Matt Moulson!

Here is your obligatory post on Matt Moulson for this season. I was asked to give my two cents on why I thought Moulson was shining so brightly this season and I hope you go check it out!

Please go to View From My Seats and read his great article on the mighty Matt Moulson!

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Starting The Road Trip Off on a Great Foot!

The Kings are off to a solid start to the season going 4 and 1. I found their game on Saturday against the St. Louis Blues to be a solidly won game while the win this morning against the New York Islanders was less cohesive but still satisfactory. On Saturday the Kings played a great game all around. The passing was clean, the transitions were smooth, and the lines were clicking nicely. They won 2-1 with the Blues giving it an exciting ending to the cap off the night.

Every game brings me closer to saying, "I'm cool with Ryan Smyth." I can't deny he does what the Kings have needed for a long time, get a body in front of the freaking net, and I can comfortably say I like Smyth better than Justin Williams. I feel like I'm never going to be sold on him; what's the deal? Someone please have a discussion with me! I give a definite two thumbs up to this win with the only time the Kings faltering in their play was the incident that led to Alexander Steen's goal, which was in and out of the net so quickly that play was not halted immediately. The defense looked great and Jonathan Quick was solid.

The score was also 2-1 for today's game on the Island, but the noted difference was that both teams were allowing the play to move back and forth through both zones instead of one team asserting themselves over the other. The Kings didn't control the game until Anze Kopitar's PP goal in the 2nd period. I can definitely see Kopitar's potential beginning to show itself from his past seasons If he keeps this point and performance streak moving forward, he will definitely get noticed outside of the greater Los Angeles area. The noted player of this game was Drew Doughty wearing facial protection due to the puck-in-the-mouth incident in Saturday's game. Jarret Stoll did an awesome job on this play drawing the opposition to him while he was bringing the puck into the Islanders' zone, which left Doughty wide open for the pass. Doughty slapped the puck and got it far side on Marty Biron for his second goal of the season. SICK.

(LAKings.com)

Even though the Kings are 4-1, there are still plenty of things the Kings need to work on, firstly, their faceoffs. Here are the percentages in the circle so far:

• 44% against the New York Islanders October 12
  
• 40% against the St. Louis Blues on October 10
• 38% against the Minnesota Wild on October 8
• 43% against the San Jose Sharks on October 6
• 41% against the Phoenix Coyotes on October 3

No need to paint a hazy picture from these stats; they're poor and everyone knows it. The amount of crucial faceoffs being lost is unbelievable. If the Kings gain the possession AT puck drop, it'd definitely reduce the number of heart attacks on my part.

By the way, who scored the lone Islanders' goal? Matt Moulson of course! He was looking quite scragly with his new coif, which probably is very much needed on the east coast. The funniest part about Bob Miller and Jim Fox's discussion of Moulson was his relationship with Jonathan Quick's wife's sister. It was mentioned twice that Moulson was perhaps Quick's future brother-in-law. Now, now, let's not jump the gun.

(LAKings.com)

The stats for this game overall weren't impressive in terms of shots on and hits. The Kings had 22 shots while the Islanders had 29. Hits were 22 and 34, respectively. It's fantastic the Kings are getting the wins, but the it's the little things that add up to carrying a solidly performing roster deep into the season. The individual players still have many parts of the game to work on, so that's definitely promising. There is room for lots of growth over the entire season, and I'm (almost) happy with the current team on the ice.

P.S. I love Raitis Ivanans. He played 2 minutes and 44 seconds and absolutely pounded the HELL out of Joel Rechlicz, whoever that is.

*~*~*~*

A few more things:

• Happy birthday to Mr. Bob Miller! Still looking great!
• Check out Hockeywood, L.A. for great content on the Kings!
  

