Freeway Faceoff Round 1: Kings 4, Ducks 3

The first installment of this season’s Freeway Faceoff kicked off tonight, and, as has become my custom, I kept a running diary throughout the game.  Most hockey fans outside of Southern California were probably more intrigued by Dany Heatley facing his former mates tonight, but there’s just nothing compelling about Senators-Sharks when you have a legitimate geographical rivalry (Montréal-Toronto earlier tonight certainly compares) to enjoy.

Pre-game

Painfully, I only have Fox Sports Prime Ticket tonight, which means it’s Brian Hayward and John Ahlers, who occupy the same real estate in my brain as Tim McCarver, Phil Simms, and Jeff Van Gundy.

The broadcast opened with shots of Dustin Brown and Corey Perry entering the Ponda Center, and we learned that while both are impeccable dressers, Perry doesn’t recycle his plastic bottles.  Someone needs to send him the California rules memo.

I hate the band in the freecreditreport.com commercials.   Hate.

Patrick O’Neal is on hand for ice-level interviews, so at least that’s a familiar face and voice.  Pssssssssst.  Heidi.  Come on.

First Period
1p0 Getzlaf vs. Kopitar lines to start.  Randy Carlisle gets last change tonight; will he keep putting the top lines against each other?  It’s reasonable to expect that Getzlaf’s size would be pretty key against the Kopitar line.  Hiller and Quick in goal--not Giguere, who has been hot on the homestand.

1p2 Evgeni Artyukhin slashes Drew Doughty--it was Artyukhin who, last season while in Tampa Bay, kneed Doughty and knocked him out for a game; the real drama was that there wasn’t sufficient response from the Kings against the russian behemoth.  Smyth is still out.  Scuderi is still out.  I’ll try to piece together the lineups as lines roll out.  Handzus hasn’t had a goal in 11 games and the Kings are 0-for-13 on the power play over their last four games.  Yikes.

1p4 Penalty killed, Ducks have now killed 18 straight over the same span that the Kings have been…uh…impotent.

1p5 Quick makes a point blank save on Selanne after an Artyukhin forecheck creates a turnover.  Not really that dramatic.  On the ensuing rush up-ice, O’Donnell found Simmonds streaking up the left wing, and put a stretch pass on his tape.  Simmonds drew both defenders as he entered the zone and dished a backhand pass to an unmarked Scott Parse in the slot…one stickhandle, shot over Hiller’s shoulder for 1-0 Kings.  As usual, lots of Kings fans in Anaheim’s building.  Truth be told, I expected the Kings to not be able to sustain their early pace when Smyth went down, because that top line had been decidedly carrying the offense for the team, and few of the “secondary” forwards had really turned it on yet.  However, the play of Wayne Simmonds over the last six or seven games has stabilized the production and taken a lot of pressure off of Jonathan Quick and the Kings’ blue line corps.

1p7 So the Kings sit at +5 in the win-loss column and are holding on to their early-season momentum despite Smyth’s absence, which is quite simply the single most important reason the Kings have been inept with the man advantage and Kopitar has lost his hold on the NHL scoring lead.  Parros (who is a Duck I have absolutely no shame declaring my unabashed admiration for) and Ivanans have a brief go at it…just because that’s what they do.

1p8 Jack Johnson dumps Bobby Ryan along the boards.  I giggle.  Parse nearly scores again with two solid scoring chances--first on a rush up the left boards and a cut into the slot with the shot going just wide, the second stopped by Hiller after a cycle.

1p10 Scott Niedermayer found Bobby Ryan blowing down the left wing, and after Matt Greene forced him to stop short, he found Wisniewski alone at the right point with tons of room--his blast went just wide to Quick’s glove side.  He probably had more time on that one, but Quick also looked to be taking up a lot of room and had a big open glove, which is what has been the focus of his most recent workouts with Kings’ goaltending coach Bill Ranford.

1p11 Artyukhin takes another offensive zone penalty with a hold on Randy Jones.  I suppose the Ducks’ PK and Kings PP streaks have to end, but at this point, I’d rather skate 5v5 and just roll through the lines.  Fewer faceoffs gives Carlisle fewer line matchups he wants and plays right into the strength of the Kings’ 3rd and 4th lines.

1p12 Stoll “slashes” Nokelainen’s stick after an Anaheim clear and the announcers and fans go crazy--there is a difference between slashing and breaking the puck-carrier’s stick and making a turn and going to play the puck you have possession of and having the opponent’s stick be in the way and end up breaking.  But who would expect Anaheim’s announcers or fans to have any grasp of the difference?  Seconds later, Stoll takes a wrister from the blue line and it’s deflected in brilliantly by Justin Williams--Hiller did a fantastic job to fight through the screen and get a read on the shot before Williams tapped it just enough for it to find the net under his ready glove.  So, PP and PK streaks end (that didn’t take long!) and it’s 2-0 Kings.  First two-goal lead in ages for LA.

