Kings Blues Continue

I know at this point the standing is such that for the Kings, it’s like Who’s Line Is It Anyway – the game where everything is made up and the points don’t matter. But it’d still be nice to see the Kings put up some kind of showing. For more than five minutes. Because the first five minutes were pretty good. Lots of offensive zone time. Brown and Toffoli looked impressive together, they had energy and some pretty decent shots. Then Quick had to get limber, facing shots from too many directions making him look very athletic. He was looking good, but none of the other Kings were. Their passes were sloppier than usual. For a good 90 seconds they had possession of the puck, but couldn’t – wouldn’t? – move it out of their zone. There wasn’t even Blues pressure, they just didn’t move the puck up any. It was baffling. And it gave the Blues time to get their bearings and into their groove. Once they settled in Quick got busier and Allen got to chill for the most part. As usual Brown and a few others – Martinez, Lewis, Leipsic – showed effort, but the rest of the team appeared lackadaisical.

Case and point? The second period. For the fourth time in six games, the Kings let in a goal in the first 65 seconds of a period. And it deflated whatever air the King’s might have had for the period. Let’s face it – the second period has never been their strong suit. But this was woeful even for them. They had 3 shots on goal through 12 minutes. They took a penalty immediately following the Taraskenko goal. Toffoli had a shorthanded breakaway but couldn’t get a shot off. The Blues looked like they were on the power play even when they weren’t. Perhaps the worst grievance, however, was when Toffoli wrangled the puck away from their defensive zone to Leipsic in the neutral zone where he *should* have had the most uncontested breakaway of all time. Instead, the ref blew it dead; it was later reviewed onside. Now had Leipsic been more prepared for the pass he probably could have gotten it clearly in the neutral zone but the ref had a responsibility to let it play through and maybe have to call it back. Instead, we’ll never know and the Blues took the game away. Trust us, refs – the Kings are perfectly capable of screwing themselves over – maybe call come of the blatant trips on Lewis or Brown too! Speaking of, the Kings looked more like a slapstick routine than a hockey team. They were literally falling over themselves, fighting each other for the puck, missing passes, skating in circles, completely unable to finish any plays by the net… and just when we were praising Quick for bailing them out spectacularly over and over again, one slipped underneath him with 1:18 to go in the period. You’d think that’d be enough, right? Nope. Kings letting the Blues waltz into their zone unchecked let to a third goal with literally 1.1 seconds remaining. Not the way to close out a period.

The third wasn’t as bad but it sure didn’t bring a comeback. 3:04 in they had their first power play; not one for the record books. Then a fourth Blues goal 8:13 sealed what was already the deal. An unfortunate turnover, some sloppy defense, a vulnerable Quick leaning to one side while the Blues passed it across the blue paint and past him on the other side. Phaneuf made things semi-exciting when he leaped and checked two Blues Barbashev and MacEacheron, who came back at him together leading to an almost fight – come on refs let ‘em fight! Instead, the Kings ended up with a power play with all three of them in the box, which Carter cut short by 16 seconds when he took a penalty of his own. I mean at this point clearly the team is thinking ‘whatever we’ve already lost and this season is over’ but from the leadership, I expect better. The season is over because they haven’t been stepping up and the rookies haven’t really been given a chance (Luff had 1:36 total time on ice in the second) and I just miss watching a team who never gave up. Maybe they still didn’t win but at least you knew they were trying.