Kings On Wrong Side Of 3-2 Against Sharks

Ugh, I just hate losing to the Sharks. It goes against everything I believe in. And yet it’s now happened three times this season. It only took 3:31 for the game to go downhill, when Brent Burns (good Lord seriously shave that beard it looks like a swarm of bees) took Joe Thornton’s pass and slapped it past Peter Budaj. The Kings didn’t let it deflate them as much as it deflated the crowd, and indeed gave the crowd something to cheer about a couple of minutes later. This time it was Derek Forbert teed up, took the slap shot and Tanner Pearson (who has 6 goals, 4 assists in his last 12 games and 2 goals (well now 3) 1 assist in 3 games against the Sharks this season, tipped it in past  Martin Jones. The Sharks tried for goaltender interference but to no avail, the goal stood. Tied game! Of course the Kings followed up by taking a penalty; thankfully the Kings have a pretty solid penalty kill and easily kept the Sharks from doing anything on it. Nick Shore and Dwight King had their first of a few breakaways, but seeing as they’re no Tyler Toffoli (who is skating again) or Anze Kopitar, nothing happened after they entered the zone. It was the first of a few times I wanted to strangle them. A Kings power play followed in which thoughts of strangulation continued, and if that wasn’t enough the Sharks scored again, Tommy Wingles on a 2-on-1 with Michael Haley perfectly placed his shot. (It was actually gorgeous. Annoyingly so.)

The second period consisted of 10 penalties, so if it felt like the entire period was special teams, it wouldn’t be that far off. 3:10 San Jose interference. (I had thought it was goaltender interference as a Shark literally fell on top of Budaj but it was apparently against Brown. Whatever we’ll take it.) 9:51 Jeff Carter high sticking. (That one only lasted 9 seconds. Sharks won the face-off and sure enough a goal resulted.) 10:48 Wingles tripped Nic Dowd. (There were more shorthanded chances than Kings chances and what was Pearson doing?) 13:06 Melker Karlsson held Trevor Lewis (I mean I’d hold him too.) 13:06 Lewis struck Karlsson with a high stick and got 4 minutes. (If a Shark is going to bleed I want to see more than that. Not complaining about the 4 minutes, more that the Shark didn’t bleed.) Kyle Clifford served the penalty. (Carter tried for some shorthanded magic but Martin Jones had his number.) 15:35 Clifford and Haley threw down the gloves but as the puck hadn’t dropped yet they didn’t actually let them fight (disappointing!) and both got 2 minutes for delay of game. 17:56 Devin Setoguchi hooked Brenden Dillon. (Are we done with the Setoguchi experiment yet?) 19:35 Patrick Marleau checked King in the head illegally. Somewhere in there, in between Lewis’s double minor and the 4-on-4, Marian Gaborik scored, bringing the Kings to within 1. It was a mad scramble at the net where it felt like every King had a jab at the puck, Gaborik being the one to finally be successful in getting it behind Jones. (As far as I know it didn’t deflect of a defenseman’s head this time.)

So, if you could follow all of that, the Kings had 1:25 of a power play to open the third period, in which they made a few nice bids to tie it up, but nothing too dangerous. The Sharks then came right back and were buzzing all around the Kings net. When the Kings finally did get chances it always seemed to be King-Nolan-Shore who at one point had so many good chances in one shift I could have buried one. (Seriously. Strangling.) The Kings just couldn’t get the momentum they needed with the players the needed to get anything past Jones. They struggled for decent offense and lacked the discipline to keep any pressure. Pulling Budaj did as well as it has every game this season – it didn’t. As Sutter says – it’s a 3-2 league.