2024 NHL Thread

[OmahaBaseball]

Ovi scores again -- now only 9 goals from the record.

https://www.nhl.com/news/seattle-kra...-recap-march-9

[Cobra Mgr]

The 2 player acquisitions the Caners made @ the deadline scored Carolina's 1st 3 goals in a 4-2 win over the Jets. Mark Jankowski scored the opening 2 and Logan Stankoven got the Canes a rare 2025 PPG. And we got the Canes kids for the surge. Jankowski already has as many goals as the rat i his month or so in Raleigh.

Meanwhile, the rat got 2 points in his Dallas debut in a loss. Funny how the offense comes as soon as he leaves. He also admitted that he decided a week ago he would not resign w/Carolina. Yet he dragged out the process of signing w/the Stars, so the Canes could not do anything w/the picks they got.

So screw the rat. I don't think he gave his all here. I think he didn't handle this process professionally at all. And whether intentionally or not, insulted the franchise, the fan base & the citizens of the city. Screw the rat.

[Amazin69]

Kuzmenko hasn't scored yet, but the Kings are 2-0 with him in the lineup, having somehow gotten the overtime win (Kings still suck after 60:00, now at 3-6 in OT and 1-3 in Shootouts) against St.Louis in a very dull low-event game on Saturday night, and turned around and scored all night long in Vegas, building multiple multiple-goal leads that David Rittich could never completely blow and picking up the 6-5 road win on Sunday.

I do like Kuzy's eagerness to dig the puck out of scrums in front of the goalie and his facility for blind spinning backhand passes to open teammates (there's no reason Kempe shouldn't have converted the one on Saturday where he fed it from the goal line on the left side across the slot to a wide-open Kempe in the right circle). And both Kopitar and Kempe are scoring, which not only lends credence to the idea that Alex Turcotte was what was holding the top line down, but also suggests that Kuzmenko is at least drawing defensive attention.

Nick Nickson raised the possibility of referring to Kuzmenko-Kopitar-Kempe as the "Special K" line. I don't know; it's certainly better than some other ways to show that you have three guys with "K" names, but perhaps the concept shouldn't be noted at all? We could call them "the Euro line" or some such (1 Russian, 1 Slovene, 1 Swede) but that feels weird, given that Kopitar has been a King for over half his life at this point. Meh.

(When discussing Taylor Swift's romantic life, I have no trouble referring to Karlie Kloss Kushner as "KKK", but she chose that monogram. This is different, I feel.)

****************
Nick Nickson is retiring at season's end, after 44 years with the broadcast team. (I think part of him wanted to tie Bob Miller's mark, but not break it, since it was Bob who gave him his start, after all.)

This certainly opens the door to bringing back Alex Faust, who's done some Rangers TV and some Bruins radio, but doesn't yet have a permanent spot. (He's still doing TNT games, as well. The Bruins bumped up their existing radio man, Judd Sirott, to replace Jack Edwards.). I'm a bit worried the Kings might turn to Jeremy Schaefer, who does the radio for AHL Ontario and whom the Kings used for a 2-game road trip earlier in the season. Schaefer was…acceptable, but nothing special, and perhaps it's good news that Nickson has made every road trip since.

But I want Alex! [/tantrum]

(Have you gotten used to having Maniscalco as the pbp guy yet, Cobra? It still weirds me a bit to catch a Kraken replay and hear Forslund there, rather than on the 'Cane-casts. Life must be a bit dull without your regular dose of "That's hockey, baby!" and "Hey-hey, what do you say?", I'd Imagine.)

*******************

The other change that the Kings have made is going back to Mikey Anderson (hand injury healed) and Doughty as the #1 defensive pair, with Gavrikov going back to LD2 and being paired with Brandt Clarke, and Joel Edmundson and Jordan Spence as the 3rd pair. Mikey and Vlad-Gav had done fine as the lead pair, and Edmundson was having a surprisingly strong season as a 2nd pair D (with Edmundson and Warren Foegele having the top 2 +/- ratings on the entire team, I guess I need to apologize to Rob Blake for my criticism of his off-season decisions), but this creates 3 right shot/left-shot pairs and removes the need for Kyle Burroughs or whomever as the 7th D.

(I do feel a bit bad for Jacob Moverare, who had been a decent 3rd pair with Spence and is now consigned to the press box, but hopefully Mo-Mo will get mo' chances in the future.)

