2023-2024 NHL/Hockey thread

[Amazin69]

Maybe they need to schedule the Kings? In their last two games, Losers Anonymous has donated Ws to Calgary (5 previous losses) and Winnipeg (6 straight Ls).

Pathetic. At this point, we can forget the Annual Playoff Loss to Edmonton, and get ready to face Dallas.

(We have played Dallas three times this season. We haven't even been competitive yet.)

On the plus side, Kopitar is scoring lots of goals (8 in the past 9 games), now leads the team and might lead the team in overall scoring for a 16th time, second only to Gordie Howe's 17 times as team leader.

On the minus side, that's about as good as the plus side gets.

(Alex Turcotte is now on LTIR. Which is not a big loss.)

[Cobra Mgr]

NHL is the only team sport I know that does this.

[Amazin69]

Although he is not (yet?) on LTIR, apparently Phillippe Danault is seriously dinged, too. Wednesday's home tilt with Seattle is the third game in a row he has missed.

As a result, the graphic during the Kings' lines in the opening minute listed QB-Kopi-Kempe as the first line, and a second line where Moore and Fiala were being centered by…David Rittich?

I am fairly certain that's inaccurate, although I haven't seen the whole game yet. (DVR, baby!) I presume this is because the program for the graphics lists the skaters in numerical order (from #3, Matt Roy, to #80, P-L DuBois) and then the goalies (#31 Rittich preceding Talbot [#39]) and I guess whoever inputted the graphics accidentally clicked on the wrong line…but it's funny to imagine Rittich taking DuBois's spot.

Kings only 3 pts ahead of St. Louis for the "get your balls stomped by Dallas" slot, pending last night's result. They may need Rittich at 2-C, after all.

[rudel.dietrich]

Originally Posted by Cobra Mgr

NHL is the only team sport I know that does this.

Maybe I am not a 'true' fan

But the pre planned fight seems at this point tired and played out.

The league has done a pretty good job of getting rid of the enforcer types.
The ones that had averaged 7 points a season but has 200+ PIMs

The ones who would throw elbows and shorten players careers.
Now to make a roster you have to have at least one hockey skill.

I do not mind fights. But the pre planned ones just seem like a relic of the game.
But I am just one person with an opinion.

[Cobra Mgr]

Originally Posted by rudel.dietrich

Maybe I am not a 'true' fan

But the pre planned fight seems at this point tired and played out.

The league has done a pretty good job of getting rid of the enforcer types.
The ones that had averaged 7 points a season but has 200+ PIMs

The ones who would throw elbows and shorten players careers.
Now to make a roster you have to have at least one hockey skill.

I do not mind fights. But the pre planned ones just seem like a relic of the game.
But I am just one person with an opinion.

I can understand, when the hatred is so entrenched that you might as well send in 5 goons & let everyone feel appeased. Like the Wings/Avs 90's gang war. But when it is just anger over the last skate, grow up.

[Cobra Mgr]

Flyers are having a collapse that will lead to changes if it doesn't switch. They've been "firmly" entrenched in the 3rd Metro spot just about the entire year. Now after a 7 game losing streak, they find themselves in 5th place.

[zappa1]

Flyers are tanking like the 1964 Phillies. Any team that's last on the powerplay doesn't belong in the playoffs anyway. No goalie could save them.

[Cobra Mgr]

NHL takes their pranks seriously, evidently.

[Cobra Mgr]

Toronto says this isn't a goal.

[Cobra Mgr]

Svechnikov got his 3rd lacrosse goal tonight.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Cobra Mgr

Toronto says this isn't a goal.

Take solace in the fact that the Leafs will likely get bounced in the first round — again.

[Cobra Mgr]

Coyotes could be headed to Utah next month.

Article says NHL planning on 2 schedules. One with Phoenix, the other w/SLC. Key domino is if Coyotes win bid on a land for a new arena. If not, they will be sold to NHL who will in turn sell to Jazz owners. Why the NHL is the middle man in all this beats me.

[Amazin69]

If the 'yotes move to Utah, what happens to the Kings' annual "Frozen Fury" exhibition there? We already got bounced out of Las Vegas when VGK spawned.

(It was a lovely homecoming this year for Trevor Lewis, the Greatest Hockey Player Ever from Utah. Bummer.)

