Fleury tighter than Quick; Kings Fall 5-2

It’d be hard to find a team who’ve become more hated in such a short space of time than the Vegas Golden Knights. It’s almost hard to believe they’re only in their third season. (I mean it really feels like we’ve been suffering through them much longer than that.) Thank God we only had to suffer through 60 minutes tonight; much more and there would have been some Vegas fans suffering from my heels drawing blood. But I digress. There was some hockey played this evening, Quick vs. Fleury in net, and I think you can tell by now who I thought would get the better of that exchange. Fleury was annoyingly good from the get-go; Vegas took a penalty 36 seconds in and while the Kings looked good, he was better. A nearly 5 minute back and forth before the next whistle was called saw a lot of good goaltending at both ends, but a lot of rebounds no one capitalized on. Of cruise, it was the Kings who gave up the first goal 5:42 with a shot tipped into an angle Quick wasn’t prepared for. When Dustin Brown was called for holding the stick (which he did but not before he was interfered with himself – guess who got called and who didn’t?) the Kings gave up their second goal of the evening, and we weren’t even 7 minutes in. But 50 seconds later Wagner with speed created his own chance and wristed one top shelf past Fleury. I guess I’m still adjusting to the high scoring league, but I had come to expect after 2 goals the Kings aren’t coming back from that. Thankfully their mentality and scoring chances are turning the corner. They’re fast now too – much faster than before and it caused Vegas to take penalties in efforts to try and keep up. The King’s first unit of Doughty, Kempe, Brown, Iafallo, and Kopitar generates some stunning chemistry and plenty of chances, only thwarted by the equally stunning play of Fleury. But as Quick settled in and the shot count escalated with no adjustment to the score, things turned feisty after the whistle and we had a glimpse that the rivalry on the ice is just as intense as it is off.

Honestly, most of the second period was boring. But by the end, I was wishing it’d stayed that way. The wheels began to fall off when Carter took a penalty for interference, by checking Jon Merrill into Fleury at 13:29. At the time I found the visual funny.  Then Stastny scored his first of the period, the second point of the game, on the resulting power play, and the fun wore off quickly. Joakin Ryan took his penalty a few minutes later and the King’s paid for not clearing by giving up a second Stastny goal, earning groans and sighs at the 4-1 score and the 3-3 penalty kill. Iafallo tried to pick it up a little with the only impressive King’s play of the period, but despite some fairly decent saves, there just wasn’t enough defense for the lack of offense the King’s were generating. When they finally did get some offense in the third period it of course came from the Brown-Kopitar-Iafallo line, who have been generating consistent chances and have I mentioned their passing chemistry? Because it’s amazing. Iafallo got buried behind the net but managed to get the puck out to Kopitar, who I thought should have shot it but instead passed across Fleury to Brown who knew exactly where to shoot it. I reveled in this beauty for 17 seconds. 17 whole seconds before another Paccioretty goal from Stastny, who was part of 4 of the Knights 5 goals. Amadio looked good for a hot second but got nothing to show for it, and even when the Kings had a power play it was nothing short of embarrassing. Brown continued trying until the end but it was safe to say this game was over in the second and the third was just for the records to show they played a whole game. It’s been a very hit or miss season so far, but the Kings have given up 6 goals, then 3, 8, 4 and now 5. While the league is higher scoring, they need to tighten up their defense considerably if they’re going to have more hits than misses.