***********************

Kuzmenko is wearing his traditional #96, as that is when he was born. Of course, Brandt Clarke is wearing #92, but he's not four years older than Kuzy, so what's that deal about?

I don't know for certain, but I imagine it went something like this:

KINGS EXECUTIVE: Welcome to the team, kid! Do you have a preferred jersey number?

BRANDT CLARKE: Well, Anze Kopitar wears #11 since he was the 11th pick in his draft, and I was the 8th pick, so #8, perhaps?

EXEC: Sorry, that's Drew Doughty's number and when he retires, the number will be retired, as well.

CLARKE: Oh, good point. Well, maybe I'll be twice as good as Doughty! Give me #16.

EXEC: Can't help you there. it's already retired, for Marcel Dionne.

CLARKE: Oops. Well, I can be at least half as good as Doughty! #4, please.

EXEC: Retired. In honor of Rob Blake, the guy who drafted you, the guy who signs your paychecks…

CLARKE: Oh, yeah, right. (Thinks). Maybe just stick a 1 in front of the 8, and give me 18?

EXEC: Dave Taylor. The guy who played 1111 games as a King and drafted Kopitar with that #11 pick.

CLARKE: Good grief. Er…8 from 100 is 92. Can I get that?

EXEC: Sold! Here you go, kid.

I mean, I rather hate the Yankees and the Celtics, so I don't know why I enjoy the "we're running out of numbers" scenario with my Kings, but I do. Huh.

[Amazin69]

KIngs have played two games since the win in Las Vegas, and have been both awful and awesome, at the same time.

They are taking waaaaay too many penalties (8 against the Islanders, 5 versus Washington), but killed them all (first time they've gone 13-for-13 in 2 games since 2006) and the PK is now up to 4th in the League. A large part of that was Darcy Kuemper, which is good because you want your #1 GK to be hot this time of year.

And also because it was rather sickening seeing Washington coming in to our place with the best record in the League and P-L DuBois having a strong season and recalling how much we gave up to get him (and to get rid of him) and now we only have Kuemper as Kuempensation. But if Darcy wins his 2nd Cup for us, I suppose I'll get over it.

***************

We've also been scoring (7 goals in the past 2 games), which is nice. Andrey Kuzmenko is still waiting for his 1st point as a King, but Kopitar has 5 in the 4 games that Kuzy has been on his line, so perhaps he's benefited from the upgrade.

Quinton Byfield, you'll recall, hasn't done nearly as well centering for Fiala this season as he did playing with Kopi and Kempe last year, but he's getting hot now. Goals in 5 consecutive games, which is the first time a King age 22 or under has done that since the pre-Gretzky days of 1987. (Both Robitaille and Jimmy Carson did it that year.)

****************

And so these past two wins push the League-best home record to 22-3-4. Not quite as impressive as when we were 17-3-1, but it's good that we've actually won the majority of the recent home games, rather than struggling through 60 and collecting the Pity Point. Especially as we still have 12 home games to go, vs. only 6 on the road. Stay dominant, kids!

We've even moved past Edmonton into 2nd place in the Division which, as we're likely to play the yet again in the first round of the playoffs (we're a bit behind VGK, the Oilers are nicely in front of Calgary/Vancoouver) means we'll take all the home-ice help we can get.

(In case you've forgotten, here are the Kings' last 3 playoff series:

2021-2022, lost to Edmonton in 7 games
2022-2023, lost to Edmonton in 6 games
2023-2024, lost to Edmonton in 5 games.

Really not thrilled with how this trend is running, obviously.)

[Amazin69]

Actually, it turns out that the Oilers had won on Friday night, so the Kings needed to beat Nashville on Saturday to get back the #2 spot.

They only committed 2 penalties, but the offense played a completely constipated game, unable to find a shooting lane all night long.

Nashville, meanwhile, has apparently given up on the idea of scoring. Their shot-leader was 4th-line center Michael McCarron. Apparently all you have to do to pull the Cats' teeth nowadays is shut down Ryan O'Reilly and they can't even get the puck to Stamkos and Forsberg and Marchessault. Not a hint of a threat all night long.

And so the snoozer went to OT at 0-0. (Kings are 3-0-6 in OT, but Preds are 3-0-7, so it's a wash.). The Kings were a little disappointed, as they had hit two posts and seen LaFerriere hit the crossbar on a breakaway, but perhaps they could get another chance.

