Kings on fire, Flames doused out

By Emily Redenbach
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Updated: January 1, 2016

Happy New Year Kings fans! What a better way to ring it in than watching a Kings game? Watching the Kings douse the Flames handily? Yep!

Within the first minute the Flames get a breakaway and Jonathan Quick’s ability to do the splits comes in quite handy; Tyler Toffoli immediately takes it up the other end and scores! The goal wouldn’t count because the linesman blew the whistle for offsides, but it was bound to be an interesting game with a start like that. For the next ten minutes the teams tried to prove that wrong; trading even chances but neither getting anywhere. The first to score and have it count was Marian Gaborik, his first goal in six games. Trixy little goal; Pearson started the play by controlling Quick’s rebound, passing up to Gaborik who snuck around a few defensemen and faked enough to confuse the Flames goalie Karri Ramo. Gaborik snapped the shot from the right circle up over his shoulder at 11:04.

Moments later Lucic went into the sin bin, a penalty the Kings killed easily. Jordan Nolan went in next; he went down on the ice, but kept jostling his stick which ended up batting Dougie Hamilton in the face; off for high sticking. Both penalties killed somewhat easily, if you call what Quick does easy. He sure does make it look that way sometimes. Going into the second period, the Kings must have eaten their Wheaties or something, because they were on fire. (See what I did there?) 1:46 in Tyler Toffoli makes a stunning play to the right of the net, shoots, Anze Kopitar sweeps the rebound around but Ramo kicks that out with his left foot, but it leaves a gaping hole on the left side of the net which Lucic puts the puck into.

1:18 later the Kings score their third unanswered goal, barely three minutes into the second period. Nolan battled behind the net to get the puck to Michael Mersch on the right, who snapped it to Andy Andreoff at the front. He completed the play with a writer that saw the puck in the back of the net. A few minutes later, I don’t know what Brandon Bollig was thinking (probably that his team is down 3-0), but he decided to pick a fight with Lucic. Lucic’s a big guy known for finishing fights – I wouldn’t. The two were out of commission for the next five minutes, Lucic seen sporting an ice pack on his red swollen knuckles. Back on the ice Gaborik fans on a shot which could easily have been the fourth unanswered goal; instead moments later the Flames end up on the power play thanks to Nick Shore tripping Dougie Hamilton. What could have been a tipping point for the Flames turned into the Kings third successful penalty kill for the Kings. Minutes after it was over the Flames still hadn’t had a shot on goal for 15 minutes. (In fact the Flames had a total of 2 SOG the entire period.) By the end of the second they hadn’t scored a goal in 102 minutes. Credit Lucic for at least one of them; Quick found himself on the wrong side of the net and Lucic came barreling between the open net and the puck.

In the third Mark Giordano broke the shutout; it was as if their team didn’t want to lose the game! They came out with gusto; and thanks to a slight defensive breakdown by the Kings behind the net that left Quick vulnerable he slapped the shot from the blue line home. Quick came up big this period however, and held the Flames to that 1 goal. The most critical moment came when Drew Doughty accidentally tipped the puck out of play and got the obligatory delay of game penalty, with 6:49 remaining. A series of flurries at the Kings net showed a strong, and flexible Jonathan Quick singlehandedly saving the game. The Flames pulled Romo with 3:15 remaining, and it was crunch time for the Kings. Credit Dustin Brown for drawing a tripping penalty on Sam Bennett with 2:39 to go, leaving essentially an even strength situation with an empty net for the Flames. While it took a while to capitalize on an empty net it did grind the Flames momentum to a halt. 43.9 seconds remaining Tanner Pearson finally got an unimpeded shot on the EN and was credited with a power play goal. The Kings basically wound down the clock at that point to win the game 4-1. Huge kudos to Jonathan Quick for his elite goaltending skills keeping the Flames to a mere 1 goal.

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