Kings Win Again! Beat Winnipeg 3-2
- Updated: October 23, 2019
Hey everyone, guess who’s back with an all new attack, and that all new attack is … well, from our Los Angeles Kings! (Bet you thought I was going to say me!). In a throwaway season this year, which I like to call the “audition” season, where the Kings are not expected to make the playoffs, and will use that as a positive by “auditioning” all the young players we have on the team, and in the system, while re-evaluating every veteran (except Anze Kopitar and Drew Doughty), to see who can still provide something for the team, (goals, advice, work ethic, leadership), that would help the next generation of Kings’ players to develop and who the Kings can then trade off to get more prospects and draft picks in return, the Kings now find themselves winning two games in a row. This time on the road beating the floundering, (but still Stanley Cup contending), Winnipeg Jets 3-2.
And in what has become a small sampled trend so far this season under new coach Todd McLellan, the Kings’ strong forecheck and much improved penalty killing abilities, plus the stronger play of Kings’ legend Jonathan Quick, has allowed the Kings to not only win some games and create this small win streak, but to have yet another game where the Kings have outshot their opponents by a mile, (the Kings were outshooting the Jets 11 to 2 only 7 minutes into the game and finished the game with 41 shots to 28). With the exception of Calgary’s game last Saturday, despite all those shots, they still only scored a few goals. Luckily it was more than enough to win this game. And a little hockey puck luck doesn’t hurt either.
The Kings started strong in the first period by just crushing the Jets with the mentioned forecheck every time they had the puck, therefore creating turnovers and attacking opportunities. The speedy Austin Wagner gave the Kings the lead by scoring his second of the season, with assists by Kyle Clifford and Alec Martinez at 10:32. The goal was scored off of a rebound from the Jets’ goaltender and their defense wasn’t able to pick it up. And then in typical “that’s so Kings” fashion, the Jets’ Kyle Connor tied things up 1-1 near the end of the first period at 17:07 after a Kings’ defensive turnover.
In the second period, the Kings of old (aka last season), took their feet off the pedal and lost their momentum as Winnipeg pushed back. But there were two bright spots. One, was the “MacDerminator” Kurtis MacDermid scored. Yes I repeat, Kurtis MacDermid scored his first of the season, (and only his second career NHL goal), when he scored an ugly bouncer, which was reviewed by those well dressed, crazy monkeys that run amok in the NHL Situation Room in Toronto to see if the puck had crossed the line. It did), to give the Kings a 2-1 lead at 4:16. (It was ugly but we’ll take it!). And two, Jonathan Quick, who was outstanding while killing penalties, after his teammates, MacDermid, Trevor Lewis and Mike Amadio took bad penalties, which allowed Winnipeg to get back into the game. Instead Quick shut the door when he was needed most, and played in his second straight best game so far this season.
Here is what coach McLellan had to say about Quick’s play, as per LA Kings Insider, Jon Rosen.
“The best penalty killer is the goaltender, and I thought Quickie was that tonight.”
He also said, “We saw what we expect to see from him on a nightly basis. I was asked a question the other day by somebody in the media group, and the insinuation of the question was ‘you’ve lost confidence in him’ and I think my answer was ‘no, we haven’t.’ We believe in him, the team believes in him and he’s playing and practicing really well. If his practices had slipped and he wasn’t looking good there, then we’d be worried. But he was outstanding, and it’s showing up in the games now.”
(nhl.kings.com)
One thing I found very interesting that I heard from The Mayor Jon Hoven on his excellent podcast with Dennis Bernstein, Kings of the Podcast, (which I highly recommend by the way), was how McLellan was trying to help Quick adjust his game after his horrible season last year, (to be fair, the whole team was horrible last year), due to him not having the same flexibility and timing that he used to have, due to his age and the injuries he has suffered in the past. This isn’t a knock on Quickie, it’s just a fact of life that your reflexes start to slow down as you age. Especially for reflex type goalies. So the plan is for Quick to learn and get used to playing more upright, like a positional goaltender. Quick of course will need some time to make these adjustments, as it’s hard to change something that you have been doing for most of your life, but whatever Quick, McLellan and Kings’ goaltending coach Bill Ranford are doing, (Ranford by the way, was a reflex type goaltender himself when he played), it’s helping. For now at least as it’s still early in the season but Quick was great again, making 26 saves out of 28, for a game save percentage of .929.
The Kings’ defense has been impressive as well, especially with all the young players they are using. But as impressive as they are, they still make mistakes and turnovers are going to happen, as mentioned above. And as great as Quick has been in the last two games, goals are still going to be scored, which is what happened when Winnipeg tied things up 2-2 when Nikolaj Ehlers scored at 12:28.
The game stayed stalemated in the 3rd period, where Jets’ goaltender Connor Hellebuyck was also playing well, by making 38 out of 41 saves, as the Kings regained their composure in the 3rd and started wrecking havoc on Winnipeg with their Jason Voorhees (yeah I said it), like forechecking. The Kings finally cracked Hellebuyck’s code when Captain Kopitar scored the game winner at 5:52 on the power-play, by scoring his 4th of the season, assisted by The Hulkster Drew Doughty and Quick, to make it 3-2 Kings. It was fluky, and probably a shot that Hellebuyck should have had, but them are the breaks. It’s not like the Kings haven’t had those same type of goals scored on them. (Anyone remember the crazy game against Detroit back in 2013-14 when the puck was shot into the air, bounced off the netting that protects the fans, and landed right on Quick’s back and into the net? And the referees allowed it?!?! I still have nightmares of that game. Especially since I was there in Detroit to witness it and it made that trip back home after the game not too much fun. But to be fair, the Kings did go on to win their second Stanley Cup that season, so everything worked out in the end). And that was all she or he wrote.
The Kings are now 4-5 0 so far this season, and to be honest, I’m not sure how I feel about that? But more on that in later articles and recaps. The Kings will continue on this road trip by going to St. Louis to play the current Stanley Cup champs on Thursday at 5:00 pm pst/8:00 pm est.
So until then, GO KINGS GO!!!
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