And indeed, Quinton Byfield, looking extend his goal streak to 6 games, came zooming down the right side, lined up a shot, fires…and hit the post. FFS.

But later on, Kempe managed to slide inside of Jacob Vrana, drawing the goalie's attention, slipped a nice pass to Byfield and this time QB found the net for the GWG, and we won!

So that's 6 games in a row for Byfield scoring, the most since Robitaille did that in 1992-1993 (the Cup finals year, recall). He'll never get the club record (Charlie Simmer had a 13-game streak, back in the Triple Crown Line days), but it's still nice.

Darcy Kuemper got the shutout and has now allowed a total of 1 goal in 3 games this week. He is now 12-0-1 in his last 13 home starts, breaking Kelly Hrudey's club mark for home game point streaks.

Kings now head to Minnesota and Chicago, hoping to avenge how badly they **** the bed on their last Midwest trip. It's a Monday-Thursday, so Kuemper can start both games. (I still like David Rittch but once you lose 5-1 in Chicago, I don't need to see that again. Even if that was mostly the defense's fault.)

[Cobra Mgr]

[Amazin69]

Yowch!

(Kings lost their streaks in Minnesota last night, allowing 2 PPG after scoring one of their own. Kuzmenko was on the ice for the goal, but still has not registered a point. [Kempe goal, assisted by Fiala and Doughty.] I am getting a little nervous and will be more so if we lose more games, but I'm holding off on the Anson Carter comparisons…for now.

The telecast did note that the back-to-back shutouts Darcy Kuemper recorded against WAS and NAS were the first time a King has done that since 2018. The goalie then?

Darcy Kuemper, in his first half-season in LA before we cashed him in for…um, Scott Wedgewood and Tobias Rieder. [Eek.] Of course back then, Kuemper was backing up Jonathan Quick and there was no sense in letting him linger on the bench when we had young talent such as Jack Campbell and Cal Peterson to develop…)

[Cobra Mgr]

Canes continue their hot streak last night vs the Sharks. 8 wins in a row, outscoring the opposition 27-10 in that span. All this while the PP still remains anemic, giving up a SHG for the only San Jose score. New editions Stankowski, Jankovic & Hall are melding w/the roster seamlessly. Everyone is playing so well, there is a lot of debate who will get dropped once Svechnikov & Carrier come back from injury.

Next up. On the road vs Amazin's Kings.

Meanwhile, the Stars have dropped to 2-4 since acquiring Mikko the Rat. Last 3 contests have gone into OT. the Rat has 4 pts & a -2 in a Dallas uniform.

[Amazin69]

Kings tuned up for today's showdown by getting their W back in Chicago on Thursday night, whilst I was in the midst of the Madness that is March. Goals by Trevor Moore (about time) and Alex Turcotte (!) gave LA a 2-0 lead in the 1st period, but the Kings blew enough chances to stay within range, and in the 2nd, Warren Foegele decided to drift down to the crease while penalty-killing. No, Warren, that's where the D men play!

This left Connor Bedard uncovered at the right circle, which proved not so great when a rebound came his way and he sent it home. But Kuemper had another strong game in net, and Joel Edmundsson added the e-n for the 3-1 final.

(On the Hawks-cast, Darren Pang incorrectly called Moore an "LA native". No, Darren, he's from Thousand Oaks. Not even the same county. Get your trivia right, D!)

So bring it on, Canes! Bring it ON!!

(Okay, I'm just setting up the joke for if we lose. It's a defense mechanism, okay?)

[Cobra Mgr]

Dang! What da bleep?!?

[Amazin69]

We're playing David Rittich! (Gotta save Kuemper for Boston tomorrow and Quickie and the Rangers on Tuesday.). What more can we do for you?

Nick Nickson points out the three of the Kings' goals have gone in off of the pipes. Which is some solace for Kotchekhov, but we've scored a few more besides those.

[Cobra Mgr]

Originally Posted by Amazin69

We're playing David Rittich! (Gotta save Kuemper for Boston tomorrow and Quickie and the Rangers on Tuesday.). What more can we do for you?

Nick Nickson points out the three of the Kings' goals have gone in off of the pipes. Which is some solace for Kotchekhov, but we've scored a few more besides those.

