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.)

Free Agent Frenzy on Figueroa

Ladies and Gentlemen... the future of the Los Angeles Kings.

Dean Lombardi did exactly what you want your GM to do on draft day... he entertained a bunch of trade offers... didn't get suckered into making a panic move to get a player... and then drafted the best available player, in this case... Brayden Schenn. The 5th overall pick is nothing to be ashamed of having (well, of course, except for coming in 5th worst overall in the league during the season.) But leaving the 2009 draft with a good solid prospect like Schenn is fine by me.

Now the real fun begins... the blog rumors.. the twitter updates... players asking their wives if it's okay if they pull their kids out of school and start living somewhere else... with 6 million a year more in their bank account.

The Kings are exactly where Dean Lombardi wanted them to be... good young core of players who are hungry for the playoffs and plenty of salary cap space available to sign that player who wants to help the team get there... hence the newest reality game show sensation... Who Wants to Sign with the Kings!

The options for a big name player are actually few... there are the Marian's; Hossa and Gaborik or those conjoined twins that play in Vancouver that are not named Marian.

Hopefully someone from the Kings organization has presented Dean Lombardi with a video yearbook chronicling the short, injury plagued careers of Jason Allison, Ziggy Palffy and Pavol Demitra. Those 3 players alone should warn the Kings to stay away from the extremely talented but intensely fragile Marian Gaborik. And signing him to a 1 year contract makes no sense as Gaborik is not the missing link that will send the Kings into the Stanley Cup Finals next season. We just want to make the playoffs. So you'd have to sign Gaborik to at least a 3 year deal... and then use the cap space that you get from him being injured to change your roster.

The Sedin brothers are crazy. Look, I like working with my friends too... but could you imagine if I made my boss hire both me and my best friend for each job I had? Do these guys live together and are married to a set of identical twins as well? Being an NHL professional means you can play in whatever situation with whomever on your line. Do you really want to sign 2 forwards to big contracts that can only play on the same line?

So that leaves Hossa. Do I think the Kings are going to push hard for him? Yes. Really hard. Do I think he's going to sign with the Kings? No.

What does this mean for the Kings then? It means another summer of sub-tier free agents ala the 2008 summer trifeca (what is the word for 4?) of Nagy, Calder, Preissing and Handzus. Until Michal Handzus woke up this past season... that free agent blitz didn't work out so well. The Kings will chose from names like Gionta, Knuble, Sykora, Tanguay, Cammalleri (don't think so), and Lang for this summer's free agent class. Further proving that high-level, elite free agents just aren't ready to join the Kings. (See Drury and Chara from 2 years ago.)

What do I want to happen?

Scenario 1) I want the Kings to sign Hossa. And play the full season (at least until the trading deadline) with Frolov and Kopitar. Then they can think about trading Frolov before the season ends.

Scenario 1a) Well... this goes against everything I was saying about Gaborik... but the Philadelphia Flyers are in some bad salary cap shape with their aquistion of Chris "Elbows" Pronger. So if the Kings could get Simon Gagne and not give up any of their core... I'd be fine with that. Just as long as he keeps his head up.

Scenario 1b) Dean Lombardi finally understands that he can make a man out of Dany Heatley and he trades for the disgruntled Ottawa winger by giving up Frolov and nothing else.

I love the Free Agent signing period. Half Season Ticket Holder Buddy and I are ready to spend the day on IM trying to out-scoop each other with links to free agent signing confirmations. Hey... that's pretty much what Eklund does all day too.

Good Bye Sully Brick Road

Later skater.

Half Season Ticket Holder Buddy and I already had plans to meet for lunch and share our thoughts on the NHL Trade Deadline. As I was walking into our favorite sushi restaurant... I checked my phone and saw that the Los Angeles Kings had just traded Patrick O'Sullivan to the Carolina Hurricanes for Justin Williams. I was caught completely off guard. In all the Kings trade scenarios I had ran in my head the last few days... none involved the trading of O'Sullivan. I told Half Season Ticket Holder Buddy the news. We ordered some sushi... we thought about it... ordered some more sushi... looked at Justin Williams' stats on my phone... had one more roll... and then made the decision that maybe this isn't such a bad trade.

A few summers ago, not long after Patrick O'Sullivan was traded to the Kings by Minnesota, I was in Vermont visiting a friend. A good buddy of his, who happened to be playing in the Washington Capitals minor league system, went on and on about what a steal the Kings had just made... how O'Sullivan dominated the AHL that year and was going to be a stud soon enough. Within a few seasons, I was a huge fan of Patrick O'Sullivan. He went from being a flashy player who made horrible blind behind-the-back passes his first season in the NHL to a genuine offensive threat last year. Plus, how could you not root for a guy that had such a horrible back story. But then Coach Murray came to town... and with him, defensive responsibility. And all year long, O'Sullivan had just never seemed to fit in Coach Murray's system. Only a week ago, I was questioning O'Sullivan's desire to go to the net and score. Before last night's game against the Blue Jackets, when it was reported that Oscar Moller was going to skate on Jarret Stoll's line, I said to myself... Stoll, Moller and O'Sullivan... that could totally work. (I mean, doesn't anybody remember Pat & Oscar's?) But when I saw the lineup, and realized that it was Calder, Stoll and Moller... while O'Sullivan was on the 3rd line... I thought "well this is it. Coach Murray is done with O'Sullivan." But did I think the Kings would trade him? No way. I think if any Kings fan say that they saw this coming... even Patrick O'Sullivan would have to smile at the absurdity of that statement.

