At Least Lose For Hughes wasn’t Snooze for Hughes

Wanna feel really bad about your team? The Florida Panthers have 5 20 goal scorers. Guess how many the Kings have? If you guessed none you would be correct. Kopitar sits on 19, Brown on 17 and Kovalchuk, who was a healthy scratch today, has 14. Desjardins went with 11-7 today, a somewhat odd move but at this point, I’m all for the strategy of playing as many rookies as possible to give them experience when it really doesn’t matter. He also scratched Brodzinski and didn’t play Campbell so clearly Desjardins doesn’t share my strategy.

As usual, it took a while for the King’s to wake up this afternoon. It took almost 7 minutes to get a shot on goal and by then Florida had a successful power play. Unsurprising, considering a) the Panthers have the second most successful power play in the league and b) they have 4 players with 30 plus points on the power play. So less than three minutes in the Kings were called upon to defend that and less than five minutes in they’d failed. The crowd barely reacted – either they hadn’t woken up yet either, they were already drunk on green St Patrick’s Day beer, or they were just so used to the Kings this season they were numb. So when another couple of minutes passed and the King’s actually got a shot off, neither the crowd or the Panthers were prepared for it; Florida took a penalty and would you look at that – Dustin Brown scored on it. Anne Kopitar and Drew Doughty would get an assist but it was Brown who stripped Florida of the puck while everyone else had expected a clear, this leaving him unguarded in front of Montenbeault. He went forehand-backhand in a stunning display of dexterity and found the back of the net. It seemed to wake the Kings up; Quick was making some good saves, they were getting some offense, and even managed to draw a penalty instead of taking one during some quite dangerous play where Quick was extended out too far and defense had to be on their toes. The resulting power play wasn’t that impressive; neither was Doughty’s delay of game as the period came to a close (cue eye roll). They kept it together for the last three minutes though, remaining tied at the end of the first.

All that energy seemed to dissipate during the intermission because the second was slow to start too. It took MacDermid and Josh Brown throwing the glove 2:25 in to breathe some life into it. The puck dropped, then so did the gloves; MacDermid got the better of it after about 30 seconds and seemed quite pleased with himself. It wasn’t the only physical part of the game – by the end of the second, the Kings were outhitting Florida 24-9. They needed it because they weren’t really getting the shots. Only 9 on goal in each of the first two periods while the Panthers surged slightly more with 16 in the second, and 4:04 one went in. If I can notice how often Quick goes down for the save early leaving the top of the net wide open, and their opponents do consistently, surely the Kings could to and learn to pick up the undefended man waiting to score that way? Apparently not. The Panthers took the period away after that, with lots of action by Quick and sparse moments down the other end. Even when Kopitar got a breakaway he didn’t do anything with it – he’s been skating slow as molasses lately. With the rookies at least they appear to be trying; they might not have the finish yet but they’re making plays not sitting back on their heels. Brown is now 1 goal behind him and had played in 10 fewer games. Meanwhile, Phaneuf appeared to be stepping up, with some nice shots himself and consistently dogging defense. Clifford stood out too, but this season that isn’t surprising. He’s been quite the stable influence on the ice. Another penalty with 6:44 left slowed whatever momentum the Kings had gotten, and a further amateur hour ‘too many men’ with 1:01 left was simply unnecessary.

Weirdly enough the “strategy” actually paid off, because the Kings scored when Leipsic came out of the box at the beginning of the period. It was Jeff Carter’s 700th career point, congratulations, and he earned it. There was some confusion by the net after his initial shot, position of the puck and players made it difficult to tell what was happening until Leipsic batted it into the back of the net. What great timing to tie the game up! It gave the Kings momentum instead of having them dragging their skates, down once again in the third. That momentum ended up leading to another goal, this time from Kopitar who earned his 20th goal of the season – finally! A 20 goal scorer on the team! Brown was the assist, another incredible display of sportsmanship, that saw him outplay at least three Panthers on his way down the ice and snap off an impeccable pass to Kopitar. It didn’t last long, or at least long enough. As I was hoping the Kings could get an insurance goal, the opposite happened. With 6:12 remaining, the game was tied again. To make matters worse, the Panthers kept their momentum going and managed to convert their chances into their go-ahead goal with 1:54 remaining. Not the best timing there Kings! The goal itself was unclear, so Toronto automatically reviewed if it actually fully crossed the goal line (it was underneath Quick’s skate as he lay sprawled on the ice, again). The deemed it a good goal, but the Kings decided there was nothing to lose in challenging for goaltender interference. It didn’t do any good but at least they tried. Only 11 more games before we know if this whole Lose for Hughes thing was worth it.