I didn't turn on the game until it was 6-0, which made me turn it off. But the color guy for the Canes, Tripp Tracy, said Kochetkov was outplaying the Kings goalie. And I'm like "what are you trippin' on?"

[Cobra Mgr]

Philly Flyers fire Tortorella

[Amazin69]

Well, it won't be much solace for the 'Caniacs, but the Kings did follow up the 7-2 over Carolina (7 different Kings scored, all 12 forwards had at least 1 point) with an identical 7-2 over the (remnants of the) Bruins, in which 7 different Kings scored and 16/18 skaters had a point. (Alex Turcotte and one fo the defense were the only slackers). It's the first time that the Kings had scored 7 (or more) in consecutive games in almost 30 years, since April 1995.

Kuzmenko's first point, where he did one of his "drastically change the point of attack" passes by sending it from below the right circle to Kopitar below the left (Kopi then tried to feed Kempe in the slot, but Jordan Martinook stuck a skate in the way and it deflected in, so it was Anze's goal) was very nice, but the whole team was free-flowing. Tripp Tracy may have made too many excuses for Kochetkov, but his general point was that the Canes were losing all the board battles and that's why the Kings seemed to be moving faster. (Goal #1 was set up when Sammy Helenius got the puck away from two Canes as the Kings were changing, and Kempe hit the ice full speed, found the puck waiting for him, drove hard on the net, faked right, causing Kochetkov to lose an edge in his left skate and thus be unable to cover when Kempe switched back to left.). The 4th line of Jeannot and Helenius and Turcotte (apparently being called "The Crash-Boom-Bang Line") has been racking up a lot of hits and not turning the puck over, and now they're starting to score as well. (Jeannot had goals in both games and Helenius also scored against Boston.)

Of course, Boston's major issue is that they can't get the puck on net. They came into the game against the Kings not having had 10 shots in any of their past 6 periods, and didn't manage that in either the 1st or 2nd, despite scoring in both. Then in the 3rd period, down 3-2 and needing to salvage at least one point from the game, they turned up the intensity…and managed only 2 shots while allowing 4 goals, none of which were empty-netters. "Boston Ruins", indeed.

Tuesday brought the equally-struggling Rangers, who managed just one shot in the opening period. But then they came out in the 2nd and scored despite a great effort by Darcy Kuemper, as replays showed that the puck had juuuuuuuuust crossed the line before Darcy leg-swept it away.

Fortunately for the Kings, the aggressive Rangers also took some penalties, and we got two PPG. Steve Valliquette, the MSG studio analyst, pointed out that the problem is that the Rangers go to the ice too often to block shots, and then don't get back up quickly enough. It's pretty easy for Kuzmenko to do one of his cross-ice passes to Kevin Fiala, waiting at the back post, when the guy who's supposed to be guarding that side of the ice is literally ON the ice, and all Kuzy needs to do is skate around him to the passing lane in what has essentially become a 5-on-3. (According to Valliquette, the Rangers PK has gone prone 57 times this year, resulting in 19 goals allowed.) And with the 2-1 lead after 2, the Kings locked down for the 3rd period, and Fiala added an ENG (#28 on the year, second on the team to Kempe's 29) and we won, 3-1.

So that's a team-record 15-game home point streak (12-0-3) and Kuemper has a personal 15-game streak of his own (14-0-1, extending the record he took from Kelly Hrudey). Of course none of this will mean Jacques if we don't actually get home-ice against Edmonton, so some decent efforts in our 4 remaining road games would be nice, as well. We'll see how we do in Colorado in about a half-hour.

[Amazin69]

Originally Posted by Cobra Mgr

Philly Flyers fire Tortorella

I would start to think that perhaps Torts just isn't very good…but his last two assignments have been Columbus and Philly, which is like moving from the Titanic to the Lusitania. Better luck next time, Torts.

(Don't take the Buffalo job, even if it's offered. Trust me.)

[Cobra Mgr]

Tonight Carolina & Montreal both scored in the 1st :41. I've never seen both teams score in the opening minute before.

[Amazin69]

So the Kings went to Colorado on Thursday, and were greeted by a scowling Jared Bednar:



Except that on Thursday, Bednar was wearing a dark turtleneck and a black jacket and I spent the first period wondering where I had seen that funereal wardrobe/deathly scowl/flowing hair look before.

Until it hit me!



