Six In A Row Baby! Kings On the Rise

Playing to a somewhat empty crowd, the Kings still didn’t want to disappoint those who braved leaving their houses to watch. Sure, Colorado was on the second night of a back to back and started their same goalie Francouz but don’t discount that the Kings were riding a 5 game win streak. They opened strong, lots of o-zone time and not allowing Colorado any for almost half the first period. Both teams laid on some big hits, but the Kings again we’re getting the better end of it, their last game being over two days before. The first power play was theirs too, but the Avs had that in hand at least. Still, it was only a matter of time one of the rebounds went in, and it was Wagner, coming around from behind the net and wristing one past a sprawling goalie. I know; I was shocked at it being Wagner too, it was a really slick goal. 1:03 later Francouz was bested again by technically Mickey Anderson, his first NHL goal, but it was redirected in by an Avs defenseman Cannauton. Oof. (Mikey and his brother, Devils forward Joey Anderson, became the sixth set of siblings in NHL history to each have their first career goal stand as a game winner.)

Come the second period it was clear that the black hole that used to be the Kings second period was no longer a thing. They’d found their structure and their chemistry, and solid goaltending (finally.) the goaltending did take a few minutes to kick in, there were several shaky looking saves that left a lot of net open and Quick looking lost. One puck slid so close to being in it was that Jedi magic that must have kept it out, because it wasn’t Quick. But after a pretty impressive Moore breakaway (unfortunately saved by Francouz) Quick seemed to find his legs again. He’d need them for a penalty kill – except not really because the other Kings on the ice were sensational. Kempe has more than his fair share of chances, and impressive ones at that, but the best one he overstated and couldn’t get the shot off, which was particularly disappointing as he had a wide open net to do so. It was all on a Quick when Nichushkin was awarded a penalty shot; he stopped it easily. And then the Kings were handed their biggest helper of the evening – Nathan MacKinnon left the ice with a lower body injury and didn’t return. The Avs best chance at a comeback was probably in his hands, as the Kings were shutting down everyone else on the ice.

It only took 2:19 for the Avs to get back into the game, however, Bellemare wristing his 9th of the season with no King covering him. Uhhh, what are you doing guys? Thankfully after that one (which really was a gorgeous shot, can’t really put that on Quick) Quick was sharp; unfortunately for the Kings so was Francouz. He was making some fantastic saves. In fact for a stretch of about 5 minutes halfway through the second there was more action, turnovers, chances, hits and rushes than in the entire rest of the game combined. It was exciting, until it appeared that the Kings assumed that was it and after that burst kinda stopped playing. There was over 6 minutes left boys, again I had to ask ‘what are you doing?’ They clearly heard me because with 5:25 remaining Iafallo made it 3-1, essentially sealing the game. It was a bizarre sequence – Francouz went way too far out of his crease to make a daring play, Lizotte flew over him leaving Avs defensemen to play goalie for the Kings next shot – then everyone was so confused Iafalllo swept into the action, roofing it over Francouz who was back in his crease. The Avs couldn’t muster a comeback, the Kings couldn’t for the life of them get an empty net goal, so they ended winning 3-1, their 6th game in a row. Next up is Ottawa on Wednesday, who is 2nd to last in the Eastern Conference just FYI.