The Throne Room

Ups, Downs and Other Random News

The past week, like much of the season, has been a bit of a roller coaster for the Kings. If inconsistency is an earmark of a young team still in the learning process, then, well, excuse the obvious but that’s what we’ve got.

A loss to the Ducks in Anaheim (in one of the most flat out boring games of the season) was certainly frustrating. A win back at Staples against Anaheim two nights later provided some sweet vindication (and, I refuse to join the Bobby Ryan ass kissing parade, sorry. Any King defender other than Peter Harrold would’ve laid Ryan on his ass and made him swallow half his teeth.) even though the game was a little more dramatic than perhaps we had hoped. Any win over the Ducks, provides a great deal of satisfaction. Anaheim has the least classy organization in the NHL, the most ignorant, insolent fans…I could go on and on. It’s going to be wonderful to watch them lose a ton of key free agents (thank you salary cap!) while we continue to improve. While the ignorant masses might gloat about them being a playoff team, I will personally enjoy watching them get bounced in the first round because they’re a bunch of gutless cheap shots who can’t stay out of the box. Anyway, I digress.

Saturday was, in my estimation anyway, the worst game of the season for the Kings. They didn’t win many battles, didn’t have the necessary hustle and were rendered offensively ineffective to the point they made Kevin Weekes look good. Yup, that’s pretty embarrassing. New Jersey played their system to a tee. The Kings managed 35 shots against Weekes and the Devils, but few of them were more than harmless. The Devils are good at what they do, for certain. They scored 3 power play goals, and the Kings penalty killing, which has been good all season for the most part, looked pretty suspect. Adding to that frustration was the fact the Kings couldn’t catch a break from the officials…which leaves me to rehash…

I’ve been pretty critical of the officials all season long. Time and time again these guys are blatantly blowing calls. Every game I’ve attended this season there have been some pretty obvious no-calls on both participating teams, as well as some pretty ticky-tac stuff that got called. Saturday night’s game was absolutely atrocious in the officiating department (and it didn’t involve Don Koharski!). The Kings got sent to the box repeatedly for ticky-tac “infractions” and New Jersey was repeatedly not called for blatant ones. Case in point - one shift at the end of the first period where Dustin Brown was taken down away from the puck (interference), tripped while carrying the puck, and then cross checked to the ice by Devils’ center John Madden. No call. Later in the second period Dustin Brown got called for a slash that was little more than a love tap. I’m no conspiracy theorist but if you didn’t know better you’d assume that Brad Meier and Justin St. Pierre were on the Devils’ payroll.

I’m not going to suggest the officials cost LA the game. When you can only score once against a fringe NHL goalie like Weekes, you’re not going to win. My chief complaint is, who the hell do these officials have to answer to? You or I would be fired for poor job performance. The NHL doesn’t allow criticism of it’s officials (like every other major pro sports league), but at least in some other sports, the officials are held to some level of accountability. In some cases, they even admit when they’re wrong (see: Ed Hochuli). Based on what I’ve seen both in person and in games I’ve watched on TV, the NHL needs a major overhaul in this category. Hell there are guys reffing in local men’s leagues who do it with more integrity than the clowns officiating the best league in the world. I keep thinking maybe I ought to apply to become an NHL referee. After all, it would be pretty sweet to get paid for sucking at my job! But, back to the game…

I thought Jon Quick played well enough. It’s pretty tough for a guy not getting a lot of goal support to stop everything thrown at him. Three of New Jersey’s goals were deflected, one was a 2-on-1 pass, and the other was a nice move and a perfect over the shoulder shot by Zach Parise. I thought Terry Murray’s decision not to pull him was the right one. The glove save he made on the first New Jersey power play of the night was instant highlight reel material. Quick isn’t giving up soft goals like LaBarbera before him, his great games have peaked higher than any other Kings goalie this season and his OK games haven’t been as low as that of his counterparts either. That said, Terry Murray has been preaching giving both goalies playing time, and coming off the loss I am expecting to see Erik Ersberg in net for the Kings against Tampa on Monday night.

In other news:

Dustin Brown has been named to the All-Star team for the Western Conference. We all know the All-Star system is flawed (see: Eastern Conference starting lineup and Giguere and Neidermayer starting for the West), but the coaches got this one right. The fact that there weren’t any other Kings on the West roster reinforces my theory that the Kings don’t get much respect from most of the east coast based hockey media. Alexander Frolov, in my estimation is more deserving than a couple of the forwards on the West roster (and yes, I understand Tkachuk is a sentimental pick).

Drew Doughty and Erik Ersberg have both been named to the Young Stars game. Doughty will start on defense for the rookies and Ersberg will start for the sophomores. Exciting for both players, but how in the name of Odin did Kyle Quincey not make this game?

Terry Murray was on Kings Talk on the Kings’ flagship radio station, KTLK AM 1150 after Saturday’s game and he says Jack Johnson should be cleared to participate in full-contact drills by Wednesday of this week. Will be interesting to see if Johnson will get a 2 week conditioning stint in Manchester or will stay in El Segundo. My vote would be to get him some game action in the AHL to help bring him up to speed, but I don’t believe that’s a likely scenario.

Kings take on Tampa at Staples Monday night. Lightning forward and first-overall pick Steven Stamkos was a healthy scratch against Anaheim in Tampa’s last game. He’s expected to play Monday night, but to every King fan who griped about picking second overall instead of first, at least at this juncture it’s clear the Kings got the better player in Doughty. The hapless Bolts beat the Ducks 4-3 in their last contest. Hopefully the Kings will rebound from their stinker of a game Saturday night with a big win.

See you at Staples.
-JS