore Clutterbuck should’ve been assessed at least a two minute penalty for the hit. Instead the Wild scored on the ensuing power play and Ersberg was robbed of a shutout.

The Kings were in control the majority of the game. Leading 1-0 after two periods on Anze Kopitar’s power play goal (how good is it to see Kopi looking like his old self?) in the first, the Kings D did an outstanding job beating Minnesota at their own game, and each time the Wild got to the net Ersberg was there to calmly shut the door. Michal Handzus scored a power play goal in the third period and Alexander Frolov added an empty net goal to round out the scoring for LA.

Let’s hope the Kings are able to carry this momentum into their next couple of games. League leading San Jose comes to town on Monday, followed by the Atlantic Division leading New York Rangers on Wednesday. The last time the Sharks were in town was the home opener at Staples back in October, which the Sharks won 1-0. It’ll be interesting to see how the Kings hold up at home now against the NHL’s elite.

Kings and Sharks face off at Staples Monday night.

-JS