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Game #60 – Kings vs. Hawks Q&A: Our Normal California Jackass

By Sam Fels 2133 0

We found @atf13atf digging through our trash one day. Not for food, just because it was his thing. Turned out he was a Kings fan. As all the other Kings fans wouldn’t piss on us if we were on fire, he’ll have to do. 

Dion Phaneuf?

Last week’s blockbuster trade with Calgary for Dion Phaneuf boosts an already strong defense featuring Drew Doughty, Matt Greene, and Rob Scuderi. Just over a year removed from being the Norris Trophy runner-up, Phaneuf turns the Kings from a team just sneaking into the playoffs into a legitimate threat. In fact, all of the Kings’ acquisitions this year have been home runs. Coming into the Olympic break, both Mike Cammalleri and Jussi Jokinen have 26 goals in 60 games. Even Phaneuf has scored 10 himself. It seems unlikely that the Kings would pass San Jose or Phoenix, but if they come in hot as a lower seed, they could be an early roadblock to the Blackhawks’ effort to return to the Western Conference Final.

What do you mean the Kings traded Cammalleri FOR Jokinen? And then lost Jokinen on waivers? They got Phaneuf from Ottawa and he sucks now? No Olympic break this year? The Blackhawks are 11 points out and there’s a team in Vegas? Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in 2010 anymore.

 The Kings have gone 6-11-0 since the turn of the year. What went off the boil?

Start 9-2. Follow by going 1-7. Win six in a row, then get swept out of the New York Metropolitan Area. Lose six in a row to start the new year, bookend the All-Star Break with a pair of Jonathan Quick dodgeball tryouts. Pass Go and collect free wins against Glendale and Edmonton, lose narrowly to Stanley Cup contenders in Tampa and Pittsburgh, while giving up a touchdown to Carolina in between. Add a few wins against Atlantic Division bottom-feeders, and some losses to Pacific rivals here and there, and you have the entire Kings season. It’s been a trip.

 

Are the Kings in the same spot with Drew Doughty that the Senators are with Karlsson? IF he won’t sign they have to move him, right?

As of right now, the Kings seem fully ready to park the Brinks truck in Doughty’s driveway, and he seems fully ready to sign for the delivery. If he ever left Los Angeles, he would probably need to find a new lawyer or three, among other things.

 

Things kind of went south on Alex Iafallo, didn’t they?

He started off the year looking fast, but shooting a hair over one percent. He finally broke through for a second goal around the start of December, before racking up minuses and eventually taking a few healthy scratches around the new year. In the past month, Iafallo is back to playing 15 minutes a night and has scored four goals with three assists.

 

What’s been the key to Kopitar’s bounce-back season? Hawks fans would be particularly interested in the answer…

Last season, Anze Kopitar started slow coming off a busy September with an Olympic qualifier for Slovenia and playing for Team Europe in the World Cup Of Hockey. On November 11, with only eight points in 15 games, Kopitar injured his hand in a game against Ottawa and kept quiet about it. A few months ago, Kings president Luc Robitaille described the effects of the injury on Kopitar: “He couldn’t shoot for three months. That hurt his numbers. The goals weren’t there because he couldn’t shoot.” The numbers back it up: four goals from the injury through February, and six goals in 19 games to close out the year.

 

Blackhawks fans better hope it’s that simple.

 

Where do the Kings go from here? If they miss the playoffs then it’s Blowup City, right?

At the risk of hoping the team doesn’t put too much stock into a four-game sample before the deadline (at Chicago and Winnipeg, home against Dallas and Edmonton), it’s still entirely up in the air. The Kings don’t really have a great stock of pending UFAs to sell, unless someone really wants Darcy Kuemper for some reason, so it would have to be a bigger piece (Muzzin? Martinez?). Of course, their huge acquisition might cost nothing: Jeff Carter, whose last game was the night of the most recent Cubs win, is set to rejoin the team at practice this week once the road trip ends.

 

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Game #27 – Kings vs. Hawks Preview, Veterinary Appointment – Let Me Ride

By Matt McClure 1986 0

 vs 

Game Time: 6:00PM CST
TV/Radio: NBC Sports Chicago, WGN-AM 720
He Could Really Make It If He Just Got His Shit Together: The Royal Half, JFTC

As the Freakout Hell Bus Ride of 5 games in 7 nights comes to a close on West Madison tonight, the Hawks are looking to avoid losing their fourth straight game after having gone 1-1-2 so far, with the resurgent Kings now waiting for them as the capper.