1p13 Richardson-Frolov-Purcell sustain a solid cycle in the Anaheim zone but are only able to generate a marginal Richardson wraparound attempt.  Purcell has a point shot blocked by George Parros, who is off to the…races…on a breakaway…ok not really.  In what can only generously be described as resembling a whale skating through molasses, Parros is dispossessed before reaching the red line, though to be honest he recognized that he needed to get off the ice for a change.

1p15 Getzlaf is saved by Quick but the Ducks recover and get the puck to Wisniewski at the point.  His wrist shot is deflected past Quick by Corey Perry skating left-to-right through the slot to make it 2-1 LA; big momentum boost for Anaheim following the Kings PP goal.  While the special teams streaks for both teams are over, Corey Perry now has a point in 19 straight and oddly, snapped a 7-game goalless drought at the same time.  Pretty, pretty goal.

1p16 Nokelainen takes a penalty after turning the puck over to Wayne Simmonds.  Drew Doughty hits the post on his first attempt at a blast from the point and the Kings maintain possession.  Hiller does very well to get his right skate blade on a Jarret Stoll one-timer and Anaheim clears.

1p17 Mike Brown has a good shorthanded bid foiled by Quick’s blocker from the right faceoff circle.  Penalty killed and Bobby Ryan picks up a loose puck in the slot but partially fans on what would otherwise most assuredly would have tied the game; puck ended up safely in Quick’s glove.

1p18 This game has been great so far, and if you’re reading expecting some of my vitriol directed toward Ahlers and Hayward, well, I’ve got the volume down a bit and I’m listening to Russian Circles -- Geneva.

1p19 Corey Perry has his stick lifted by Davis Drewiske trying to jam the slot and slides into Quick and knocks him and the net off of their respective moorings.  Last shift of the period, Quick pokechecks a Bobby Ryan chance out of danger and Jack Johnson takes an interference penalty on Ryan in the slot, who milks some pretty ordinary contact with a full head-snap-back-Euro-soccer-pansy routine to draw the call.  Amazingly, the Ducks’ announcers very casually admit that Ryan made it look good.  Something about broken clocks being right twice a day, I suppose.  With seconds remaining, the Ducks controlled the faceoff in the Kings’ zone and Getzlaf had a great chance from the left circle ring off the crossbar.  Had he received the pass cleanly, he’d have likely scored, but the late-period choppy Orange County ice made the puck hop just enough to give Quick the split second he needed to get slightly better position on the shot, which may have been enough to force Getzlaf to try harder to roof it.  Or maybe Getzlaf just missed, who knows.  I doubt it though, he’s pretty awesome even though I hate him for wearing the wrong sweater.

End of the first period, 2-1 Kings, very wide open game, very entertaining hockey, I’ve dialed it down from Russian Circles to Kråkesølv -- Trådnøsting, really solid indie rock in the vein of Postal Service if you’re in to that sort of thing, or if you go to Ikea specifically for the meatballs at the cafeteria.  Lingonberry jam.  ‘Sup.

Second Period

2p0 Ducks start the second period with JMFJ in the box for about 1:40, and I’m happy to have the Kings be benefitting from a penalty split by an intermission for a change.

2p2 Kings back to full strength.

2p4 Dustin Brown takes the puck down the right wing after Artyukhin narrowly avoids taking his third minor of the night for interfering with Jarret Stoll--Brown had the strength to lean into Ryan Whitney defending, who had no choice but to take him down, Whitney-Brown-Hiller-and the Anaheim net all ending up in a tangled heap by the boards.  Penalty to Whitney, Kings up a man again.

2p5 Word comes that Brandon Segal has left the game with a lower-body injury.  It may also have been an upper-body injury.  Nobody ever has a mid-body injury.  Except for Peter Forsberg’s spleen.  Pretty soon, guys from Manchester are going to start turning down call-ups, because it seems like their invincibility is only active under the yellow sun of New Hampshire.

2p7 Hiller stones Brown twice and the penalty expires but the Kings maintain possession on the cycle.  Parse and Simmonds take turns dominating puck control and feed Randy Jones for a point shot that whistles wide of the right post--Richardson recovers the rebound and feeds Jones again who scores from 60 ft. despite no King setting up in front--Mike Eminger instead obliged to screen Hiller for us.  Much obliged.  3-1.

