Thursday, April 15, 2010

Kings 2, Canucks 3 (OT) - [insert whiny sigh]

Some thoughts about the first Kings playoff game in ages:

The Good Stuff
  • Jonathan Quick was on his game tonight.   He had some solid saves in the first period and never let up.  He had an amazing save in Overtime, quite possibly the save of the night, on a 2-on-1 that I thought was surely going to end the game.  The puck took some weird bounces during the game and he always seemed to have his eye on it.  His play tonight definitely settled nerves among the Kings fanbase.
  • Both Kings goals came on the power play.  Even though they only scored once on a 5-minute major and had some difficulties setting up the cycle during the man advantage it's still good news that the special teams is effective.
(Photo by Rich Lam/Getty Images)
It's Dexter! Oops no, that's Modin.
  • Depth at front came through today.  As expected the Kings top line was shut down at even strength and guys like Brad Richardson, who had a very respectable 17 minutes of ice-time and got his face crushed into the glass, and Michal Handzus played well.
You Know Better
  • Jack, seriously?  Puck over the glass in the defensive zone?  You know better.

The You So Ugly Parts
  • Justin Williams and Randy Jones:  WTF guys!  I am a big J-Dubs fan so I was incredibly disappointed with how poorly he played tonight.  He had a terrible turnover inside the offensive blueline that led to the second Canucks goal.  He was ineffective for the majority of the game despite playing alongside Ryan Smyth and Anze Kopitar and the only forwards who had fewer minutes on the ice were Wayne Simmonds and Jeff Halpern (obviously I'm not counting Ivanans since he's in his own Enforcer class). And Randy Jones, did you not learn anything from Williams' turnover?  Apparently not since he had a turnover in overtime and then the Kings failed miserably trying to clear the puck.  He also fumbled the puck a lot on the power play and looked very sloppy.  
Watching a playoff overtime game is way more fun when your team isn't involved.  I think my heart stopped a couple times during the extra period, once when Vancouver had a 2-on-1 and again when Lungo batted the puck out of the crease as it was just about to cross the goal line.....argh!!!  I have to keep reminding myself that it's just one game.  If I think the series will go to 7 games then the Kings will lose 3 out of the 4.  It's just one game, it's just one loss, there's plenty of hockey ahead of us.  Go Kings!!!

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