Back And Forth: Canucks 4, Kings 2

The Kings played the Vancouver Canucks again up in western Canada where the latter came out the victors in this weird game. All six goals came in pairs with the last four occurring in less than five total minutes. Unfortunately the Kings received zero points from the contest but they remain in 13th place with 67 points in the Western Conference.

Special thanks to FSN for not airing the game with Bob Miller and Jim Fox. Listening to the Vancouver commentators was really "awesome." And by "awesome" I mean "painful." It's a good thing I possess the power of filtering out noise. Something else I found (and still find) annoying was that Denis Gauthier had the puck in the defensive zone at one point and started to pass it out when he fell over. That's right, he. Just. Fell. Over. Unbelievable. By the way, do the Kings really need two players on the roster who are only gonna be playing 5 or 6 minutes a night? Raitis Ivanans played 5:38 and Kevin Westgarth played 4:31. Westgarth needs to learn how to skate better and have more offensive upside or else he's probably gonna be in Manchester for a long time. I'm not sure why he's with the Kings right now, but it's not like he's moving from the 4th line anytime soon.

This game might have had the lowest number of hits the Kings have ever had with 11; the Canucks ended with only 9 too. Quite odd and a bit boring too, but I guess it doesn't help when you're being outshot 20-3 in the first period. The Kings spent the entire first period running around trying to get control of the puck, and the second period wasn't any better but at least the Canucks only had 7 shots then. The Kings best period was the 3rd in terms of shots where they got 14 but they were only able to get two goals!

(AP/Jeff Vinnick)

The first goal was the one part I enjoyed about this game; Alexander Frolov absolutely schooled Mats Sundin to score on the backhand. Talk about slick. But the whole game was a bit odd with Vancouver scoring twice in the first and entering the third period with the same score and then having the next two goals belonged to the Kings with Anze Kopitar scoring immediately after Fro scored. With some hope building for the Kings, the Canucks shut it down with two quick ones from Henrik Sedin. Out of the four against Jonathan Quick, two of them were definitely fluky ones. One bounced weirdly behind the net against the boards and Quick was caught out of position; the other was Henrik Sedin killing some time by taking the puck toward Quick on his own. He ended up dipsy doodling in front of Sean O'Donnell and getting the shot off pretty easily.

The end of the game got a bit exciting with Alexander Burrows taking a penalty with just under two minutes to go; the Kings pulled Quick and it was 6-on-4 for the rest of the game. Unfortuately, it was a no-go for the Kings and the Canucks are sitting in the 5th seed. The Kings face the San Jose Sharks tonight where, if they win, they'll STILL be in 13th place. In looking at the standings, I can be happy about one thing: the Ducks are in 12th place. Haha.

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Sweetness; Kings 3, Vancouver 2

The Kings faced the Vancouver Canucks last night in a pretty damned important game. The Canucks are sitting in 5th place in the Western Conference while the Kings are in 13th and still out by just a bit. This game brought them up two points and (as of today) are sitting just three points out of the 8th spot.

This game started out and continued to be a solid game for the Kings, not to mention exciting; that is, until the Canucks scored their first goal, which was just about the time Denis Gauthier thought it convenient to take a penalty on the next shift. Someone get that guy some glasses or something. So Matt Greene. He's pretty studly, I must say. But not in the "I think he's smoking hot" type of way; I mean more of the "you just blocked that puck with your goddamned face!!!!" And Jarret Stoll. What a game! He was in all the right places. For instance, his first goal was on the PP and Teddy Purcell found the open seam and Stolli snuck right up to slam home the perfect pass. After another goal, Stolli was named First Star of the game. AND RIGHTLY SO.

Jason LaBarbera was sitting on the bench for this game but Roberto Luongo wasn't looking that great. The first two Kings goals came within the first 10 shots of the game and, actually, both teams only had 22 shots on net. For being an exciting game with a lot of fast-moving flow, the shots on and against were definitely lower than usual. Anyway, just a short game recap for your reading pleasure.

(AP/Noah Graham)

Hey, buddy. We miss you.. I mean, ... I miss you...

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