Kings vs. Flames: There’s no place like Home

By Emily Redenbach
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Updated: February 24, 2016

Ah, it’s good to be back, isn’t it? The LA Kings had been gone for an 12 day, 7 game road trip and it wasn’t their best performance. They hoped to come back home and get some of their lead back, playing Calgary, Edmonton and Buffalo their first three games back. They began with Calgary, a 4 point game against a team whose statistics weren’t all that favorable. The Kings weren’t going to make them much better. (They could have made them much worse…)

It was Legends Night, where the Kings took a few minutes before the game to honor Mike Donnelly, who among other things played with Robitaille, Hrudey and Gretzky in their 1993 bid for the Stanley Cup. He currently serves as a scout for the Kings – speaking of player development this game was played on the 4 year anniversary of Jeff Carter‘s trade that led to the Kings first Stanley Cup in 2012.

Anze Kopitar made his return to the line up and boy did the Kings play like they were just as thrilled as we were! Sure the Flames got the first 2 shots on goal, but with the exception for another SOG 7:20 in, that was all the shots they managed to get off the whole first period. The Kings dominated play, with forechecks in the neutral zone, solid passing and some awesome chances on goal. But in true LA Kings fashion they made the other team’s goalie look really good and didn’t capitalize on any of the awesomeness. And it truly was awesomeness; the way the a Kings were playing it was almost like there wasn’t another team on the ice. (At one point the Flames had what should have been a clear cut 2-on-1 yet the Flames players fumbled between themselves as to who should have the puck then when they finally did went offsides. It wasn’t pretty for them.) The Kings did everything right, (they even drew penalties rather than taking them!) with the exception of actually scoring.

The second period was exactly what you’d expect. The Kings continued to dominate, scored the first goal and almost immediately took a stupid penalty which led to a tying goal from the Flames. And of all the scoring chances the Kings had (high scoring chances end of the 2nd were 11-2) the first goal from Luke Schenn wasn’t even a low scoring chance! But it seemed fitting – for most of the second period the Kings were trying to be too fancy, and Schenn’s shot was anything but. Credit Vincent Lecavalier for a great screen that allowed the puck to knuckle past Joni Ortio. At this point in the game there were 6 Kings who didn’t have a shot on goal, and the Flames had 6. Of course that meant it was time for Jake Muzzin to take an interference penalty and the Flames to score 6 seconds into the penalty kill.

The teams followed up with a coincidental minor – Nick Shore for tripping and Michael Frolik for embellishment. (I have issues as I know many do with coincidental minors when one is embellishment: it seems to me either Shore tripped Frolick or Frolick embellished to make it look like Shore did, you shouldn’t have both. But as I’m not the referee I don’t make that call.) Finally the Kings welcomed back Kopitar in style, by getting him on the scoreboard. After a long shift in the Flames zone the relentless Kings peppered Ortio with shots; finally Kopitar found himself on the side of an empty net while Ortio was looking out for Jake Muzzin and Drew Doughty (who had his 4th consecutive night playing over 30 minutes, and his 5th in 6 games).

The third period could have spelled disaster; but we have Jonathan Quick. The Flames were still dragging in SOG (the Kings getting 13-3 in the first, 17 to their 9 in the second helped) but outshot the Kings in the 3rd easily. Los Angeles had one power play but seemed to forget how to play those. And while Jeff Carter did find the back of the net it was while Dwight King was on top of Ortio and the goal was immediately waved off (and rightly so.) Things became more tense as the seconds ticked down and the Flames kept coming close to evening up the game; with less than 2 minutes remaining the Flames pulled their goalie but despite regaining possession in the neutral zone before the Flames could even try to pepper Quick the Kings couldn’t manage an empty net goal from the Flames zone. Finally the game was over and the Kings had held onto their lead, winning a big 4 point game.

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