When Half Season Ticket Holder Buddy and I started buying our Half Season Ticket Package 6 non-playoff seasons ago, HSTHB was quite a big Flyers fan. So Justin Williams has always been on our radar. I even had him on a fantasy team one season (the first season he blew out his ACL). And while quite a few hockey experts seem to be a fan of a healthy Justin Williams... Dean Lombardi must have really seen something in Williams to trade for him after 2 ACL tears, an Achilles heel tear and a recently broken finger. As a Kings fan who has lived through watching Jason Allison, Ziggy Palffy and Adam Deadmarsh all be traded to this team and then fall apart physically within a few years... trading for a guy who has already taken the beating that Williams has makes me nervous.

Then, as we tore into our final sushi roll, HSTHB and I talked about why we liked this trade. Justin Williams has won a Cup. And he is only 27. In the last 3 years, he had 2 solid seasons, both with 30 goals and 82 games played... and last year he had 30 points in 37 games before he blew out his ACL. This year... only 10 points in 32 games after coming back from that Achilles tendon injury. And he's not even going to play for the Kings right away since he has a broken hand. But Dean Lombardi wanted him. And he even had to throw in a 2nd round draft pick to get him. If Dean wants him that bad... it's gotta count for something right?

And he has won the Cup. And that's what hockey experts like to call an intangible. For a young team, having a top 6 forward who has won a Stanley Cup is a great thing. Coach Murray is going to be coaching this team for at least another 3 years... and if O'Sullivan wasn't going to fit into his plan, then there was every reason to trade him. Michal Handzus has taught me that you have to be patient with a player after a ACL/MCL injury... as it can take a full year to rehab. I'm willing to see what Justin Williams can bring to this team... he could be the finisher that Anze Kopitar's been looking for all season. But he's also going to have to change his number.

In the meantime, I know what NHL team I'm following in the playoffs this year. It's simple... it's the NHL team that now has my 2 favorite former Kings on it... the Edmonton Oilers. I can't even imagine how strange it will be to see Patrick O'Sullivan and Lubomir Visnovsky in Oilers Blue.

But at least the Oilers Fans are well aware of the incredible talent they just traded for. Patrick O'Sullivan is going to be a star in the NHL one day. He is going to click with Ales Hemsky and they are going to be a great force for the Oilers. Thanks for a couple great years in LA, Sully. Okay, Justin Williams... now show us what you got.

Seven Nation Army

Wow. Didn't see that one coming. You know, you wake up in the morning, you check the hockey folder on your RSS feeds, you browse LetsGoKings.com..... and you never expect to see anything all that exciting, especially related to the Los Angeles Kings. And then... and then you see this:

BREAKING NEWS: KOPITAR SIGNED FOR SEVEN YEARS

Like most Kings fans, the first time that Kopitar came to my attention, was during the 06-07 pre-season. Sure, he was drafted 11th overall in 2005, but what does that really mean when it comes to Los Angeles Kings recent first round selections? Jens Karlsson, Denis Grebeshkov or Lauri Tukonen anyone? But there was concrete buzz on Kopitar in training camp and it continued into the pre-season. And then opening night against the Ducks... well he faked Chris Pronger out of his jock.

Kopitar has the reach and the skating style of Mario Lemieux. I could never get on the Lemieux bandwagon, I was and remain a committed Gretzky guy, but every time I watched Lemieux skate, it was like he was gliding around on the ice, while everyone was working their butt off to catch up with him. This is how Kopitar skates. He's deceptively fast and has the hands of someone half his size. For a hockey team that had been devoid of a home grown superstar for nearly 20 years (Luc Robitaille if you are scoring at home) Anze already is the next Kings jersey up in the rafters. Actually, not so much in the rafters as tucked away in the corner, high on the Staples Center wall with the others. There is a reason this contract is the Kings longest since Wayne Gretzky.

2 memories of Anze's play really stick out for me. The first was a goal he scored during his rookie season against the New Jersey Devils. It was in a shootout against Martin Brodeur, soon to be the greatest goaltender of all time. This video shows not only how great that goal was, but also how crazy-fanatic some King fans have become about Anze.

Is Carmina Burana the most overused music in homemade movie trailers? Maybe Kid Rock's "Bawitdaba".

The other image that sticks in my mind of Kopitar is from last season and also during a shootout. (Can you believe the NHL never wanted to have these things before?) If you've ever played hockey before, this is the move you try all the time in practice. But never in a game, unless you are Peter Forsberg. Anze used it in a shootout. Be sure to check out the two dudes on the left hand side, just above the boards. That is NOT my fellow Half Season Ticket Holder and I.

Anze Kopitar, Dustin Brown and Patrick O'Sullivan. Your Los Angeles Kings 1st Line until at least the end of the 2010-2011 NHL Season.

Or until one of them gets hurt.