The Los Angeles Kings won the third game of their first round series against the St. Louis Blues. Jonathan Quick pitched his first shutout of the playoffs, and the skaters in front of him scored the one goal necessary to earn the win.

This was yet another physical game between these two teams. It’s not surprising, when one considers that physical play always ramps up during the playoffs, and it’s even less surprising when one considers the hard-nosed hockey style these two teams play on a regular basis. There was only one puck that got past a goaltender in this game, and it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the goal was the result of some greasy play in the crease. At one point, there were eight players in Brian Elliott’s crease, not including Brian Elliott himself. Elliott sprawled, and tried to snag the puck. It slid just out of his reach and the crowd in front of him thinned almost as quickly as it had formed. As Elliott pulled himself back into a standing position, Slava Voynov fired a puck far post, and Elliott, still stumbling, was unable to grab it. It was one of those tough goals, where the goalie didn’t have a chance to get set, but there wasn’t any direct interference at the moment when the puck crossed the line, so it was an legal goal, if an unfair one.

Obviously this was a big win for the Kings. Had they lost, they would have been down three games to none, and they would have faced elimination for the remainder of the series. Instead, they find themselves down two to one in games. It’s not ideal, but it certainly isn’t the hole they could be facing. I imagine each team is hoping to finish this series in as few games as possible (that will allow them to make it to the next round). There were 92 hits in tonight’s game, and these clubs are only going to dislike each other more and more with each shift.

The St. Louis Blues enjoy winning in dramatic fashion. Tonight’s game was a stronger effort for the LA Kings, but they still found themselves coming up short at the end of the night.

» Continue reading “Kings Lose Second Straight Playoff Game”

The Los Angeles Kings lost their first game of the postseason to the St. Louis Blues. St. Louis hosted the game (the Kings evidently like playing the underdog, even if this year they found themselves in the fifth seed weather than the eighth). Home ice appeared to be an advantage in this game, as the Blues severely tested goaltender Jonathan Quick, firing over 40 shots on goal. (Definitely not up to the Kings usual defensive standard.)
Alexander Steen scored the first goal of the game about halfway through the first period during a Blues power play. Brian Elliott (the Blues netminder) held onto a shutout for 59.5 minutes, until Justin Williams finally broke through for the Kings. During overtime, while Kevin Shattenkirk was serving a double minor for high sticking, Alexander Steen once more took control of the puck. Seeing an opportunity, he carried it in to the offensive zone shorthanded, and proceeded to score his second goal of the game.
This definitely wasn’t the Kings best game, but I don’t think it was absolutely awful. While they were definitely outperformed in the faceoff circle, they actually had more takeaways as a team than St. Louis (and fewer giveaways).
Now, St. Louis leads the series 1-0. The next game will also be in the Gateway city, but after that the Kings will return hone. While it would certainly be a disadvantage to go down by two games in a playoff series, I don’t think it will absolutely sink the playoff ship for Los Angeles-after all this team is experienced, and they like to do things in dramatic fashion.

3 Stars

1. Alexander Steen- when you score both of your team’s goals, and your team wins, you’ve made a good case for the number one star of the game. When you score the second goal in overtime, shorthanded, you’re a shoe-in for this spot.

2. Jonathan Quick-Had the Kings pulled out a win, Quick would have been the number one star. He made 40 saves on 42 shots. I think this Conn Smythe winner is looking for some more hardware.

3. Brian Elliott-Elliott made 28 saves in his team’s overtime win. Despite a rocky start to the season (and by rocky I mean, rocky like the Rocky Mountains I can see out my bedroom window), but in the month of April he reclaimed his job emphatically.

When I came across the Stars and Stripes subset from the 2011-12 In The Game Between The Pipes set, I scrapped my original ideas for this week’s Hump Day Hockey Cards. Given the horrible events that unfolded on Monday in Boston, waving the flag for a while seemed a much better thing to do.

The full 2011-12 In The Game Between The Pipes set includes 200 cards, with the Stars and Stripes subset consisting of 15 cards, with 10 additional cards following in the Goaliegraphs subset.

The subset celebrates goaltenders who have made a contribution to their country via international play. Goaltenders from Jim Craig, Tom Barrasso, John Vanbiesbrouck, Tim Thomas, and Ryan Miller are just a few of the players highlighted, with each card noting biographical information instead of spitting out the typical list of player statistics.

» Continue reading “Hump Day Hockey Cards: The Stars and Stripes Forever”

There are times in a game when there’s nothing better than seeing those rare zip-a-dee-doo-dah shots taken by a net cam. They’ll tell us where the puck was, who crashed the net, and provide the “I didn’t do it” and “It wasn’t me” voices on the ice with a “Stop being so silly” slap of photographic evidence. They can also capture some fantastic moments from outstanding goaltenders, utterly lousy goals and garbage goals where the puck seems to dance around in the blue paint, mocking everyone on the ice before sliding past the goal line.

