Kings Undefeated in Regulation

My my, October is shaping up to be a fantastic month, isn’t it? The Kings are 4-1-0 after defeating the Sabres on a fine Saturday evening; what a feeling! Of course, the Sabres came into this game with an 0-3-1 record, so it’s not entirely unexpected that the Kings would come out victorious. On the other hand, a typical Kings move would be to underestimate an opponent with less than stellar stats, which is exactly how the game started.

The first five minutes were pretty snooze-worthy. Not any great chances at either end, in fact, the highlight was during the media timeout when the Kings welcomed back Jordan Nolan and Davis Payne with a video tribute each. Thanks for the Cups guys.

 

Tyler Toffoli, Tanner Pearson, and Nic Dowd schooled all 6 Sabres on the ice with some quick stick handling in the offensive zone, preventing a turnover but couldn’t get the puck behind the net. Moments later Jake Muzzin was caught flat-footed behind Ryan O’Reilly and was forced to take a slashing penalty in order to stop him from shooting. It was a stellar kill; timely and swift clears, not giving up chances, barely any defensive zone time. Then Andy Andreoff did the first of *several* things that made me wish he wasn’t in the lineup, being on the wrong side of a neutral zone turnover, leaving Jack Eichel practically alone. And by practically I mean Zemgus Girensons was right there too giving Jonathan Quick a tough choice on who to cover. Genson’s easily potted the shot while Quick focused on Eichel with the puck. (A wise choice given the circumstances, Eichel was deservedly the second star of the evening.) It snapped a streak the Sabres had going on; their last goal at Staples Center was in January of 2010, 279.38 minutes of play earlier.

After what must have been a great pep talk the Kings came back in the second actually ready to play hockey. While they still had a lot of turnovers they were getting better chances and had much more control over the puck. Early in there was a spectacular 2-on-1 opportunity that should have tied the game until I realized it was Andreoff in on the rush. 6:56 in he did one thing right; he drew a penalty from Josh Gorges giving the Kings their first successful power play all season. Going in they were 0 for 16, opting for a 4 forwards and 1 defenseman. This game they switched it up, going with the regular lineup. It worked. Some great chemistry around the net gave Brown his 4th goal of the season when he crashed the net and found a Jeff Carter rebound. Tied game! For a minute there it looked like the Kings momentum was going to swing their way again with another spectacular 2-on-1, but again it was Andreoff so you know how that ended. Tied at the end of the second, with huge props going to Jonathan Quick for keeping it that way, making some of his Jedi moves on a PK halfway through it. It wasn’t for lack of trying; after Brown’s goal, they looked feistier, faster and just better.

 

3:01 into the third Andreoff had irritated me again by taking a dumb tripping penalty that forced Quick to make such a huge save on Griffith it caused both Doughty and Toffoli to remark that it was a game changer. It was. Dustin Brown drew a penalty from Eichel that led to the most beautiful goal I may have ever seen. Right in front of the net, he lifted it effortlessly through a scrum of players, with a pass from Jake Muzzin I still don’t know how it made it to him. Less than 2 minutes later the game was tied again thanks to Eichel getting his own rebound (I believe I remarked at the time ‘stop letting Eichel do things!’) It was a tense 9 minutes after that, each team getting chances that could have kept the game from going to overtime. It wasn’t until 2:04 minutes remained that Brown drew another penalty, and if you’ve been following along, that was a good theme for the Kings. It lasted 4 seconds. 4 seconds for Anze Kopitar to win the puck battle, get it out to Alec Martinez (who is back yay!) who shoveled it to Doughty. He shoots he scores! And what a laser it was. The Sabres didn’t have much of a chance after that. They pulled their goalie of course, but Pearson’s empty net goal sealed the deal for the Kings.

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