 

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Game #27 – Kings vs. Hawks: Spotlight – It’s Like Looking In a Mirror…Only… Not

By Sam Fels 1930 0

Ever since the Kings first Cup, and totally ramped up by the Kings-Hawks Double of ’13 and ’14, Anze Kopitar and Jonathan Toews have been handcuffed together. They’ve been essentially the same player every since they came into the league a year apart. Toews was the slightly better goal-scorer, Kopitar the slightly better playmaker. They were clearly the heartbeat of multiple Cup winners. Toews was a dominant force in ’13, and Kopitar dribbled Toews’s head like a basketball in ’14.

And being a year older, Kopitar seemed to hit a wall a year before Toews did. In ’14-’15, Kopitar dropped to just 16 goals and 64 points, both the lowest since his rookie year. Toews was racking up another ring. And then Toews followed Kopitar into the dungeon of age, failing to register 60 points for the first time since his rookie year.

Neither of them improved last year, and both faced serious discussion if they’re dominant days were over. And it was more than just an individual question, because both meant so much to their teams that if they were done being premier #1 centers in the league, it almost certainly meant their teams’ time as true contenders were over as well.

The hope for Hawks fans is that with Kopitar always being a year ahead of Toews, his renaissance so far this year is a harbinger of what Toews can do on the donkey end of the age of 30.

Kopitar comes into tonight’s game at over a point-per-game, and some of his underlying numbers are the best they’ve been since the Kings’ last run. His relative-Corsi again over +3.00, a hallmark of his days as the Hart candidate no one bothered to stay up and watch (including his simply other worldly 61% mark in 2014). His expected-goals relative to his team are up as well from the last two years, but where the numbers jump out is his individual ones.

Kopitar is averaging three more attempts at even-strength this year than he has in the past three seasons, and in line with his 2012-2014 heyday. His individual expected-goals is up to 0.77, which again is way higher than he’d put up the past three years.

Has there been some luck? Oh, sure. He’s shooting 21% at evens and 19% overall. That’s not going to continue. And Kopitar is still tasked with facing the toughest competition the Kings see. Even at just 30 to ask someone to combat top lines and score like a top line seems an awfully big ask.

Clearly, Kopitar has benefitted from the presence of rookie Alex Iafallo. While Iafallo’s numbers aren’t impressive, his game that has real dash and creativity has allowed Kopitar to not have to create and score his own chances. Last year, Kopitar spent most of the season with clinically dead Marian Gaborik and clinically dumb Dustin Brown. The year before that Kopitar was dragging around Brown and Milan Lucic, and you’d be hard pressed to find bigger dummards to have as wingers. Combined with Darryl Sutter’s system, Kopitar was basically forced to try and bulldoze everything. Even Brown is scoring now, getting to just stand around while Kopitar and Iafallo exploit openings. They can be more expressive.

The coaching change has also been a boon, as Kopitar is now allowed to carry the puck through the neutral zone and even try to enter through the middle, something Sutter would have sentenced Kopitar to shit-shoveling duty at the Sutter Farm for in the past. Kopitar has more freedom ever, and drawing defenses to him gives more space to Iafallo, who can actually do something with it unlike Lucic or Gaborik checking his investment portfolio.

Cleary, a coaching change isn’t going to help Toews anytime soon. But realizing a center with that many miles can no longer do everything, giving him a dynamic winger to take some of the creation pressure off seems to have been the trick for Kopitar. Would DeBrincat be that for Toews? Sadly, we may never find out.

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Game #27 – Kings vs. Hawks: Q&A With Arkham Escapee

By Sam Fels 2678 0

Once again we had to dig up one of our favorite lunatics on Twitter to find out about the Kings. Follow Aaron @atf13atf.

The Kings sit atop the Pacific. They have a +19 goal difference. Anze Kopitar is a point-per-game again. Certainly much better than last year. What’s been the change? Is it simply the one behind the bench?

 It probably is just the personnel behind the bench, both a combination of new voices (Offensive Coordinator Pierre Turgeon) coming in and old voices going out (such as Sutter, and Davis Payne who is now in charge of the Sabres’ 30th ranked power play). Stevens has been an assistant since the Terry Murray years in 2010, but finally gets his shot to run things. In a league where every team tries to win every game 2-1, Darryl Sutter’s attempts to win every game 1-0 had grown stale.

 Dustin Brown – 21 points. What kind of god allowed this?

 When the team went through eastern Canada a month into the season, every article about Brown (and Kopitar) concluded that they each looked like a piano was removed from their back. Alec Iafallo, definitely someone I’d known about before training camp ended, has been a revelation with a bunch of scouts saying they missed him. I’m sure Brown’s 13% shooting (and especially Kopitar’s 19%) to come down a bit, but at least their contracts look somewhat above water again.

Who is Adrian Kempe?

 Called up last season to try and get some scoring going, which was ultimately useless when Sutter played him about 90 seconds a night. Not to be confused with his brother Mario Kempe, Darcy Kuemper, or Matt Kemp. Looking good so far this year with Toffoli and Pearson.