It's The Angel of Death from the original Charmed! (As played by Simon Templeman)

Well, no wonder the Kings were knocked stone cold corpse-like in Colorado! (Avs 4, LA 0). As The Angel always told Piper, Death is inescapable.

(For purposes of this argument, ignore the literally dozens of times various Halliwell sisters escaped from the beyond, through time-travel or magic or useful screams of "LEEEEEO!!!" or what have you. Including the time when Piper herself was dead and on Reaper duty, collecting souls on Death's List.)

More prosaically, the Kings played David Rittich for unknown reasons, given that going Sunday-Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday is exactly what Kuemper will need to do in the playoffs, so why is he skipping this trip? Rittich can handle his old pals the Sharks on Sunday after Kuemper takes care of Toronto tonight, but Darcy shouldn't have needed any other help. Meh.

The Kings held it scoreless in the first, but then the Avs got two quick ones in the 2nd. Then the Kings got lucky when the puck came to Quinton Byfield, who was all alone between the dots, with nobody within 30 feet of ice.

Alas Byfield spent so much time faking Mackenzie Blackwood down to the ice that by the time he shot the puck, Devon Toews was close enough get a toe on it and come up with a skate-save of his very own. Then Warren Foegele, trying to follow up, fell over the prone Blackwood, the refs somehow called that "interference", the Avs scored on the ensuing power play and that was that.

The Kings did get three power play chances of their own, but the Avalanche had apparently been listening to Steve Valliquette (see previous post) and discovered that, yes, penalty-killing is much easier when you stay on your feet. Damn it, Steve! Don't give away the secrets!

Oh, well. On to (we can only hope) drive Steven Dangle nuts, in about 7 minutes from now.

(Bednar's Death Stare is working on pretty much everybody…the Avs are 12-1-1 since the trade deadline.)

[Bluenoser]

No 890 for the GR8 #8 - only 5 from breaking the record with 9 games to play.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5LPgdG-dnM

[Amazin69]

Total faceplant by the Kings last night…leading 1-0 after 2 (Alex LaFerriere finally gets #16 after an 18-game drought), they attack to start the 3rd, drawing a penalty on John Tavares…

…and then Auston Matthews smacked the puck off of Kopitar's stick as he tried to enter the zone on the power play, chased it down for a short-handed breakaway, got stoned by Kuemper, the puck got knocked into the air, Matthews knocked it down, passed it back and forth, and eventually scored the goal.

Jim Hiller challenged, since it sure looked as though the puck was face-high when Matthews knocked it down (which would be high-sticking) but Toronto (NHL HQ, I mean) apparently isn't so good at tracking pucks in the air, and declined to over-rule the on-ice refs. 1-1

This cost LA a power play, so the remainder of the Tavares penalty was now 4-on-4. Which became 4-on-3 when we took another penalty, then 5-on-3 when Tavares got out of the box, but we killed all that off. However, later on, Vladislav Gavrikov and William Nylander cross-checked each other and apparently we don't do offsetting minors any more, so it was back to 4-on-4.

Which became 4-on-3 when Kuemper was charged with tripping a Leaf who was going through the crease, and then Drew Doughty showed that he had NOT been listening to Steve Valliquette, because after Toronto took three shots in a row, he went down to block a fourth, which basically made it a 4-on-2, and Morgan Rielly fed Tavares for the go-ahead goal. And then when the Kings pulled the goalie, Marner got the puck off of Kopitar's stick (bad game for the captain!) and fed Tavares for the ENG.

To make matters worse, both VGK (at Nashville) and Edmonton (v. Calgary) pulled out late wins. The Oilers (without McDavid, Ekblad and their #1 goalie) trailed 2-1 late, but Draisaitl (in his first game back) tied it with 3:12 left in regulation and then scored the winner in OT. You couldn't have sat for just ONE more game, Leon?

So the Kings, who seemed to be on their way to leading the Oil by 4 points with a game in hand, are suddenly tied, and we'll be spending that game tonight against the Sharks. Which should be a win…but we've bombed out against them in 2 of 3 times this season, including a December game where we totally fell apart in the 3rd, going from tied 2-2 to a 7-2 loss. So…who knows?

Grrr.

[reds1]

Jets win their 51st game of the season, their third in a row plus they get a sweet goal from their 23-year old centreman, Cole Perfetti.