Back on Top With Two Shootout Losses

In the third back-to-back of this young season, the Los Angeles Kings lost to the San Jose Sharks and Vancouver Canucks in shootouts and yet they find themselves back at the top of the Pacific Division. Odd, I know; but sometimes weird occurrences just happen. Even though the Kings were not the victors in either game, they were both great to watch. There were hit posts, rush plays, and surprise contributions all over the place. In any other year, these are two teams the Kings usually lose to, but this season is, once again, proving they are on a constant uptick.

(LAKings.com)

While viewing the game on Wednesday against the San Jose Sharks, I did not realize how much their roster had changed until I saw the lineup. Gone are Christian Ehrhoff and Jonathan Cheechoo; in are Dany Heatley and Manny Malhotra. The make up of their team seems to have remained the same but the difference in this equation is a better Kings roster. That being said, the Kings dominated the first period while the Sharks came back in the second, and the teams battled it out all the way to the shootout. My question here is, "Why was Alexander Frolov left out of the top three shooters?" He had the only Kings goal of the game and was grinding it out as much as the other players, so your guess is as good as mine. It also must be noted that he was left out of the top three shooters against the Canucks as well.

Jonathan Quick played both games and looked solid while Sharks' Evgeni Nabokov and Canucks' Andrew Raycroft looked just as steady. First off, who knew Raycroft could still play! He was hit with 31 shots while Quick had just 15 sail his way. Second, did the Kings not realize that Nabokov was going to stop every shootout shot that went directly towards his chest? I don't get the logic used by the players; subsequently, the Sharks left the arena with two points.

(LAKings.com)

This picture's purpose is solely to show how ridiculous/awesome Bailey is.

Points of interest:

• Scott Parse notched his first NHL goal of his career and has made quite the statement.
• Anze Kopitar is still among the league leaders in point production.
• Hockeywood, L.A. is growing nicely and every Kings fan should check it out!

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A Good Fight: Sharks 3, Kings 2 (SO)

The San Jose Sharks and my Kings battled it out on the ice last night and it was quite a battle. I went into the game not expecting a win; I just wanted a good fight out of my boys, which is exactly what I got. The Sharks came in with an ungodly record and I just sat back to watch whatever was going to unfold.

Surprisingly, the Kings only took two penalties, one of which was a fighting major. So they were shorthanded only once, but that proved to be just the thing the Sharks needed to get on the board. The Sharks went down plenty of times but the Kings couldn't convert any of them because those guys have these ridiculous penalty killing units. I was quite shocked actually. They were always a step ahead of the Kings, which was getting frustrating because there'd be times where the Kings would just struggle to get past the neutral zone! The shots on, hits, and faceoffs were virtually even, so there weren't really any complaints from me in that regard.

The scariest part of the game was when Erik Ersberg took himself out of the game about six minutes into the second period, and it was announced that Jason LaBarbera was in net. I felt we stood a fighting chance for the win with Ersberg in net, but once Barbs got between the pipes.... basically, all hope was lost for me. But the boys made it through regulation and the OT frame. The shootout...

I thought Wayne Simmonds had gotten an inordinate amount of time and THEN he was in the shootout. Where were Anze Kopitar and Dustin Brown?? The shootout had Wayner, Patrick O'Sullivan, and Teddy Purcell. I could understand the latter two, but Simmonds? The game is basically falling on the shoulders of three guys and our top two players can't take the shot? It's the Sharks! C'mon man... In any case, we went away with one point, which is obviously better than none. So we'll go into tomorrow and go against the New York Rangers. I have no idea what that's gonna be like, so I'm definitely looking forward to it.

Last thing: get over booing Rob Blake. Yeah, you hate him, you think he abandoned the team, you think he's a traitor, but (then again) you could be completely wrong. So get over booing him. It gets old and honestly takes the arena's focus away from what's important, supporting the Kings in their efforts to try to get a win from one of the best teams in the NHL right now.

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