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JMFJ: Kings 4, Islanders 3 (SO)

I don't have enough energy to write a full post, but I will say that out of these last five road games, this one against the New York Islanders has been the weakest one for the Kings. Well... you could argue that the one against the Ottawa Senators sucked too, but at least that was won without too much trouble. This game, on the other hand, was a different beast. The Islanders were forechecking the crap out of the Kings and I wasactually pretty surprised to learn that they're dead last in the league. Then again, one game does not a team make; I should know, I root for the Kings.

(Getty Images/McIssac)

Way. To. Go. You. Beast.

So this has been the second game where Jack Johnson has taken the 3rd attempt in the shootout. The first time was in his first game back from his injury a couple of weeks ago. I wondered what the hell Terry Murray was doing then, and tonight I threw my hands in the air when I saw the lineup flash on the TV screen whilst wondering where in the heck Anze Kopitar has been in the shootout. But Jonathan Quick (who was looking quite mortal tonight) made all three saves and Jack MF Johnson sealed the game with a nifty deck to the right and swinging the puck the other way. I will admit, if Kyle Okposo had made his attempt, I'd give him the sweetest shot of the night with that weird backhanded drag.

The Kings leave the east coast with another two points and come back to Staples Center for a three-game homestand before hitting the road again. It's been a pretty damn good road trip and I can't wait to see the boys in LA!

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Roadtrip Game 2 - Kings 3, Islanders 1

1st Period:
- Ricky Di is on the bench...looking....yummy. But are the Islanders thinking that this'll be an easy 2 points? Did they not watch the game against philly?
- Brownie's got 226 hits and leads the NHL by more than 50 hits from the guy in second.
- Kings PP - Man, Brad Stuart is making a showing. This is promising...there are some shots on but no goals.
- Kings PP again - Islanders are better at killing this penalty and the Kings don't get as many chances as they did on the first PP.
- Kings Goal - Matt Moulson (5). A broken play leads to a scramble in front of the net and Moulson gets the puck and gets the goal at 10:35.

(AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

That's right, goalie with a really long name. Kings are up.

- Witt gets a penalty and the third PP leads to Moulson getting an extra shift. He didn't get any minutes on the special teams on Tuesday's game, but here he is and he makes the most by getting a break to the net.
- Islanders Goal - Bryan Berard gets a straight on opportunity after Vish makes a bad pass at 14:19.
- Definitely did not like last 4 minutes of play by the Kings.

2nd Period:
- Kings clean up their act in the first 5 minutes.
- Shot of DiPi streaming water out of his mouth and Jim Fox saying that he's still feeling the effects of the flu. I spoke too soon as I'm sure he'd be in net if he was well. Yeah? Yeah?
- Kings PP - ...Kings are 0 for 4 on the PP in this game
- They spend some time doing a good job shutting down anything the Islanders want to try to start outside of their blueline.
- Mike Comrie must have a fantastic personality because he's just okay in the face, so I'm sure it's something else that The Duff sees in him.
- Moulson is now on the second line with Fro and Army. Nagy, you can go home...to Phoenix, we don't want you anymore.
- The tempo of this period is slower than in the first and there's no real definite puck possession for too long by either team.
- Theres a scrum after the whistle and all three Kings get pinned up against the boards by the Islanders after Fro went for the puck after the whistle. Comeau tries to start something with Moulson and both go to the box. The 4-on-4 doesn't bring too much except allow Kopi to display his moves.
- Trent Hunter has a rat taped to his chin. That is NOT a goatee. Gross.
- What is up with this line to end the period: Kopi, Fro, and Moulson. Crow! Stop it!

3rd Period:
- I like the opening minutes of this period. The Kings are working and Fro is, once again, being a beast on the puck.
- Kings PP - Kings Goal - Blake (5) gets the deflection from Brownie who got a nice cross-ice pass from Kopi at 7:22. Kings 2, Islanders 1.
- Kings PK - Good kill, good kill.
- The rest of the period goes a little faster than the 2nd and the Isles pull their backup with about 90 seconds to go.
- Kings Goal - Fro (12) shots the puck and it looks like it's gonna be an icing, but it's in the net at 19:19 and the Kings are up 3-1. Game. Is. Over.

