Flames Set Kings on Fire: This is Not Fine

I dislike losing to the Flames, and it has a lot to do with Tkchuck. He didn’t even play this game, but losing to them still stung. I shouldn’t have been surprised – the Flames clinched the division last night when the Sharks lost 8 of their last 9. And the Kings are… well you’ve been following along. But they shut them out 3-0 last time so I had hope. Hope that was dashed less than a minute in with the style that was clearly dominating the game and officially 2:07 in with the first Flames goal. Not the way you want to start Anze Kopitar’s 1000th game. (Welcome to the Club Kopi!) At 6:34 the Kings had a penalty that could have evened it out if their power play was any good, but that wasn’t in the cards this evening. It wasn’t an awful power play, it just wasn’t very good. Kovalchuk proved why Desjardins has been keeping him out of the lineup when he missed an easy as pie setup from Walker and Amadio, but he made up for it a play later when a Clifford came off the bench, made himself available on the far side of the ice, picked up Kovalchuk’s pass and snapped in the Kings first goal. His 10th of the season is a record high for Clifford, who has been consistently good this season. Of course literally 30 seconds later the Kings gave up another goal, an easily saved goal IMO. Literally 30 seconds. You’re killing me here. Brown to the rescue – who was honored at the beginning of the game for his record-breaking 1112th game with the franchise (tonight was his 1113th.) It wouldn’t count as a power play goal, as Jankowski’s tripping of Amadio had technically expired 30 seconds earlier but the play hadn’t left the zone and Brown was parked in his usual power play spot, ready for the cross net pass and had a wrister ready. 40 seconds before the end of the period – what a way to go out! (I should note – assists to Doughty and Kopitar. Nice to see the big boys stepping up.)

The Kings started the second period with a power play 3:15 in that spend more time in their zone than it did by the Flames. Ah, remember when the Kings at least stood a chance of scoring on the power play? 6:46 in however it was 3-2 Flames: so much for the chance to get back into this game. The Flames had 3 goals in 13 shots (and that was quite a few shifts after the goal.) It wasn’t even that the Flames were all over them either – they only had 5 shots in the entire period, to the Kings 11. And stats wise, score aside, the game was relatively even. Face-offs were 53.6-46.4 Calgary, hits were even at 15 apiece, blocks even at 12 apiece, and the Kings had 6 giveaways, slightly better than the Flames 8. But after MacDermid hit Bennett so hard they both left the game, things changed. The third tilted all the way to the Flames and the Kings never recovered. Suddenly they were the ones with only 5 shots to the Flames 15. And suddenly, 13 seconds in, the score was 4-2. Neal with a wrister. 2:33 in Ryan made it 5-2. It wasn’t all on Quick because his defense was atrocious in front of him, especially the Ryan goal (Jankowski should never have been able to make that cross-ice pass.)

But Quick’s save percentage in 45 games this season is .887. He’s been pulled in 2 of his last 3 games and hasn’t given up less than two since January 6th. This is the same Jonathan Quick who went .915, .918, .918, .917 and .925 and won two Jennings Trophy’s in the past 5 seasons. Were his injuries at the beginning of this season that big of a game changer for Quick? Or has he simply reached his prime and is now on the downswing of that curve? Maybe a little of both? Either way by 8:30 of the third the Kings were down 6-2 and a mere 15 seconds later they were down 7-2. Jonathan Quick was down the tunnel and Campbell stopped the bleeding. But the damage had been done. (Honestly, it had been done 13 seconds into the period. The extra few goals were just unnecessary pain.)

Doughty said in his post game interview “I wish we played all four games in a row, to be honest, I just want to get this over with.” So say we all.