Preason Recap; Kings vs. Coyotes
- Updated: September 23, 2015
Breath it in ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. That would be the smell of fresh ice, testosterone and excitement. That’s right. The LA Kings at Staples Center. Sure it’s a preseason game and, in a similar fashion to Who’s Line is it Anyway,’ everything is made up and the points don’t matter but who cares? It’s hockey and we’ve been jonesing for it since April. (How did we last through the latest lockout? Oh right, we had a Stanley Cup at the time.)
It was a preseason game, so what we were seeing is not the lineup we can expect on opening night. Good news, since the Kings found themselves on that wrong side of a 5 on 3 early into the opening frame. Newbie Forbort found his way into the penalty box and less than a minute later so did Enhroff, who is set to potentially replace Regher this season. (He already has his number, 44.) Of course a goal resulted for the Arizona Coyotes.
Not to be outdone, the Kings scored two within a minute. Mersch added the first to his tally 9:34 in, deflecting in quite a nice rebound. O’Neill followed up at 10:35 with help from Andreoff and Weal, proving once again that net front presence will result in good things. If you don’t know those names, you haven’t been paying attention to the Manchester Monarchs. Learn these names. You’ll thank me later.
The second didn’t start well either, with Weal going to the box for hooking, joined not too far behind by Forbort, though his minor was coincidental – 17 for Arizona got embellishment. It was an odd play – somehow 17 got mixed up in two sticks and spun around a few times. Enhoff found his way back into the penalty box for high sticking. Then Tomi tried to kill Drew Doughty (not really, but he did get boarded pretty hard and was slow to get up), so a few Kings got into the mix and we had our first fight of the preseason!
Half way through the second frame Peter Budaj came in for Enroth, a preseason tradition to get everyone a chance in net. He finished out the second eventless, moving into the third which basically saw both teams trade penalties. At 5:52 we had a power play. At 8:30 we were on a penalty kill, in which Dustin Brown and Anze Kopitar tag teamed to come within about a millimeter of scoring shorthanded. 10:56 power play, 14:06 penalty kill. Dustin Brown almost scored on a breakaway reminiscent of game 4 against the Rangers in 2014, with the notable change that no Ranger threw a stick at him. In a pretty terrible call he wasn’t given a deserved penalty shot, and in the next power play the Coyotes did convert their shorthanded attempt.
For those keeping score at home, the Kings and Coyotes went into OT 2-2, which is now a 3-on-3 situation for 5 minutes. There’s a lot of open ice, let me tell you. Doughty, Kopitar and Gaborik seemed to be a favorite of Sutter, and the fans, but it took Weal to finally send Kings fans home happy with a rebound off Ehrhoff.
Being preseason it’s not the best indication of how the Kings will play in 2015, but Lucic is looking pretty sweet along side Kopitar and Gaborik. The new kids are stepping up in little ways that give me great hope. Dustin Brown and Drew Doughty are looking fit and well up to the task after their training regimen this summer. It’s going to be a good year, Kings fans.
Stay with us at Calisportsnews.com as we will keep you up-to-date on all things Los Angeles Kings and the rest of the LA sports teams! All Cali, All the time!
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