Hope Is Dangerous, Kings Fans

Oh, Kings. Why do you do this to us? It’s all so predictable, and not in a good way. In a four-point game, the Kings needed to win in order to attempt a playoff push (I for one don’t believe they can but I do believe in playing with dignity) they couldn’t afford to give up points to a divisional rival. So, of course, the game went to an unnecessary shootout.

Six minutes in the Kings had 6 shots to 1, but to say they were dominating wouldn’t be accurate. They looked sloppy and harmless, producing no Grade-A chances and relying on the Canucks goalie to give up equally as sloppy rebounds. Predictably, after having most of the shots however the Kings took a penalty and gave up the first goal. In Trevor Lewis’s defense, it was an incredibly weak penalty. And not the only weak penalty called during the game. So I’m not going to put that goal on him – I’m going to put it on the Kings inability to clear and allow too many passes that put them out of position. To the Kings credit, it only took 8 seconds to tie the game up. They won the resulting center ice face-off and got the puck to Wagner, who made some nifty moves around their defense and snapped off a shot beating Markstrom glove side. Sweet! He has four goals in four games. Even sweeter! Tied game. And a Kings power play, early into the second, that should bring good things, right? Oh, no, no their power play is still terrible. They even had almost 30 seconds of the delayed penalty and couldn’t even get a shot off. I would have given them anything if they could just connect on a pass. Not just on the power play – at all.

Halfway through the second, Quick did that thing I hate where he nibbles too early, goes down, and with no defense on the shooter to help, has the puck sail over his head. I’ve seen it more times than I care to count this season, and it’s beginning to annoy. They did again tie it up quickly, reacting with tenacity instead of collapsing – that’s something they’ve worked on throughout the season at least. Clifford had a nice backhanded move that Amadio cleaned up the rebound on. A few more penalties rounded out the second period – each were as weak as Lewis’s. It was the same story too; Kings had an okay penalty kill and an abysmal power play. Clifford continues to mature with the game, however, as he didn’t nip at a Canuck who threw his helmet off, instead skating away from a meaningless fight. The Kings ended on a power play …

… that was as weak as you’d expect. They did score the go-ahead goal early in but it was called off on the ice. For good reason, Haeglin was standing in the blue paint behind Markstrom. On the next shift however, Martinez snipped a slapshot from the point that did count, bring the Kings into the lead for the first time all game. They followed up with two big Kovalchuk hits in the same stride practically, giving me (false) hope they might actually pull out 60 whole minutes of play. Walker left the game about 6 minutes early when he took a puck to the face and bled all over the ice. And then with four/five minutes to go, the Kings abruptly stopped playing. They went back on the heels, lazily anticipating the win, instead of aggressively trying for an insurance goal. Even if they didn’t get it, I would have liked to see anything other than the lackadaisical mess they were. Because sure enough, as I predicted, as soon as they pulled Markstrom they scored the tying goal and took the game to overtime.

My only note on overtime – if the Kings had spent any time in front of the net instead of most of the time behind it they would have had a better chance of actually scoring. It would take a shootout to lose. Kovalchuk had a sick shot from almost the goalie’s plane. Kopitar and Kempe however, could not convert and Quick only made the one save. Le sigh.