Penalties. Goals. Fights. Flames Erupted.

This one was always going to be interesting. The Flames/Kings rivalry goes back to Tkachuk’s unanswered hit on Doughty a few seasons ago (though Jesse Cohen of the podcast has been hating on them for years), or at least this level of intensity goes back that far. The Kings smoked the Flames last time, outshooting them 26-2 in the first period before giving up 3 late 3rd period goals to force overtime. Tonight, however, they remembered how to play 3 periods of hockey. Quick got the call, and boy did he play like his career depended on it. (Who knows, maybe it did.) He was excellent, all game. And finally, after almost 7 whole period of scoring droughts, the King’s offense helped out their goalie! (For the record my seat mates were asking me before the game who I thought was likely to be traded this season, and I suggested Tyler Toffoli or Jeff Carter. Or the Kings could be really stupid and trade Blake Lizotte because he’s fast, young, and good, so they could get a lot back. Clearly all three heard me.) 1:15 in Toffoli wristed a spectacular shot right past Flames goalie Rittich, assists to Carter and Lizotte; and the game one got faster from there.The Kings stick handling abilities has also returned, along with their scoring ability, and it was the little things that gave me confidence in their game again. When they took their first penalty 5:51 in I wasn’t even worried. And I needn’t have been. They were flawless on the kill. (The Flames were the ones taking all the penalties anyway.) It did look a little concerning when right after the Kopitar penalty there was a MacDermid penalty – and I was so happy to see him in the game I really didn’t want his first game back to be marred by some misspent time in the box. Continuing in this theme of penalties (the Flames racked up 11, including a 10 minute misconduct, the Kings 8), the Kings had two power plays in a row they did little with, but at least it wasn’t a dumpster fire like some of their recent penalties. The first of which came from Rittich, one of two tripping penalties he took during the game; the second was cut short when Carter also ended up int he box – are you exhausted yet? We haven’t even begun.

Carter’s first goal of the season came 16 seconds into the second period. (I was just as horrified that it took this long for him to get his first too. But also yay two early goals in two periods! What a way to set the tone. This period in particular the Kings dominated. 20 shots to 4, reminiscent of the first period of their first clash this season. Carter’s goal started a rampage that didn’t end until the very final whistle. While the first period was relatively even all around, here was where the Kings surged forward. A second MacDermid penalty only served up Kopitar’s 3rd shorthanded goal since 2018 (meanwhile he has 1only power play goal. Make sense of that.) The ease with which he got past all of Calgarys defenses had me yearning for this kind of skill to be displayed all of the time, but also reminded me why the Kings gave him such a large contract. Everything had been going so well I didn’t want to get my hopes up for another power play. I did anyway, and I was rewarded. Ilya Kovalchuk, clearly making up for his mistakes last game, got the Kings fourth goal unassisted, and we weren’t even halfway through the second. Which is when the Flames started to get nasty. I mean sure, if you can’t be good, why not? At 9:25 Oliver Kylington went after Amadio, and Clifford and Anderson joined the fray, each going to the penalty box. (Clifford’s official penalty was unsportsmanlike conduct, but it was called ‘grabbing the facemask’ in stadium and I love everything about that.) Clifford was a presence all night. He may not have mede it onto the scoreboard but he was noticed all over the ice. Literally 1 second after that ended Rittich took his second of the game and the Flames fourth of the period. Still not exhausted? Just wait for the third.

Traditionally, the Kings have had trouble closing out their games. The only thing they couldn’t close out was the shutout and that I’m gonna place all on Doughty. But I get ahead of myself. My favorite MacDermid moment came this period; Toffoli went down in front of the net while the Flames were taking the puck towards Quick, so savage that he is, MacDermid jumped over his teammate to keep defending down the other end. It really heated up with the inevitable Doughty/Tkachuk showdown, of which Doughty definitely got the better end of the deal. He upended Tkachuk legally, with a hit that rebounded all over the stadium. More Flames fell down around him, it became a whole brawl, and Doughty skated away with some scratches and the biggest grin I’ve ever seen on anybody. Tkachuk took a tripping penalty on Doughty, a roughing penalty on Doughty, and a game misconduct. Andersson took a roughing penalty on Wagner, and Wagner a roughing penalty on Andersson. In the middle of those penalties, the Kings took a too many men penalty which was just stupid, especially as they were clearly getting under the Flames’s skin. Quick continued to be his fantastic self, Jedi Quick all evening, even stopping a fantastic Gaudreau breakaway. With about 5 minutes left clearly there hadn’t been enough penalties so Calgary took yet another – I’m almost tired of typing the word penalty. But the most disappointing moment came out of this one – as Backlund came out of the box Doughty had just mishandled the puck in the neutral zone and Backland picked it up, causing Doughty to feel the need to trip him on the breakaway, and the referee to award Backlund a penalty shot. With 2:10 remaining Quick’s shutout ended when Backlund made it. Quick really deserved the shutout, but I’m sure he’ll take the two points and the win.