Nice to be back and once again be able to chip in with a post of my own. Glad we got a point but hard not to feel pain afterwards.....
Here are some thoughts:
Officiating- It is obvious the league has once again asked the refs to start calling tons of penalties. I saw it in other games recently as well. My belief is this comes directly from Bettman who simply thinks more power plays equates to more goals. I thought the calls were bad on both sides of the ice but the real travesty comes with the fact all of these penalties means there is not that consistent back and forth and prolonged game play were both teams can get into a groove and attack and counter attack. The best games to me are the ones with sustained play, good puck movement, some good checking, some great goaltending and so on. All of these penalties just equate to a choppy game with no groove or feel to it. Once again...I like the NHL as the NHL, if I wanted to see no defense and tons of scoring I would watch the NBA.
Clifford- This is without question the best he has ever played and if he can sustain this play will be a bonafide top 6 player. On the downside-if Clifford is the only guy who can produce, this team is in a world of hurt.
Quick- Has gotten consistently better as the season progresses-shame he has nothing to show for it in the wins column.
Defense- Will be nice to get Mitchell back but wanted to throw some props to the D Corp. Martinez in particular has looked pretty good as does Voynov and Drewiske. I could nitpick Scuderi not boxing out Yakupov but wont go there, unless I just did.
Scoring- Brutal. Once again if you bet the Kings would only score 4 goals in the first 3 games and Clifford played a role in everyone of them then Mr you a better man then I. Mike Richards, Brown, and a few others look as if they are completely uninterested in the game. Of course-I am pretty sure we called out Richards in the first half of last season as well.
How bad was it last night energy wise? I was thinking Brad Richardson should have gotten more time. Compared to the others he was skating like Pavel Bure.
From the look at the bright side department- At least the fist 3 games were against non division opponents. That will change against the Yotes on saturday. With Mike Smith out and Labarbara looking like Labarbara against the Sharks last night this is a golden opportunity for the Kings to get going. The players may down play it but this will probably be an intense game that they should be up for. And if they cant get up for that game-there is trouble in river city but then again we won the Cup last year so how bad could it be?
