Doughty bobblehead brings joy to Kings Canucks game

The Kings came out of the gate with gusto. Tyler Toffoli almost scored on a breakaway. Anze Kopitar looked like a playmaker that wants a really good new contract! Tanner Pearson was making his case for heading back up to That 70’s Line. Jeff Carter (who we discovered earlier in the day would wear that ‘A’ on his jersey most likely for the whole season, as Matt Greene now needs surgery and is out indefinitely) had some nice looks on net, but Canucks backup goalie Jacob Markstrom was pulling Jedi mind tricks on everyone, using the force (and some Quick in his prime type moves) to keep the Kings scoreless in the first period.

Alas, the same could not be said for the Kings, who allowed the Sedin twins to score on an early power play (Lucic for high sticking at 7:39), beating Jonathan Quick blocker side. (A slightly disturbing stat for a team who prides themselves on defense, the Kings have allowed power play goals in 6 of the last 7 games.) The score wasn’t reflective of play – the Kings were outshooting the Canucks 12-6 and actually winning face-offs! Marian Gaborik found himself on the wrong side of an offensive zone penalty with 14 seconds left in the period, but shouldn’t have incurred too much of Darryl Sutter’s wrath as a scuffle at the end of the period saw Canuck Alexandre Burrows in the box for the first two minutes of the second period.

The Kings had to kill another penalty 5:36 in, when Jake Muzzin tripped a guy right in front of Quick and in front of the ref. Dustin Brown didn’t get a breakaway per say, as he didn’t get to the point of getting the shot off, but he did a nice job of toying with the Canucks, taking the puck all the way into their zone, passed it back to another King in our zone who then cleared it back to the Canucks. Muzzin had a sweet breakaway as he came out of the box, but couldn’t complete the play. That, and a Canucks penalty 11:29 in gave the Kings a little momentum, and also saw Sutter changing up his power play units to include Trevor Lewis and Nick Shore (not the usual suspects.) Any momentum was curbed by Jordan Nolan taking another penalty 16:19 in, especially when he couldn’t do anything when he came out of the box and had a direct line to the puck. He seemed to make up for it in the third period when he practically killed a Canuck early in, the boards rattling the whole of Staples Center.

The third period was ridiculously stacked towards the Kings. I mean 15 shots on goal to 1 Canuck shot. They had a nice cycle going in the Canucks zone for a good few minutes, managing to switch out lines two or three times before the Canucks could get control back. A power play 5:23 in almost assured some pressure, except the Kings couldn’t seem to stop passing to Canucks players. Until Nick Shore, who’d been battling along the boards to get the puck out, passed to Drew Doughty, who slammed the puck past a Shore screened Canucks goalie. Tied game people! Drew Doughty scores on Drew Doughty bobblehead night! Oh yes, fans in attendance received a beautiful if not slightly odd Doughty Bobblehead. (He has too many teeth.) The Kings had two more chances on the power play to finish the game in regulation – 15 shots to the Canucks 1! – but couldn’t do it. (We have this tendency to make other goaltenders look reeeeeeally good.)

So into OT we go! Because of the 34 seconds the Kings had of residual power play, OT was 4 on 3, then back to 4 on 4 for almost 2 minutes. I must say 3 on 3 is much more interesting. It took Jeff Carter and Anze Kopitar less than a minute of 3 on 3 to score the game winning goal! Yes the Kings win! Carter made an absolutely sick cross ice pass to an open Kopitar that mean Markstrom couldn’t get back to position in time and there’s not many times Kopi would miss that shot. He didn’t. It was beautiful.