Kings String Four Wins!

Dare we hope for 4 wins in a row, fellow Kings fans?

Yes, yes we do!

Sure it was against Arizona but it hasn’t happened this season so we’ll take the win and celebrate a string of victories we dearly hope continues next game. As for this one, it was Kempe vs. Kempe and Quick vs. another one of his former protege’s Darcy Kuemper. He was brilliant. Just not quite enough. It was mostly Kings for the first period, with our Kempe and his line generating some good chances against Kuemper. Ironically enough it was a power play that halted their domination, though not entirely surprising. The Kings are 15.1% on the man advantage, which believe it or not is actually an improvement on the season, and bumps them up to 25th. Yes. Up. Arizona, on the other hand, is at 87.7% on their penalty kill and have 11 shorthanded goals. (That’s more than Chicago has on their power plays.) So, not surprising that it swung the momentum to Arizona, who almost scored shorthanded again. Then did score, on their next power play, a penalty Anze Kopitar took a mere 17 seconds after the other elapsed. With 4:33 remaining in the first Chychrun took advantage and put the Coyotes on the board. However it only took 3:12 for Jake Muzzin, who has been the best defenseman on this team all season, and yes I say that knowing full well how good Doughty *can* be, to equalize. I say Muzzin; really the puck took its own journey off of several different surfaces and people before skipping over Kuemper. (This was also Kyle Clifford’s 100th NHL point, congrats!) But this being the Kings, 6 seconds later Kovalchuk skated to the penalty box – seriously guys?!

The penalty ran into the second period where the Kings successfully killed it. The second was actually a relatively boring period, save for a very off sequence involving Quick. He was upended quite unceremoniously in front of his net, leaving the puck quite vulnerable; clearly, any further play would be waved off for goaltender interference but Cousins decided to play it anyway. It went in easily and was just as easily waved off. Quick, however, didn’t take it lightly and had a few choice words for him after the play. Wagner had more than a few choice words – when a scuffle between two other players broke out behind the net a few plays later, Wagner and Cousins got in some roughing on each other. Somehow Wagner ended up with 4 minutes though that didn’t seem strictly fair. He did receive a standing ovation from Staples Center though, as he continued to yell through the glass in the penalty box to him. Standing up for Quickie is a surefire way to secure your place in the heart of the team and its fans. So that happened, then the second was mercifully over.

17 seconds into the third, Dustin Brown notched his 10th goal of the season, the first King to reach double digits this season. Considering he’s missed the first 10 games of the season, I’m not sure it that’s something to be celebrated? But quite a few players have missed games so perhaps we should celebrate any King hitting double digits, no matter how late in the season. So late, in fact, they were the last team to have a double digits goal scorer. As the period wore on, Quick continued to have a good defense in front of him and made big saves when necessary, especially in the last 2 minutes when Kuemper was pulled. Forbert also came up big, allowing Quick to get the 298th win of his career. It was unfortunate for the Coyotes really; they won in almost every statistic. More shots on goal, 54.8% of the face-offs, converting one of their three power plays while the Kings did nothing with their two, 20 hits to the Kings 8, they blocked more shots and gave away half the pucks the Kings did. And considering the Kings are 4-17-2 when their opponent scores first, it really was unfortunate this game the Kings managed to pull it off. Could this be the beginning of a late-season surge?