The Throne Room

Kings Overcome Officiating Incompetence for Shootout Win

It’s happened a little too often lately in the NHL, let alone to the Kings: An excellent game, very well played by both teams involved has it’s outcome decided by incompetent officiating. It happened to the Kings back on January 11th against San Jose, it happened to Boston at home tonight against Columbus, when a phantom high stick call against Milan Lucic gave Columbus a 4 minute power play in which they scored the game winning goal. And, it almost happened to the Kings tonight against Buffalo. Fortunately this time, the Kings would not allow themselves to be beaten by the officials.

The Kings played a very strong game and if one is to be honest, were the better team by a decent margin tonight. Buffalo, a very good team with an outstanding record against the Western Conference this season, took advantage of some favorable bounces - both by the puck and the guys in stripes.

Kings took a 1-0 lead in the first period when Drew Doughty’s point blast was redirected by Brad Richardson. The deflection was as perfect as they come, and exactly the type of play you need to beat a guy like Miller, who has been the NHL’s best goalie this season to date.

The Sabres got on the board in the first minute of the second period when Clarke MacArthur’s pass went off the stick of Sean O’Donnell past Jon Quick. The play wasn’t the worst of ideas by O’Donnell, but the puck took a bad bounce off the shaft of his stick and the game was tied. At that point, the officiating got very dicey. With Buffalo on the power play, Tomas Vanek was battling for position with Drew Doughty in front of the King net. Vanek cross checked Doughty from behind and sent him to the ice, leaving the Sabre forward all alone in front of Quick. Tim Connoly fed the puck from the right corner right on to Vanek’s stick and it was 2-1 Buffalo. The officials missed, or rather, decided not to call an obvious interference penalty against Vanek for a takedown that WWE mogul Vince McMahon would’ve been proud of. I’m all for “letting them play” but that non-call was just plain incompetent.

The zebras struck yet again when Oscar Moller appeared to have tipped the puck past Miller to tie the game at two. The play was reviewed and the NHL’s “War Room” in Toronto made the determination that Moller intentionally directed the puck in with his glove. The replay does clearly show contact between puck and glove, however it’s pretty clear that Moller is attempting to contact the puck with the shaft of his stick. What the replay officials were thinking at that point is just baffling. The goal was disallowed, zebras 2, Kings 1.

In an act of atonement for the Sabres first goal, Sean O’Donnell scored his second goal of the season with 55 seconds remaining in the second period on a blast over the shoulder of Miller, who had Michal Handzus perfectly stationed in front of him as a screen. Twice now in the last 4 games, the late goal in a period, which has often gone against the Kings this season, went the Kings’ way.

Sabres regained the lead again early in the 3rd period when Jason Pominville, driving to the net got tangled with Rob Scuderi and fell into Quick, preventing him from being able to square to the play. Sabres defenseman Craig Rivet flipped the puck past a sprawling Quick, off the crossbar and in. It was a play that I thought was at least borderline goaltender interference, but in real time it was truly difficult to tell whether or not he had been taken down by Scuderi. Replay shows Scuderi nary made contact with Pominville, but in this case it was close enough to allow for human error. Not the right call but if they were going to blow one, this one was at least close.

And yet the Kings roared back to tie the game yet again. Entering the Buffalo zone 3 on 2, Dustin Brown made a drop pass to Jaret Stoll, whose shot attempt deflected off a Sabre player and was tipped in by Ryan Smyth, who was unmolested at Miller’s right hand side. The officials again called for video review and you just had a feeling the way the game had been called that they were going to manufacture a reason to waive off the goal, as replay indicated it was an incidental deflection off Smyth’s skate. Thankfully, they got one right on the night and the game was tied.

Not to be understated was the play of both goaltenders. Jon Quick and Ryan Miller were both outstanding on the night, and with the score tied at 3 both made saves for their team that helped secure at least the single point getting out of regulation. Miller in particular saved the Sabre’s bacon in the overtime period on more than one occasion.

It seemed that beating Miller in the shootout would be a daunting task, but Anze Kopitar made it look easy, going to the backhand and roofing it past Miller. Drew Stafford scored on a snapshot for Buffalo to even the shootout at one. Jack Johnson was robbed by the flailing glove of Miller and Quick foiled Pominville’s shot attempt. Dustin Brown scored in his second straight shootout, choosing to deke the aggressive Miller, who had been coming far out of the net on the Kings’ shooters. Browns move was a success, as it banked off the right post and in. Jon Quick made a pad save on Tim Connolly that displayed Gumby-like flexibility to seal the win.

The victory vaulted the Kings into 7th in the West, a point ahead of both Detroit and Calgary.

Next, the Kings begin a 5 game road trip in Detroit. If the Kings play as well as they did last game against Detroit, you have to figure Jimmy Howard can’t possibly be that hot twice. With both teams battling for postseason position, you have to figure revenge will be on the Kings’ minds Saturday. The game is a big test - Detroit has years of experience winning games that lead to playoff berths. These Kings are just getting their feet wet. The Kings haven’t won a game against Detroit since the end of the 2007-2008 campaign. They’re long overdue.

Kings in Detroit, Saturday afternoon at 4 on the West coast.

Go Kings!

-JS