Los Angeles Kings May Be Done But Kings’ Hockey Is Not Over Yet

2015 AHL CALDER CUP PLAYOFFS

The LA Kings’ AHL minor league affiliate Manchester Monarchs have just defeated the Portland Pirates 3 games to 2 in a thrilling Calder Cup playoff first round series.  Now they are off to battle the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton (where the Office takes place?) Penguins in the second round.  This is Manchester’s last season as the Kings’ AHL affiliate as that status will change and be handed over to the Kings’ lower tier ECHL affiliate Ontario Reign.  As sad as it is for me to see the Monarchs lose their status, at least they are still going to be family and remain member’s of the Kingdom, just now recognized as the official ECHL allifiate.  So in technical terms, the Monarchs and the Reign are pretty much just switching their status’ and rosters while both team’s are remaining as affiliates of the Los Angeles Kings.  It actually makes sense as Ontario, California is a heck of a lot closer to Los Angeles than Manchester, New Hampshire is or ever will be.  Now whenever the Kings’ need to call up or send down a player to the minors (for example like Mike Richards) the transition and arrival of that player to either team will be quicker because of the shorter distance.

I say this in complete respect to the hockey Gods, just in case they do read my articles (because you never know) when I ask that wouldn’t it be both cool and amazing if the Monarchs won the AHL Calder Cup for the first time ever in their very last season ever competing for it? The Monarchs finished the 2014-15 season 1st overall in the league with 50 wins and 109 points and that makes me very optimistic as winning the championship is definitely possible!

Familiar Kings faces like Nick Shore, Andy Andreoff and Jeff Shultz and NHL veterans Paul “Biz Nasty” Bissonette and David Van der Gulik along with Kings prospects Adrian Kempe, Jordan Weal, Nic Dowd, Nick Ebert, Colin Miller and Jean-Francois Berube are playing some, edge of your seat, hockey while not only trying to win the Calder Cup but also trying to impress Dean Lombardi. And the powers that be for the Kings so they can be called up to (or back into) the NHL. The Monarch’s current roster is a glimpse of what’s in store for the future roster’s of the Los Angeles Kings so you might as well start getting to know these players now!

Plus did I mention the Monarchs have a great chance to WIN IT ALL?!!!

Game 1 of round 2 against the Penguins will have already happened before this article gets published but game 2 will be on Thursday May 7th in Manchester.

GO MONARCHS GO!!!