********************

And speaking of bummers, after getting their heads straight on the long plane ride back from Winnipeg last week (apparently all it took was being told "play smart". Huh) and reeling off three fine wins (v. Seattle, at San Jose, v. Vancouver) to retake 3rd place, the Kings reverted to mediocrity and ran out of gas in Anaheim last night. So much for the "easy run-in".

I mean, finishing up with home games v. Calgary, Anaheim, Minnesota and Chicago should be an easy 8 pts (101 for the season). But "should" is the operative word here.

As much as I'd like to get ahead of Nashville and get that first WC (since we have taken 7 of a possible 8 points from Vancouver), it's far more likely that we either get crushed by Dallas, or we get no better than another rematch with Edmonton and I'm hardly sanguine about that. I certainly want to see somebody beat the crap out of McDirty for that cheap shot he took at Mikey Anderson last season (running Mikey into the boards from behind, knocking him out of the lineup and killing our momentum heading into the playoffs), but I doubt it's ever going to happen. McDouchebag is protected by Star Armor…you're not allowed to hit him, probably by league mandate.

Which makes it particularly gross when McDickless abuses that protection and goes after other players, knowing he'll never have to pay for his dirty play. On our last visit to Edmonton, he took another run at Mikey (for old times' sake, I'd assume) and also went after Blake Lizotte.

At 5'9", 172 lbs, Lizotte (nicknamed "Skeeter") is probably the tiniest person on the ice at all times. Including the referees. So naturally, that's whom McDungheap chooses to cheap-shot. I'd love to see him try that garbage with Physical Presence Andreas Englund…but of course that worthless turd never will.

(At least Tom Wilson has the balls to fight full-sized opponents. Conor McDropdead? Not so much.)

*******************
Speaking of Lizotte and Englund, they are the two nominees for the Kings' "Unsung Hero" Award. For very different reasons, obviously.

Worthy candidates, but I was wondering why Trevor Lewis wasn't in the mix. He used to win it every season, after all.

Well, it turns out there's a reason for that. I once noted that Lewis won the Award so often there was talk of renaming it in his honor once he retired…well, apparently the players couldn't wait that long. Once Lewis left the club as a free agent, they renamed it the "Trevor Lewis Unsung Hero Award", and now that he's back, he's ineligible to win it, since winning your own Award is just tacky, after all. Hard luck, Trevor!

(Between Lewis and the Award and Patrick O'Neal winning so many local Emmy™s for hosting the studio show that they changed the rules to disqualify him, I believe the Kings lead the League in "too good for their own good". Which makes me smile, I admit.)

*************************

The balanced scoring also makes smile. Currently Trevor Moore leads with 30, Kempe and Fiala have 27 each, and Kopitar has 26.

This is the first time that the Kings have had four players score 25 or more since the 1992-93 Western Conference Champions, who were led by Robitaille (63), Tony Granato (37), Mike Donnelly (29!), Jari Kurri (27), with Tomas Sandström managing 25 in only 39 games, having missed several months because that pile of feces Doug Gilmour broke Sandström's arm.

(Corey Millen also had 23 goals in only 42 games, due to injuries. Gretzky had only 16 in 45 games, but made up for it in the playoffs. Jim Hiller had 6.)

Byfield has 19, but he hasn't scored in over a month. Still, he's being useful in other ways. And the most important thing is to be in the playoffs in the first place, since we still need another win to clinch.

Yessss, that looks fairly certain, but in researching the goal-scoring, I ended up going through the games of the Great Collapse of '04. (Kings lose their final 11 games of the season as trade deadline pick-up Anson Carter gets a whopping 1 point in 15 games, capped off by blowing a 3-1 lead against San Jose in the final 20 seconds of the season finale [2 goals by Brad Stuart] and then losing in OT. Coach Andy Murray, who had tied the team record for wins by a coach, not only doesn't break it that year, but the next year is a lock-out, and in the 2005 season opener, the Kings roar out to a 4-0 lead at Dallas, only to lose 5-4.) So I am not taking anything for granted.

[Cobra Mgr]

Coyote staff & players told team will move to Utah next year.