Game:
Kings win!!! Two points!!
I'm just gonna gloat one more time about Moulson in this game. In the game against Philly on Tuesday he logged 8:55 total time on the ice. Tonight he got 17:23 and ended the night at a +2. Bye Nagy!

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Hidden Gems – 8 - Randoms

NHL.com correspondent Chuck Gormley wrote his Atlantic division update for this week. At the end of his post, which was all about Brodeur, he mentioned Brian Berard and Bill Guerin returned to Islanders’ lineup last week. He also included this quote:

Guerin said the blurred vision that kept him out of one game reminded him of his teenage years. “It's kind of like you're sitting in your car and all your windows are fogged up, like if you're making out with a girl.”

Haha, nice.

*****

NHL.com staff writer Dan Rosen did an article on Washington Capital’s Nicklas Backstrom (19). This Swedish player has been working on his transition to American life off the ice and has been fortunate enough to have Michael Nylander (35) as a mentor. It’s true that mentors are supposed to help others in whatever situation they find themselves. In this instance, Backstrom is still learning English words here and there, and this little bit here is pretty funny.

Aiding Backstrom’s transition has been his smooth adaptation of the English language. He was forced to take English classes in Sweden as part of the regular curriculum, which means he’s ahead of most of the NHL’s Europeans in that department.

“You still have to apply it, though,” Backstrom said. “If I hear Americans or Canadians speaking I still have to pick up some words. It’s only good for me because I want to learn, but I still have a problem with some words.”

Added Nylander: “Carrot. He didn’t know what it meant. Some guys came to me and said; ‘How do you say carrot in Swedish?’ I said, ‘Just tell him a rabbit eats it.’ ”

*****

I came upon this article written by Adam Proteau that moved me over to this page from The Buffalo News. The article is about GM Darcy Regier speaking on the low scoring from his Buffalo Sabres and throughout the NHL. But the reason I bring this up is because of the second to last paragraph in the article. I mean, how many times can a person say the same word in a sentence before it starts to sound stupid? But not only does Regier use a word five times in the same sentence, he uses different versions of the word "play" a couple of times in the SAME SENTENCE. Please just read this out loud and you'll see what I mean.

“It still comes down really to two things,” Regier said. “The players playing the game and the future players playing the game have to choose to play this game because it’s the most fun game of any game available to play. That ensures the top athletes in this sport.

Total count: Game - 5; Play - 4. Wait a second, I'm going to go ahead and count "player" in the "play" count.

New count: Game - 5; Play - 6

*****

After reading the story written by Matt Moulson that was more uplifting than anything I’ve read lately (excluding Martin Brodeur’s 500th win. Well done.), I knew there’d be something I’d come across that would bring an eye roll or two. Case in point, when I read “Canucks call up Brown with Wild rematch looming” from ESPN.com, the article was doing fine with talking about Mattias Ohlund’s hit against Mikko Koivu’s leg. The facts were facts and there wasn't too much commentary from this Associated Press writer. That was, until I got to the end where they decided to interview 6’7”, 260-pound Derek “I Will Enforce You” Boogaard about the situation. What made my eyes roll was his reference to Canucks Markus Naslund, Daniel Sedin, and Henrik Sedin.

“Maybe I can go after, or check Naslund and those Pinky and the Brain twins.”

*sigh*

*****

But let’s end on a high note. Last Saturday morning I was sitting in an unnamed restaurant near my home. When the waiter came up and asked what I wanted to drink, I answered “water” while wondering where in the world I had seen this guy before. The whole time while he was taking our order, I STILL couldn’t pin point it. But once he walked away, the light bulb turned on. Ladies and Gentlemen, Jonathan Cheechoo works at this unnamed restaurant as his day job. Don’t let his name tag fool you; he might want to go by Miguel while working here (and on his tan), but I know the truth.

I’m sorry Cheechoo, but you’ve been exposed! …and you're a little shorter than I thought you were going to be…

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