2p8 I had no idea Bobby Ryan was such a diver.  Disappointing.

2p9 Richardson steals at center ice and feeds Simmonds for a shot from the right faceoff dot that Hiller stops, sending the rebound to the corner.  Again, the Kings maintain possession with a line of Ivanans-Richardson-Simmonds.  Richardson has had nothing but good shifts all night.

2p10 Brown steals at center ice and fires a heater wide and high from the right dot again.  Anaheim looks like they’re already packing for the road, this being the last of a 7-game homestand.  Brad Richardson’s stock is skyrocketing.  I love what this guy is doing with his opportunities.  The assist on Jones’ goal was Richardson’s first point of the season, which is shocking.

2p11 Hiller stops a Williams wrister from the slot after the Kings’ top line controls an entire shift.  We get a TV timeout and come back to a cool graphic of the recent playoff histories of the two franchises--either the Kings or Ducks have been in the post-season for 11 of the last 12 years but never have the two teams enjoyed late spring hockey in the same year, which is precisely why this rivalry is somewhat contrived and Kings fans have more enmity for Detroit, Colorado, and of course lingering post-1993 hatred of Montréal, which was re-stoked last season when the Canadiens, backed by referee Marc Joanette, stole two points from the jaws of defeat on two goals that should not have come anywhere near being allowed.  Those two points eventually got the Habs into the playoffs over the more-deserving Florida Panthers, but thankfully the Boston Bruins swept Montréal directly out of their anniversary season.  Félicitations.  Anyway, it’s appropriate that the Anaheim team kept the Ducks mascot after cutting ties with Disney because the OC is one of those places where people actually take that Mallard Fillmore comic strip seriously.  Yikes.

I digress.  Game has been crap last couple minutes though--good flow was obliterated by two TV spots taken really close together.

2p14 Doughty takes a point shot and Jarret Stoll is dumped into Hiller--no interference given either way, and we’re informed that the Ducks “can’t buy a call tonight,” which is laughable, so I laughed.

2p15 Kopitar fights off a Getzlaf check and dishes a backhand pass to Frolov on the left wing and he is absolutely stoned by Hiller, who flashes a little leather just to let the Russian winger know what’s up.  I can respect that.  ANOTHER TV timeout.  I know bills have to be paid, but, come on now.  College basketball does this right.  First whistle under 16, 12, 8, and 4 minutes left in the half goes to commercial.  I suppose the NHL doesn’t want to put a break in the middle of a power play, which makes sense, but we just had three spots between 10:30 and 14:30 of a period.

2p16 Quick smothers a Perry slapshot from the high slot.  Perry’s backswing on this blast nearly tickled the Jumbotron.  You know when you go bowling and get kinda drunk and find the one bright orange six pound ball in the alley and start launching the thing down the lane as hard as you can until you get kicked out or dislocate your shoulder or both?  Yeah, like that.  Stoll stole the puck from Wisniewski literally in the Anaheim crease but couldn’t find anywhere to slip the puck passed Hiller--Stoll, not wearing a mink stole, was so surprised at Wisniewski’s coughing up the puck that he couldn’t find the net.  Off the faceoff, Richardson tries to lift Ewen Macgregor Sharp’s stick and misses, planting his blade in Sharp’s grill.  Even though Sharp was completely bent over, this is a high-sticking minor--only two minutes though, so, not as bad as if he’d drawn some blood.

2p17 Anaheim moves the puck very well and controls the first 1:30 of the PP but only generates a couple of shots, neither of which are terribly challenging for Quick.  Simmonds finally clears to rescue a totally gassed PK unit.  One observation…Getzlaf is playing high in that system instead of camping his giant arse in front of the net.  Curious.

2p18 With fifteen seconds to go on the original minor to Richardson, the Ducks go up 5v3 after Simmonds takes a minor for something behind the play…after he cleared the puck, Perry ran him into the boards, clearly late, and Simmonds retaliated and took the minor.  Timeout Ducks so they can roll the first unit again.  Whitney blasts a one-timer from the right circle past Quick seconds after the first penalty expires, so we’re back to even strength with the Kings up 3-2.  Tough call on Simmonds.  We didn’t get a replay of what he actually did, but Perry’s check on him was late and Simmonds was clearly only interested in getting the hell off the ice after a 90-second kill.  Oh well, that’s how it goes.  Ducks have some juice now.  Ducks have some sauce now?  It’s around midnight my time so I don’t think I can put in an order for some crab rangoons but I still have some Thanksgiving pie so that’ll have to do.

