Year-In-Review – 4 – J.S. Aubin & Jonathan Quick

(Juan Ocampo/Getty Images)

At least the mask was pretty cool.

I'm not sure I have too much to say on Monsieur Amp Energy. He was signed for a 1-year deal for $500,000, which some might say would be a bargain. I’m no wizard at etymology, but the word “bargain” has the word “gain” in it; any idiot can see that. I bring this up because I fail to see the “gain” the Kings had in signing J. S. Aubin. I can be a jerk and say this retrospectively because he didn’t do a whole lot in terms of his netminding. At the time of his signing I’m sure he had his purpose, but at the end of the day I’m not sure if he fulfilled said purpose. I will repeat the comment Teebz said a couple months ago in that Aubin was “a bag of crap.” Fantastic.

I'm not sure if I'm seeing things, but Aubin's stats look odd in that his wins, losses, and ties don't add up to how many games he's supposedly played. But, then again, he and Barbs switched it up a lot in the middle of games, so the stat could be true. Whatever, he played in 19 games for the Kings with 5 wins, 6 losses, and 1 overtime loss, while posting a 3.19 GAA, and a .886 save percentage.

I think one thing that stood out to me was that he was physically so much smaller than Barbs. I concluded that since he couldn’t take up as much space in the net, that he wouldn’t be as good as Barbs. Even though both trains of thought were accurate, the latter did not happen because of the former. Aubin just wasn’t as good as Barbs and everyone could see that. But I don’t want to completely discount him; I mean, he’s Mr. Amp with the francophone accent. I’m not gonna lie, I was always nervous to see Aubin either come in relief for Barbs or start a game (a.k.a. whenever he was in goal). For some reason, I never had the full confidence in him to keep pucks out of the net. The whole rotating the tandem in net was lame because it was abundantly clear who the number one was! Barbs backstopped the Monarchs in their playoffs run the previous season and Aubin was a free agent signing. We weren’t in the situation like Detroit was where they had a 1A and 1B. No, this was a clear #1 and #2.

December was a pretty cruel month with Aubin in net for half of it. After looking at the stats for the first couple of games, I realized that I didn't want to look at all of them because I'd just get more depressed. So let's just say that for the whole month the goaltending picture was pretty bad. During this time, Jonathan Quick was brought in to fill the backup role for just three (3) games. In that time he had one win and two losses, a 3.83 GAA, and a .855 save percentage.

(AP)

Too much booty in the pants

Quick’s first game was one that I actually had to catch on the radio, which was unfortunate because the Kings went ahead and beat the living snot out of whichever team they were playing. I definitely can’t remember which team it was and don’t care to look it up. But this was Quick’s first NHL win so I extend a "good job" to him.

Quick played in 19 games with Manchester this season where he posted an 11-8-0-3, with a 2.32 GAA, and a .922 save percentage. He then played in one playoff game for the Monarchs where he and Jonathan Bernier were going back and forth in net. Quick lost his one game in net while getting a 1.02 GAA, and a .974 save percentage. I definitely hope that he can make a showing at the training camp at the end of summer, but I'm pretty sure he's gonna be reassigned to Manchester once the season starts.

Going back to Aubin, we all know that he was the subject of the first ever trade between the Kings and Ducks. He passed through waivers and was in Manchester up until February 26th, trade deadline day. He was sent to the Ducks roster and, in return, the Kings got a 7th round pick in the 2008 Entry Draft. Not as glamorous an ending as one would hope, but he’ll go down in history with this tidbit of information. He was then immediately sent to the AHL’s Portland Pirates to backstop them in their run for the Calder Cup. But the most comical thing for me was that he was recalled near the end of the NHL season to backup Jonas Hiller while J.S. Giguere was out with a back injury. Seeing him on the Ducks bench clad in Ducks gear was…. terrible (read: hilarious).