Bye Bye Vegas, Bye Bye Kings Season

Playing Vegas for the final game of the season would either be the best way to go out or the worst in arguably the worst Kings season this decade. So I was displeased to see them spend no time in the offensive zone in the first 4 minutes. Quick was looking sharp (for once) so it wasn’t awful, but it was definitely lopsided. Entertaining so were the hits – lots of big-bodied Kings taking out the Knights. We had a new player in the lineup, Lizotte, who showed definite promise for next season. He’s fast, he’s gritty and determined, and he doesn’t give up on plays. Considering how lopsided the shots were (7-3 Vegas) seeing Kovalchuk draw blood first was that much more satisfying. Not actual blood, a goal, unassisted, in which he deked and weaved his way around several Knights to school Fleury and give the Kings the lead 12:14 in. They followed up with some more Kyle Clifford magic (have I raved about him lately?) cleaned up by several rebound attempts from Carter to surge to a 2-0 lead and 12 unanswered shots. From 8:48 onwards Vegas did not get a look at Quick. Even when the Kings took a penalty immediately following Carter’s goal (facepalm) Vegas was stymied by them. With a power play to end the period, everything was coming up Kings. Which is why I expected them to do something really stupid once the second started.

It took a little longer than I’d expected to screw it up, but they did. For the first 10 minutes, they didn’t even have a shot on goal. The pendulum swung solely to Vegas and the Kings weren’t getting anywhere. They were letting dangerous shots go through and a 2 goal lead was looking less and less convincing. Enter Roy, who sniped the King’s third goal a little over halfway through the period, though given the way the period was played that score didn’t make sense. 16 seconds later Pirri scored, which seemed to fit more. No defense to be seen. A couple of minutes later it was 2-3, defense taking an early vacation once more. Seriously Kings. Defense. Look it up. Don’t leave guys wide open. Also when you have a wide open net yourself to rebound into (Lewis I’m looking at you) don’t shoot it into the post. 4-2 is much less nerve-wracking and we could have used that. Particularly when the Kings ended the period on a penalty kill after doing their darndest to let Vegas score again. Killing me here, killing me.

5 minutes into the third the only thing that could be said about the Kings was that they could hit. They really didn’t much else going for them, and considering scoring 3 goals in a game is basically a miracle for this team anyways, blowing that lead was just going to be depressing. Enter an unlikely candidate: the Kings power play. And an even unlikelier candidate to score it, considering he hadn’t scored on the power play ALL SEASON, Kopitar. Yeah, just like Doughty hadn’t scored an even-strength goal until he had an empty netter a few games ago, Kopitar had yet to score on the special teams until a mad scramble in front of Fleury got him on the board. Vegas challenged for goalie interference to no avail, so the Kings regained a more solid lead. (They’d been doing their best to screw that up prior to the power play, so it was a huge relief.) And it stayed that way until Vegas pulled Fleury, whereupon Kovalchuk bookended the game with an empty net goal Dustin Brown was celebrating even before he’d shot it. It was a high note to end the season on. But the fact that the season is ending far too early is still a disappointment they’ll carry with them this summer. Until October Kings fans…