[Amazin69]

It should be noted that nothing has actually been done yet to force Alex Meruelo to sell to the Jazz owners, and Meruelo still plans to win the county auction on June 27 for the land he wants to use for the new stadium. I wouldn't count on anything definitive happening before then.

******************************
Kings clinched a playoff spot with an easy 4-1 win over Calgary on Thursday. Two goals for Arvidsson, including the empty-netter to erase all doubt. Kopitar had a pair of assists, helpful in his chasing down the team scoring lead and thus Gordie Howe's record.

But the two best points are

• Jarrett Stoll pointed out that if the Oilers (with 2 games in hand) can chase down Vancouver and win the division, that means we get to face the 'nucks instead of Edmonton. We can only hope (because I can't actively *root* for McDogpoop to win games, after all).

• Pierre-Luc Dubois has been dropped to the 4th line! Having decided to stop fiddling and restore QB-Kopi-Kempe and Moore-Danault-Arvidsson as the top two lines, Jim Hiller promoted hard-workers Lizotte and Lewis to share the 3rd line with Fiala (who has been red-hot since the coaching change).

That leaves LaFerriere and DuBois with rookie Akil Thomas (who has replaced the injured Turcotte). Not that these guys aren't contributing (Thomas scored his 3rd goal in 5 NHL games Thursday), but seeing P-LD PLaceD at the bottom of the chart tickles me, no doubt.

Alas, some stupid Carolina team beat St. Louis and thus wrecked the chance of VGK going from champs to missing the playoffs, but we can't have everything.

*************

Jim Hiller's back-to-basics approach may not have restored the old McLellan Magic on the road, but they have certainly stabilized things at CryptoScam.com Arena. Since the change, the Kings are 12-2-1 at home (with three easy ones to close the season) and are Top 5 in a number of defensive metrics.

Of course, there's no way the Kings can get home-ice-advantage in the playoffs, so they'll have to be in "steal one and be a fortress" mode. Not impossible, albeit a challenge.

[Cobra Mgr]

Originally Posted by Amazin69

It should be noted that nothing has actually been done yet to force Alex Meruelo to sell to the Jazz owners, and Meruelo still plans to win the county auction on June 27 for the land he wants to use for the new stadium. I wouldn't count on anything definitive happening before then.

Story says the NHL doesn't want to play anymore what if's. In Arizona, the land has to be purchased. The plans have to be made. The plans have to be approved. The infrastructure from the county must be obtained. All this stuff is 2 birds in the bush w/the way the public is voting on these things right now. Utah has the credible arena w/governmental backing yesterday. They are the bird in hand.

If Meruelo is able to get things in order, they are willing to give him 1st dibs.

[Amazin69]

Kings skated to an easy revenge win over the Ducks on Saturday night, even though Kopitar skipped the game (and endangered his chances at the team scoring title) to deal with a "nagging injury". Amusingly, PL-D took his place on the 1st line, and even scored. This gave the Kings an 8-game winning streak on home ice.

Which promptly ended last night (Monday), as the team looked like a pile of moose droppings as they sleepwalked to a 3-1 loss against an eliminated Minnesota team that LA had beaten by a combined 13-3 score in their previous two meetings. Dead all night long; nowhere near as close as the final score.

This means that the Kings cannot reach 100 pts for the season, and if VGK takes care of business, we drop to a wild-card slot and get to have our dicks stomped by Dallas, just as in the regular season. Stomp, stomp, stomp…three losses and we're done for the summer.

(Yes, yes, playoff series are best 4-out-of-7, I know. I'm just assuming the NHL would invoke a mercy rule and replace the final ass-whipping with an episode of All Elite Wrestling, to try to save the ratings.

Lorde knows we were skating about as fast as Samoa Joe last night.)

[Cobra Mgr]

I thought the tiebreaker for ties was amount of wins. But I see the Caps won the last spot over the Wings tonight despite having only 40 wins to 41

[Amazin69]

Regulation and Overtime Wins. (ROW, for short.) I'd guess the Wings won a few shoot-outs, which are shut out of the calculations. And thus they are shut out of luck.

[Bluenoser]

ROW is the 3rd tie breaker, RW (regulation wins) is the 2nd tie breaker. The first tie breaker, which won't apply at seasons end, is fewer number of games played.