Kings Are Back Baby!
- Updated: October 29, 2018
The long-lasting nightmare is over, we have wandered through the desert, the drought is over. The LA Kings have won a game. Yes, you read that correctly. The LA Kings won not only an afternoon game but one without Jonathan Quick, whose groin injury has either flared up again or he’s sprung a whole new leak. The miracle of miracles Dustin Brown, as predicted, was back in the lineup and did everything I predicted he would do. You’re welcome Kings fans.
I’d almost forgotten it was an afternoon game, and thankfully so did the Kings. They sprang out of the gate like they knew how to play hockey! It was a little scrappy, but the core was stepping up. Drew Doughty looked like the superstar that he is, creating plays all over the neutral zone to get forwards in the position to score. That 70’s Line had chemistry again, praise the hockey Gods. And Kyle Clifford was looking just as beastly as always as he challenged Cody McLeod to a fist fight center ice, and boy did he win. Beast mode: activated. He sat for 5 and was joined quickly by Trevor Lewis, amongst a mass of confusion. The refs went to Toronto no fewer than three times to determine what had happened; Lewis was attempting to stop Vladislav Namestnikov from crashing the net and scoring a goal, but their momentum actually crashed straight into Campbell who was then unable to stop Namestnikov’s goal. It was deemed no goal on the ice, and Lewis was awarded an interference penalty. After some debate, Lewis came out of the box. Then after some more debate, the goal was deemed a good goal. So LA challenged for goaltender interference but was rejected, and after what seemed like a whole intermission play resumed. Wait were we only 11:11 into this game? The Kings had 8 shots on goal and were down 1-0 to a team that had 3. Oh yeah, this is familiar territory now. Especially when the team seemed to stumble further, unable to pick back up the chemistry. Finally Anze Kopitar and Dustin Brown showed crowds what they’d been missing all season with some sweet moves that while didn’t lead to anything more than a good chance, did seem to get the team back on track. Austin Wagner and Clifford did a similar thing prompting thoughts along the lines of ‘wow the Kings just can’t buy a goal right now,’ as they left the first period down 1-0.
As usual, things got worse before they got better. While Brown started the period with a stunning breakaway, Clifford was caught tripping in the neutral zone (quite the clash) 3:06 in and the penalty kill came out to play. It did fine, but the Rangers carried the momentum, and Namestnikov set up Tony DeAngelo 7:42 in for a shot that Campbell sat on to no avail. He, and we seemed very confused. Even more confusing when the Kings managed to score on a power play 4 minutes later – I know right? Thank McLeod, whose name popped up everywhere on the scoresheet today. But as predicted, our power play guru, Dustin Brown parked himself at the front of the net and picked up Ilya Kovalchuk’s slapshot for the Kings first goal. What felt like 30 seconds later but was actually almost 2 minutes, during too many men on the ice penalty, Kovalchuk picked his own spot that needed no rebound – it sailed straight through about 6 players including Henrik Lundqvist into the back of the net. What’s this? The Kings were tied? And what’s this, a third power play thanks to again, McLeod? Dare we hope for a third in a row? Well, you can hope but you won’t get it. As great as that story would have been that seemed to shock the Rangers out of their stupor, and they killed the penalty pretty cleanly.
As the third began the Kings would have to kill of their own penalty, thanks to Pearson high sticking 48 seconds in. But they only had to kill it for 24 seconds as we settled in for some 4-on-4 fun thanks to some tripping action. The Rangers seemed to be taking back control of the play, leading to some very stressful moments by Campbell, and another Kings penalty didn’t help that stress. Finally; Trevor Lewis. Cleaning up a rebound that had been eluding the Kings all period (Adrian Kempe’s line had plenty of opportunities thanks to his speed), he had the go-ahead goal 10:28 into the third, and all the Kings had to do was hold on for half a period. A scramble by the Rangers net gave them about 5 more chances in one go to secure their lead, but no, the Kings like to make things stressful. Instead, they had Campbell come up big several times, only to fail him by failing to clear the puck, and bam now it’s tied. 4:44 remaining. I mean come on now. As the clock wound down it looked like all the Kings could do was hold onto a tie and plead for overtime, but Alec Martinez has never had a problem besting Lundqvist (hello 2014 flashbacks!) Who needs overtime when Martinez can stroll down the ice and snap a puck past him with 55 seconds remaining? What an exhilarating feeling, actually winning a game. Thank you, Martinez. We needed that.
Stay with us at Calisportsnews.com as we will keep you up-to-date on all things Los Angeles Kings and the rest of the LA sports teams! All Cali, All the time
Related Posts
About Emily Redenbach
