West Coast Matinée!

Greetings hockey fans, and thanks for visiting The Puck Drops Here.  I’ll be writing about the Most Exciting Team You’re Probably Not Watching: the Los Angeles Kings, my beloved hometown team and 28+ year sports obsession.  With the exception of The Very Dark Era–i.e., after the first Luc Robitaille trade, which prompted me to boycott hockey until his return (conveniently facilitated by an eastward migration to Boston for college)–all of my energy for sports fandom and franchise loyalty has been focused on LA since the days that the Triple Crown Line was putting up big numbers at the Fabulous Forum and on KHJ-TV.  I begged my mom to get tickets and a night off from work to take me and my little brother to games a few times a season, and once we were in house, it was pandemonium, as we did everything we could to explore every nook and cranny of the arena.  Usually this was limited to sneaking up to the upper level where the press boxes were and getting Bob Miller to autograph our ticket stubs during the first intermission, but there were a few times where we’d make it into the bowels of the building and see celebrities milling around outside the Forum Club, or players or team personnel making their way out.

Most hockey fans outside of LA see the Gretzky trade as the moment where hockey was put on the map in California, but, those of us that were diehards before that would suggest otherwise, as we were just as passionate, dedicated, and often belligerent as the fans in any other city–we were just rarely given a product that was going to generate a playoff run.  In fact, the annual first-round dismissal from the Smythe Division playoffs at the hands of usually either the Edmonton Oilers or the Calgary Flames was a disheartening reminder that we’d have to wait another four or five months to see our beloved Kings again.  While the Stanley Cup Finals run of 1993 (the last six weeks of my senior year of high school and to date the best six weeks of my life for the love of god please shoot me this is a cry for help) was confirmation that greatness could be achieved so far south and west, it wasn’t long before the McNall era ended and the team was bombed back into the stone age but for the Adam Deadmarsh era.

Today, allow me to direct your attention to the Pacific Time Zone for a rare afternoon start at Staples Center, where the Kings host the Flames.  Coming off of an inconsistent but ultimately successful (6pts. in 5GP) east coast swing, the Kings suffered through a rude welcome home at the hands of the very solid Flyers squad this past Wednesday night, dropping a 3-2 regulation decision despite peppering Brian Boucher with 21 third period shots.  Following an injury to Ryan Smyth, Alexander Frolov assumed top line left wing duties–a role in which he teamed with NHL scoring leader Anze Kopitar with positive results last season–but was unable to generate the same front-of-net presence as Captain Canada: the Frolov-Kopitar-Justin Williams trio were kept off of the scoresheet.  Despite the loss, the Kings find themselves in a reasonably comfortable position in the standings, on pace for a playoff berth for the first time since 2001.

According to the Kings’ full-time blogger Rich Hammond at lakingsinsider.com, coach Terry Murray plans on shuffling the bottom two lines even further, promoting Latvian golem Raitis Ivanans to skate with the Michal Handzus-Wayne Simmonds pair.  Needless to say, Kings fans are a little uneasy with the idea of Ivanans skating the kind of minutes that Handzus and Simmonds earn, but someone has to put a hit on Phaneuf now that Brian Boyle has been shipped back east.  And now that Michael Cammalleri has put on the sweater of the [expletive deleted] [team name deleted], there doesn’t seem to be anyone on the Flames’ roster for Angelenos to hate, so let’s talk about someone we like: Craig Conroy.  Now, even though Connie lit the irony lamp by putting up a pair of goals against LA in his first game as a Flame after being traded in one of Dean Lombardi’s asset-stockpiling moves (thank God for the 2nd and 4th because Jamie Lundmark didn’t exactly bring the noise), he was a consummate professional during his year-and-a-half in SoCal.  Eyebrows were raised when he put up 0.75ppg to finish the regular season in Alberta after having registered only 16 pts in 52 games in purple and black, but, skating with Jarome Iginla on a playoff-bound team is a bit of a situation upgrade.  The novelty has worn off over the last couple seasons, in which he has only registered 24 goals despite missing only three games, and he’s yet to open the account this campaign.  Don’t be surprised to see irony repeat itself with a Conroy marker today.

Of greater intrigue is the continuing evolution of the Kings’ core:  Kopitar, Simmonds, captain Dustin Brown, Jack Johnson, Drew Doughty, and Jonathan Quick in goal, who has yet to regain last year’s form but is only a quantum leap in consistency away from quieting the fans’ continuous clamoring for the promotion of potential franchise netminder Jonathan Bernier, currently boasting an 0.954 save rate at Manchester.  It has taken a few years for Lombardi to achieve steady-state in age distribution and asset management, but this Kings roster has been crafted brilliantly, demonstrating strength from the net to the blueline and on to the forwards all the way from the NHL to the ECHL.  The addition of character veterans Smyth and Rob Scuderi as well as the retention of Sean O’Donnell will pay huge dividends over the next several seasons in shaping the development of the young stars.  On the hotseat is the aforementioned Frolov, the Kings’ leading goalscorer last season and quite possibly one of the most remarkable possession tanks in the league–watch this guy maintain the puck with a defender draped all over him and you’ll see what I mean.  Frolov hasn’t put up the numbers this year, perhaps due to his skating primarily on the Handzus checking line, and in a contract year, the equation gets more complicated as the season progresses with the Kings in playoff contention: will Frolov regain his scoring form and propel the team forward and/or increase his value for a deadline move, or continue to struggle and find himself searching for new digs come July 1st?

Anyway, I encourage all of you on the east coast to take advantage of this afternoon opportunity to watch west coast hockey without losing sleep (Fox Sports West HD, 4pm EST).  We are only a couple years from seeing a final four of Washington-Pittsburgh-Chicago-LA, and you want to be able to say you saw it coming, right?

–mitokon5