Freeway Faceoff; Kings Take Game One

https://youtu.be/T0zSwbcfVgs

Quite a lot has happened since the last game. Sure the Kings won but that wasn’t enough to keep the ax from swinging on Coach Stevens, who’s replacement Willie Desjardins had a trial by fire ahead of his – first game behind the bench was the first Freeway Faceoff of the season. It’s difficult to judge a man by one game, and we’ll never know how much of the Kings performance coming out of the gate was a reaction to getting Stevens fired, but they came out swinging. Sure, there wasn’t a shot on goal for over 6 minutes but against the Ducks? I’ll take it. It meant they were actually battling for pucks, effectively taking away shooting lanes, and fighting for a decent shot themselves. An early power play gave them a chance; I joked at the time that it was perhaps too much to ask for a new coach who’s had one practice to fix the Kings power play woes, but then Dustin Brown scored, which perhaps had less to do with coaching and more to do with Dustin Brown, who has remained parked at the front of the net since his return for some impressive results. In 4 games back, he has 5 points. (That’s a realistic pace to keep up right?) Still, a successful power play should be celebrated. Not by a penalty 2 minutes later, thanks, Dion Phaneuf. For a full 92 seconds the Kings could not clear, perhaps hindered by Thompson losing his stick, but the eventual clear would come from his own hands, proving his gusto when four other Kings couldn’t manage to clear or cover in that time.  Campbell did come up with some big saves, while a Luff-Kovalchuk-Doughty rush could have given the Kings am insurance goal – unusual combinations of players were coming to play, and I for one am here for it. Case and point – the sweetest stick handling I’ve seen in a while came from Kyle Clifford, who converted a Lewis and Martinez rush for the Kings second goal, moments after Gibson was visibly in pain stopping a Pearson shot. But don’t be fooled, Gibson wouldn’t have had that goal anyway, not with Clifford’s stick handling abilities. (I’m not being facetious, he really had slick hands on that and was defended by no one.) Of course in true Kings style, this time the penalty following the goal took 49 seconds to take (*rolls eyes*), yet the Kings left the period up 2-0.

More of the same in the second saw the Kings up 3-0 4:54 into the frame; Jack Campbell’s first NHL assist was the play of the game. With a few Ducks caught on the long change, he made a long pass up the ice that almost went for icing, but was caught by Tyler Toffoli on the blue line, passed to a wide-open Kovalchuk who dangled around Gibson for a third of the night. There was a lot of Kings pressure, and it seemed that every King was making up for getting their coach fired. But the Ducks weren’t taking this Kings resurgence into actual NHL standards lightly; they forced a couple of Kings mistakes (including almost a delay of game penalty) and ended up with a goal of their very own. It wasn’t Campbell’s finest moment – he mishandled the puck and missed solidly getting to his teammate, ended up losing his stick and seemed flustered when Kesler shot his fourth goal of the season. But Campbell was solid all night including some high-pressure situations, so I’ll take one glitch. It did give the Ducks more momentum than at least I was comfortable with, surging forward almost easily (remember when the Kings couldn’t close out a period? Yeah…) They were very fortunate to keep their two-goal lead as they headed into the third.

Easily the highlight of the third period was Jake Muzzin almost killing a guy. Not literally, but he did fly up in the air and land hard, to rapturous applause. (I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with Muzzin, but if the rumors of his trade turn out to be true, I’ll miss that at least.) It was an even period otherwise, with the next goal being a huge break. Campbell was remaining solid, but there were enough chances of the Ducks making it 3-2 for some of us to get a bit nervous. Especially when Forbert was called for tripping (a weak call at best, the wrong call for sure, considering Rakell was already on his way down before Forbert got to him) 12:20 in. The Kings were solid on defense as is there identity, and wow were we glad to see that come back in force. 3 minutes remaining Martinez kept them in it by stopping a huge breakaway, capped off with a Toffoli empty-net goal with 2:06 remaining. Sure, the Ducks aren’t the greatest team in the world, and it was one game. But it appears that the Kings responded to Desjardins positively; his take on the lines and special teams worked well, and leadership stepped up. It was an important game to get right, and the Kings did.