2p19 Second period is a wash; Ducks PPG keeps it interesting because Quick and the Kings’ defense have been solid.  I’d say the Kings controlled about 16 minutes of the second period and were a bit unlucky not to have extended their lead.

I paused enough times to type that I was able to fast-forward through the entire intermission, which means I missed some totally banal analysis and gratuitous shots of Ducks’ Ice Girls skating around with shovels.  Fine.

Third Period

3p1 Blah.

3p2 Blah.

3p3 Blah.

3p4 Quick makes a pad save on Perry and the puck ends up in a morass of bodies in the slot before finding its way behind the net and out of immediate danger.  Brown picks up the puck on a rush and shoots ON GOAL to draw a shoulder save from Hiller.  If Brownie starts shooting on goal more frequently, the Kings are going to see that depth in secondary scoring get even better, which would go a long way to mitigating the prolonged absence of Smyth.

3p6 Parse-Handzus-Simmonds controls a shift but after the cycle expires, Matt Beleskey puts a high shot on net from just outside the Kings’ blue line and Quick leaves a rebound in the slot that Todd Marchant pounces on and one-times home on the backhand.  Lousy play by Quick on the original shot, and even though he appeared to reëstablish position, the Marchant try squirted between his right arm and pad.  All tied up on an alert play by both Beleskey and Marchant.

3p7 The Getzlaf line is playing every other shift and the Ducks are enjoying control of the run of play with a couple of scrambles in the Kings’ slot nearly leading to one of those dirty goals that reward the team taking the initiative.

3p10 Artyukhin takes…another offensive zone penalty, tripping Drew Doughty behind the net.  Doughty and Johnson test Hiller with blueline shots but the netminder is equal to both.

3p11 With the second unit out, Jones took a shot from the right point that Hiller kicked out directly through Frolov’s legs, or he’d have had an empty net to shoot into; Purcell couldn’t pull the trigger on a rebound and eventually lost possession for a Koivu clear.

3p13 TV timeout after the kill, Hiller’s got 34 saves so far.

3p15 Quick makes a big save on Selanne after the Kings bungle coverage on the dump-in.

3p17 Greene and Drewiske struggle to clear the zone and start a rush, Kings look pretty scattered.  Doughty carries the puck 200 feet and starts a cycle from behind the Ducks’ net that yields a quality shot from Frolov but Hiller makes the save.

3p18 Richardson, on a line with Brown and Stoll, does a great job to maintain possession in the offensive zone.  Jack Johnson scores on a blast from the right point with a massive phalanx of bodies in front of Hiller, and it turns out that Brad Richardson got the deflection to put the Kings up 4-3 with just over two minutes to go.

3p18 The Ducks immediately respond with the best shift of the night, peppering Quick with half a dozen shots from the Brown-Nokelainen-Belesky crew.  Eventually, Jack Johnson takes a crosscheck and the Ducks go up at least 5v4 with 1:35 to go.  Interestingly, this complicates matters for Anaheim, as the Kings can now take shots at an empty net without fear of icing if he is pulled--if the Kings win the faceoff, which they have dominated all night, Hiller can’t already be out.  The announcers fail to grasp this, and apparently do not remember the number of times the Kings made a pull last year and stationed Kopitar at his own blue line as an extra attacker, effectively playing free safety in the event of a faceoff loss and clear.

3p18:50 Ducks control the draw and Hiller heads to the bench.  Quick robs Bobby ryan from point blank.  Ducks still buzzing.  35 seconds to go and the puck deflects in to the netting out of play; Ducks probably have another half a dozen shots on this power play already.  Timeout Kings, and nobody in the building is happier than the official statistician, who has had to go to the backup abacus to total up the shots on goal for Anaheim.  Quick apparently has only 27 saves tonight, but 10 of those are in the last two minutes of play.

With ten seconds to go, a Quick save yielded a rebound that hopped over Selanne’s stick at the right post, and the Kings soon got a soft clear that killed off the game and secured the two points.

BRAD RICHARDSON, FOLKS.  This guy has really settled into his role and when given the opportunity to skate with some of the more skilled forwards he took full advantage.  Big division win.  Jonathan Quick demonstrated fantastic poise in the face of a third period Duck onslaught.  Next episode of Ducks v Kings comes January 14th, but more urgently, the Kings host the Senators on Thursday night.  Sweet.  Always nice to beat the Ducks, but again, no Pronger really quenches the hate.  At least they don’t have the audacity to call themselves the Los Angeles Ducks of Anaheim.

Anyway,
Kråkesølv

and Russian Circles:

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