Kings Take One Point Home

Welcome back to the hockey season LA Kings fans! If it felt like it took slightly longer to get here, you’re not wrong. The Kings were the last team to start playing and to this writer did better than expected. Given that a) the Kings never do well in their home opener against the Sharks (they’ve in fact lost six of their last seven home openers (1-5-1), having dropped three (0-2-1) to the Sharks) b) the Sharks added Karlsson c) they went 1-6-1 in the preseason (yes I know preseason isn’t incredibly indicative of the season, but seriously shutout in the last two games where the roster was essentially set?) and d) just lost Dustin Brown to a broken finger injury? Yeah, my expectations for this game were low.

The Kings came out of the gate a different team; they were jazzed, they were hitting, and they were shooting. (It may not have reflected in the shots on goal but they were buzzing around Jones, forcing the Sharks defense to be on point.) They had a good four lines rolling; Kovalchuk-Kopitar-Iafallo looked decent, That 70’s Line is a given, and Lewis was centering a line of newbie Austin Wagner and Iafallo which was at many, many times the fastest thing on the ice. Some blatant tripping lead to the first Kings power play of the season (how old will it get if I say mention any time the Kings did really anything it was the first of the season? Jonathan Quick’s first save of the game! Kopitar’s first shot on goal! Okay I’ll stop now.) If there was a disappointment of the evening it would be the power play, which didn’t seem much improved on previous years, which isn’t anything to write home about. And in typical Kings fashion, as soon as it was over they gave up a goal at the other end (it did look tipped in and the late change in angle meant Quick wasn’t in a perfect position to absorb the puck). Because of course. Hey, the Kings gave up their first goal of the season and it took less than 10 minutes. (But again honestly it was more time that I thought it’d take to do something stupid.) It was quickly followed by another stupid Sharks goal, and once again we were reminded that oh yeah, the Kings never win when they have their home opener against the Sharks. Which is shockingly frequently. Muzzin managed to gain the zone and be swarmed by no fewer than four Sharks, so it was looking to be one of those games. Of course, as soon as I noticed that, they did something good so you’re welcome? A slick pass from Derek Forbert to Iafallo rebounded awkwardly, so as Jones was fully extended the puck kind of dribbled around his open stick side and Kopitar took advantage of an essentially empty net. Score one for the good guys!

What better way to open the second period than with another goal? We only had to wait 37 seconds for Tyler Toffoli to even up the score, shooting on the same plane as Jones and managing to snipe it in behind him. What followed was an incredibly even, well-played game of hockey. It was a fair exchange of zones, some great chances at either end and spectacular goaltending. (I will never get bored of watching Quick, nor take it for granted.) Then came Defcon 1: Drew Doughty was hurt. It wasn’t very clear what happened because it was so far behind the play even the cameras didn’t catch it, but it appeared he was whacked on the back of his knee and fell to the ice in pain. He took a minute to get up and when he did, he went straight back to the locker room. His team rallied around his absence, playing with more gusto and tenacity than before. It resulted in a power play Doughty was thankfully back just in time for, but he was still not putting too much pressure on his injured leg. The Kings first penalty kill of the season (I’ll stop on that I promise) lasted 4 seconds before Joe Pavelski evened it out to 4 skaters apiece to end the second period; not to be outdone after the official close Quick took advantage of Barclay Goodrow’s available face and threw some punches. To be fair to Quick, Goodrow had just illegally elbowed Jake Muzzin in the head.

Goodrow’s elbow led to a Kings power play to open the third, but again, it came up short. A second came soon after; between that and Wagner’s speed, Martin Jones had to be very good. Unfortunately for the Kings, he was. (He did train with Quick after all.) Wagner made his mark with three breakaways he got solely from being the fastest person on the ice. One day he’ll finish them off and be dangerous, mark my words. He looked like The Flash out there. Neither team could pull off a significant advantage – it was a goaltending show at both ends, though the Kings were outhitting the Sharks 33-21 by the time all was said and done. With 2:21 remaining, a tired Kempe had to make his way to the box, with just enough time to make a fatal mistake and not quite enough time to fix it. The Kings did manage to hold on for OT, but couldn’t do much other than chase the Sharks around. They had two, maybe three extended shifts before fatigue caught up to them, a 2-on-1 resulted in a Labanc goal and an OT loss for our boys. But a very respectable one.