Kings vs. Sharks Immediate Thoughts

One of the reasons I started this blog in the first place – a minor reason, but a reason none the less – was to voice my thoughts/rants on my favorite professional team, the Los Angeles Kings. This shall be the first of that ilk.  Now, admittedly, I’m no Mayor or Insider…I wish I was a Half Season Ticket Holder  but I still rely on my full season ticket holder parents (thanks Dad!) but I’ve been passionately following this team for the vast majority of my life, so here goes:

Tonight the Kings won their 5th in a row for the first time in forever, and beat the Sharks 5-2.  These are my immediate impressions:

– Jim Fox said it best in the postgame show, but simply put the Kings are fun to watch right now.  Let’s hope that the days of consecutive 1-0 losses are behind us.  Its incredibly easier to root for a team scoring 4-5 goals a game than 0-1 a game!

– All four lines are really working.  Its taken the whole season to be able to say that, but man I was impressed with both the third and fourth lines tonight.  Yea, maybe Clifford-Fraser-Nolan doesnt strike the same type of fear that Kopitar-Williams-Brown does, but they work their asses off and good things come from it. 

– Anze Kopitar is a beast.  He is insanely skilled offensively (goals in four straight) but its his work everywhere else that makes him so dang valuable.  He is strong, wins faceoffs, defends like a boss, and just flat out doesn’t make many bad decisions on the ice.

– For almost the entire game, the Kings just beat the Sharks up.  Outworked em, outhit em, out shot em…just controlled the whole game.  It seemed like the Sharks looked disinterested for long stretches.  Which is weird to see from the Sharks.  I hope they look exactly the same the next two times we play them.

– Antti Niemi…not good.  He looked uncomfortable all night, gave up a lot of dangerous rebounds, and holy crap dont let Dustin freaking Penner score on you down a goal with 4 minutes to play from a bad angle.

– The last few weeks I’ve watched each of the Western Conference teams the Kings are battling for a playoff spot make a ridiculously long winning streak.  Phoenix did it, Dallas did it, Colorado did it…and the whole time I thought “man, we’re due for one of those”.  I am hoping this is it, and it carries us right to the #3 seed  by winning the division.  Yes, obviously we need to just get in first, but I cant help but lick my chops.

– Lastly, if I was anyone else in the league I would NOT want to draw the Kings in the first round of the playoffs, KNOCK ON WOOD that they make it in.  For a long time this season it was “oh man, if we could just score some goals we’d be the full package.  We have the goaltending, we have the defense, thats all that’s left”.  Well, guess what.  We score goals now.  Scary.

Excited to be at Staples Center Thursday for the game against the Blues.  Even more excited for the prospect of playoff hockey back in LA.  And even more still excited that the Kings are finally playing like the team we all thought they would be this season and beyond.  Could be a pretty fun next few months!