That’s So LA Kings

It was the antithesis of so many LA Kings clichés. In an afternoon game in which the Kings were outshooting their opponent by a good margin somehow they were losing at the end of the first period. Underwhelming overachievement, as @robyn_jftc said. Quick was being the worst-best goaltender. We couldn’t score on the breakaway. There was a 5 on 3 with two of our best players in the box yet the Kings used that to their advantage. Wait, spoilers!

1st Period: After a fairly dismal performance against the Blue Jackets Thursday (check their record – there’s no way we should have lost to them), Daryl Sutter seemed to want to change things up. Erhoff was out, Forbert was in. Gaborik was demoted to the fourth line; Lewis found his way to the second line. And for the most part it seemed to be working. The Kings played a fairly solid fourth period, with the notable exception of an offensive zone penalty on Anze Kopitar. Yes, you heard right. A penalty on Kopi. Which should be enough to tell you it wasn’t warranted. The Kings killed it off easily and seemed to be generating some quality chances (Pearson had a wrap around bid Florida goalie Robert Luongo simply robbed him of.) It wasn’t until the last-minute of play when Jonathan Quick’s mask was knocked off while stopping a shot, then 30 seconds later Nick Bjugstad skated around about four Kings players to snipe a shot past Jonathan Quick. (Can we blame the new helmet? Maybe the puck deflected from the first broken helmet into his eye. I’m blaming the helmet.) The Panther’s were 4-1-2 when scoring the game’s first goal and 5-0-0 when leading after the first period. And just like that it looked like ‘one of those games.’ With literally twice the amount of shots on goal the Kings were trailing 1-0.

2nd period: The shot on goal differential got worse. In fact the whole game appeared to get worse. It began when Jeff Carter was called at 7:57 for ‘goaltender interference.’ It was one of the weakest calls I’ve ever seen – Carter was tied up with Bjustad skating towards Luongo and the resulting contact, which was mostly Bjustat, saw Luongo on his back. Carter nearly earned himself another penalty arguing with the ref about the call. Sutter did his fair share of yelling. Yet Carter to the box it was. At 8:42 Doughty joined him, with my absolute least favorite penalty in the game, delay of game: puck over the glass. It seems to be a strength of the Kings, killing off 5-on-3’s. Far from being the nail in the coffin, as Florida was certainly hoping (4 of their 11 power play goals came from 5-on-3 scenarios), it served instead to wake the Kings up. (The Kings are notorious for still being asleep/hungover during afternoon games.) As Carter came out of the box he made a bid on the breakaway. As Doughty was released he did the same. (Side note – it was refreshing to me to see Trevor Lewis on the penalty kill. It was slightly terrifying to see Brayden McNabb and Derek Forbert as the defensive pair on the penalty kill.)

Things finally broke for the Kings less than three minutes after the momentum swung their way. Of course it was the Carter line. (I miss being able to call it That 70’s Line but am loving the chemistry that Jeff Carter, Tyler Toffoli and Milian Lucic share.) Toffoli doing as Toffoli does, practically danced around the Panthers, and fed an open Carter to the left of the net, who lifted the puck over Luongo’s shoulder. Moments later Garobik to Lewis could have tipped the scales again, but after video review, the puck just teased us, sliding literally across the goal line but thanks to Luongo’s second sweep of the leg, never actually over it. Again, it could have stopped the Kings momentum in it’s tracks. Instead they got even more fired up. Shots on goal reached 23-7, in favor of the Kings. Lucia found himself on the breakaway but unable to score. Then the Kings really woke up. Drew Doughty scored his first goal of the season (how is that possible?!) on the power play with an absolute blast from the slot, that Luongo probably still thinks he has, somehow slipping off his glove into the back of the net. Norbert picked up his first NHL point on the goal. Kopi scored next, less than a minute later, jamming the puck into Luongo’s outstretched leg then on his next attempt, as Luongo was still sliding to his left, jamming it in past his right leg between the post and into the back of the net. At that point the Kings had 3 goals in the second, the Panthers with 2 SOG. In fact the SOG were 30-8, the Kings nearly quadrupling the Panthers attempts.

3rd period: The King came out sloppy and the Panthers came out with a vengeance. But when it looked like the Panthers might have been able to turn it around, Carter blasted another shot from the point that Lucic redirected up and over Luongo. It looked like a difficult shot to stop but it wouldn’t have mattered. With less than half of the third period to play, and the Kings picking up their game again, the Panthers never stood a chance. If their play on the ice wasn’t proof enough, Chris Sutter was back on the dance cam, and if that doesn’t invigorate a team, nothing will.

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