Flame On? Kings Flame Out

While we were busy being distracted by how low the Kings could sink in the standings, the Flames were making their way up top of the Pacific Division, outranked only by the Canucks. Yeah, those Canucks. So the matchup was bound to be lopsided. The first period was proof. It took the Kings over eleven and a half minutes to log their second shot on goal. Their first came after four Flames shots, five minutes and one Flames goal, 2:27 in. The goal itself was obvious. Hamonic was so open he could have been on the ice by himself; he tapped for the puck and wristed it past a Doughty screened Campbell. If that wasn’t an indication of how disjointed the Kings were… They spent no time in their offensive zone, we’re getting schooled in the neutral zone and appeared to be skating around in circles in their defensive zone. One shift lasted over 90 seconds and literally didn’t leave their zone. 9:18 in they got a power play and somehow were outshot 3-0. It was shaping up to be a depressing evening when something started to turn. Dustin Brown‘s attempt – a breakaway he just couldn’t dangle around Rittich – seemed to spur the rest of the team into action. In the second half of the first, they managed to not only catch up in shots but gain on the Flames. The puck actually came their way out of the neutral zone, and they were generating chances. Kovalchuk and Toffoli, in particular, found some gaps in the Flames defense to exploit and kept the play going even after their attempts were rebuffed. The score didn’t change, still 1-0 as the period closed, but considering as it opened I predicted it’d be 3-0, things didn’t seem so bad.

Then the second period happened. To be fair they didn’t let the Flames score again. But neither did the Kings; in fact, they only managed 4 shots on goal. The. Entire. Period. FOUR. SHOTS. ON. GOAL. After 7:30 they hadn’t even notched one of those, despite some more impressive Kopitar stickhandling around no fewer than three Flames, and a Kovalchuk/Toffoli breakaway. Meanwhile, the Flames had 14 shots to their name, none as intense as the first but the discrepancy was still noticeable. Come the third period, things weren’t getting any better. They did cut their time for the first shot in half, to around 4 minutes. Hathaway took some pokes at Carter, at which point Muzzin got him in a choke hold from behind; the third was incredibly scrappy after each whistle blew. Clifford was the only one who was actually called for roughing, a call that didn’t seem entirely fair considering how many other players were in on it. The Kings had two consecutive power plays they did nothing on – unsurprising once I heard Desjardins post-game presser: “That’s an area that we’re going to have to look at adjusting,” he said. “We haven’t touched it yet.” Ah. That makes so much sense now. There was no offense to be found; pulling Campbell with a minute remaining went about as you thought it would. While it is still early, the Kings can’t afford too much more of this.