Keeping Up with The Joneses

So I sit down on the couch, ready to watch exciting Los Angeles Kings action for the first time in 2 games... and when I turn on the tv... (oh just show the screengrab already, this joke is getting so old!)

Note that it is at :00 of the entire broadcast.

Sure it was annoying at first... but then Fox Sports West HD found suitable replacement programming.

This better be in HD.

Eventually, the game came back on and this time... the Kings didn't disappoint. They played an even, consistent game and kept their composure when the Hurricanes came storming back. (Ha, get it?) So, when it comes to victories over opponents with 12 or more losses in a row, the Kings are looking pretty good right now!

Kings 5, Hurricanes 2

"Naw, that's cool guys. I'll just stay over here.
I mean, it's not like I was in net when we had points in 8 straight games or anything."

Well if there was one thing to learn from this game it's that Sean O'Donnell or Davis Drewiske might be on their ways to becoming a healthy scratch. Randy Jones exploded into the Kings lineup with an assist and a game winning goal. And make no mistake, that goal he scored was not an easy one. Jones was at a really tough angle to be able to put that puck in. It just shows what a total genius Dean Lombardi is.

"You know Drew, the girls in the NHL are so much better than the ones in the AHL."
"What's the AHL?"

And Randy Jones has taken an award away from Ryan Smyth... which award you ask? Why it's the "Kings Player that Most Looks Like a Muppet" Award.

Another Dean Lombardi waiver wire steal.

Half Season Ticket Holder Buddy and I were talking last week about why NHL broadcasters don't just show the overhead goalie shot first when replaying a goal. Ok, maybe one close up of the goal and then the overhead angle. But enough with going to a replay using the angle that is the farthest away from the goal already! I still have no idea how Jarret Stoll scored that goal.

Membership has its privileges.

My favorite part of the night was Hockey Hall of Famer Bob Miller busting out his Members Only Hall of Fame Jacket during the broadcast... and totally playing it cool by not mentioning it. I like to imagine Bob in his hotel room, once a year, putting on his Hockey Hall of Fame Blazer and then staring into the mirror, Silence of the Lambs style.

He puts the biscuit in the basket.

Game by game, 19-Year-Old Drew Doughty just gets better and better with his one timers from the point. Alexander Frolov must have been watching the segment where Rich Hammond talked about how people on the internet are unhappy with Frolov's game.. cause he sure woke up in the 3rd period. And sure, Ersberg got the win, but he was hardly tested by this weak Carolina team. The next game Jon Quick starts will be his 65th career... basically a full season for a #1 NHL goalie.

64 Games - 32W 25L 4OTL SV%.908 GAA 2.59

32-25-4 isn't bad for a first season. Everyone was up in arms about Columbus Blue Jackets rookie goalie Steve Mason last season and he went 33-20-7 in 61 games. On a playoff team. It's important that Quick gets his rest throughout the season and this game was the perfect one for him to sit out. And if Ersberg decides that he has forgotten how to play in the NHL, the Kings can always call up Jon Bernier from Manchester. I wouldn't mind seeing a bit of a competition between Quick and Bernier for the 1 and 1A goal spots. It's good to have this kind of a goalie problem... instead of having goalie problems like these:

Is there anything better than the white mask
during a goalies first game with a new team?

And this is why hockey in the deep south is awesome:

Oh man, greatest episode of Mad Men ever!

And also because of signs like this one:

Today, I'm eleven

on 11-11
I'd be in Heaven
with a Canes win

Man, that is one involved sign. And the chance to use this particular rhyming scheme only comes once a lifetime.

The Kings are off until Friday when they take on the Atlanta Thrashers as the Kings tear through the 2nd tier of the Southeast Conference on this road trip (ie... every team in the Southeast Conference except Washington.)