» Continue reading “Hump Day Hockey Cards: Through The Net Cam, and What Score Found There”

Alexis is out today, dying of the plague, so I’m subbing in for her.

Today is the last HDHC before Christmas, so we’re going with a change of format here this week. Here now is the classic Christmas carol, “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas”… in hockey card form.

» Continue reading “Hump Day Hockey Cards: Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas”

At last, we arrive at the coda of the 2011-12 NHL season, the NHL Awards. The National Hockey League will spend the next few hours cringing at terrible jokes, raising an eyebrow just what Steven Stamkos is wearing, and hoping a Real Housewife doesn’t butcher another poor hockey player’s name. (Seriously, “Mar-TEN Saint Louissss” still rings in my ears to this day.)

The NHL Awards will air on NBC Sports Network starting at 7pm ET/6pm CT, and I’ll be here, live blogging the entire thing.

So grab your drink and pull up a seat. It’s going to be another long night.

All times in the liveblog are listed in CT. Newest posts will be on top.

» Continue reading “Kat Live Blogs The NHL Awards 2012!”

After 45 years of futility, a new team will be inscribed on the Cup. The Los Angeles Kings completed their improbable journey tonight, winning over the New Jersey Devils and hoisting the Stanley Cup for the first time ever.

Unfortunately, this game probably won’t be remembered so much for the Kings finally finishing off an amazing, historical run — but for Steve Bernier delivering this hit on Rob Scuderi.

The resulting five-minute power play from this disturbing hit resulted in three goals for the Kings. Gee, maybe now that a terrible boarding has resulted in a team losing the Stanley Cup, maybe players will stop doing it.

Jeff Carter scored the second goal in the five-minute power play and then increased the lead to 4-0 early in the second period. Adam Henrique then put the Devils on the board with 1:13 left in the second. Two quick goals later in the third, and the Kings were up 6-1, which would be the final score.

Not surprisingly, Jonathan Quick was named the Conn Smythe winner as MVP of the playoffs.

Congratulations to Captain Dustin Brown and the rest of the Kings! Now maybe the Los Angeles sports media will finally get your names and logos right.

For all of your Los Angeles Kings needs, please visit The Kings and I here on Aerys Sports!

In just a few days from now, the Los Angeles Kings and the New Jersey Devils will play for the most coveted trophy in hockey, the Stanley Cup.

We are in for an entertaining series because we have two caliber goalies involved in the finals. Brodeur, who is at the end of his career, and Quick, who could break the records that Brodeur holds with the talent he’s shown so far.

The reason why I’m pointing out the goalies and the numbers is because as a pitcher I stress the earn run average that goes on record for every pitcher in baseball and with the goalies its about the goals against average.

Steven Stamkos scored 60 goals but the tampa bay lightning missed the playoffs. Why? Because the Lightning had given up the most goals against with 281. the lightning finished over 500 but they still had a worse goals against number than the columbus blue jackets who only won 29 games to the lightning’s 38 wins. these numbers make me cringe as a fan because of my pitcher instinct about ERA numbers.

With that, I will breakdown the numbers between Jonathan Quick and Martin Brodeur.
Quick has a goals against average of 1.54 with a save percentage of .946 and 12 wins during the playoffs and they are all the best among goalies during the playoffs but on the other side is future hall of famer martin Brodeur who basically has every goalie record there is.

Brodeur’s numbers is similar to Quick’s during the playoffs with a goals against average of 2.04, save percentage of .923 and he also have 12 wins but Brodeur has been doing this type of thing for the devils since 1993.

What it all comes down to it is this: Jonathan Quick’s numbers vs. Martin brodeur’s experience. Which will win out?

Add in guys like Zach Parise, Ilya Kovalchuk, Patrik Elias and Adam Henrique for the devils and Anze Kopitar, Jeff Carter, Dustin Brown, Dustin Penner and Mike Richards for the kings, this will be one fun finale for the NHL this year. We can only hope that we will have one next year and not head for a lockout with the CBA coming up for negotiations this summer.

It looks like the League was facing a conundrum. On the one hand, they desperately want a New York-LA Finals. On the other hand, once they saw that the Kings wouldn’t sweep the Coyotes, they knew that they would make mad scrilla if they could hold another game at Staples (especially with both basketball teams ignominiously eliminated (go Thunder!)). This is my best explanation for why the Coyotes got 3 penalties in the first period of game 5.*

*On a side note, this is pretty good proof that the guy in charge of NHL conspiracies doesn’t pay much attention to stats, since anyone who spent 20 seconds looking at them would realize the Kings actually score MORE on the PK.

That, or the weirdly lazy way the Kings kept getting caught out of position, allowing multiple odd man rushes and being forced to commit penalties to make up for it. It’s only through the grace of, you guessed it, Jonny Quick that the Kings weren’t losing worst after the first.
» Continue reading “Coyotes Eliminated”