 The Kings have gotten yeoman’s work out of Jonathan Quick. Certainly full health is a part of it, did the rest of barely playing last year also contribute? Have you noticed him doing anything differently?

 A wise man named Cieslak once said, “Book is out on your goaltender. He’s only gonna stop between 90 and 95 percent of shots faced. The league knows all about it.” Quick, who’s been much closer to the 90% than anyone expects for oh, half his career now, is sitting at his same .929 from 2011-12. I guess having an intact groin helps these guys.

So is this start for real or are the Kings riding a top line and their goaltending brilliance and will crash down?

 Their shooting percentage is above average, ish, even with Jeff Carter out for still another couple of weeks. The goaltending has definitely carried them a bit, but the games don’t look over if they go down 1-0 in the second period. They’re certainly watchable again, a marked improvement over even the Cup years.

Prediction: J-F Berube shuts out his old organization. I redeem my giveaway Chick-Fil-A coupon this week after the Kings take the required five penalties.

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Your Friends And Neighbors – ’17-’18 Team Previews – Dept. Of False Hope

By 1711

While many of the flapping heads are pronouncing the local squad as now having a closed window and figure to be on the outside looking in come playoff time, it is the two-time champions on Figueroa who have won but a single playoff game in the last three seasons since their last championship. And though they cleaned house in coaching and management with complete scumbag Dean Lombardi finally getting launched and the decidedly unfunny and cantakerous Darryl Sutter going with him, many of the same pieces that have never been able to buy a fucking goal are still here, just now older and with even more miles on the odometer.

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L.A. Face: Hawks at Kings Preview/Oil Disposal

By 1321

Hawk Wrestler vs. King Jerry Lawler

RECORDS: Hawks 14-6-2  Kings 11-9-1

PUCK DROP: 9:30pm Central

TV: WGN

BLACK DEATH: The Royal Half

Projected Lineups

blackhawks-lineup-card

kings-lineup-card

TEAM CORSI: Hawks – 51.0% (11th)  Kings – 53.8% (3rd)

POWER PLAY: Hawks -18.4% (14th)  Kings – 12.7% (26th)

PENALTY KILL: Hawks – Almost listable?  Kings – 81.7% (17th)

Hawks Individual Stats

Kings Individual Stats

TRENDS: Carter has four goals in his last four games… Doughty has four points in the last three

The last Circus Trip comes to a close tonight on Figueroa Avenue, as it usually has. It only feels like the Hawks have been on the road for a month, and I doubt anyone in the organization is going to miss this trip too much. They sit idled at 3-3 so far, so a successful trip hinges on tonight’s result.

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If You Know The Name Of The King Being Assassinated: Kings at Hawks Preview/Trust Fall

By 1329

JerryLawler_crop_exact vs. Hawk Wrestler

GAMETIME: 6pm

TV: CSN

NOBODY’S WALKIN’: The Royal Half

RECORDS: Kings 4-4-0  Hawks 4-3-1

Projected Lineups

kings-lineup-card

blackhawks-lineup-card

SCORE ADJUSTED CF%: Kings – 56.0 (1st)  Hawks – 51.4 (10th)

POWER PLAY: Kings – 17.5% (20th)  Hawks – 22.6% (13th)

PENALTY KILL: Kings –  77.8% (21st)  Hawks – Let’s not even

TRENDS: Kings have five players with a CF% of 60.0+… Zatkoff gave up five goals on 16 shots his last outing

It used to be this would raise everyone’s eyebrows when seen on the calendar. But these days, it only takes one first-round exit for both at the same time, the first West final to not feature either in five years, and suddenly it feels like we’re harkening back to something in the past to feel the rivalry between these two teams. Both getting off to somewhat wonky starts probably doesn’t help either.

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I Hate Myself and Want to Die – Around the NHL – Pacific Division

By 1832

And so now we move west, young men and women to the hellhole that is known as the Pacific Division. Once the place where Vancouver collected 100 points by merely having a pulse, the division has seen a bit of a makeover since realignment. The Kings, Ducks and Sharks have all taken turns setting the coast on fire while Canada weeps. Where does this year leave us? Follow the jump, suckas.

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I’m Miss World Cup, Watch Me Break And Watch Me Burn – C.I. World Cup Preview: Team Europe

By 1350

Here’s the thing. I love Anze Kopitar. I love watching him play. I think he’s the equal of Toews or Bergeron as two-way centers who can do anything you ask him. If he didn’t play on the West Coast he’d probably have a Selke to his name already (though Bergeron should honestly win it every year until he retires, and then maybe one or two years after that).

That doesn’t mean I think an international tournament should be mutated so that he can play with a mishmash of other players from countries the NHL just doesn’t fancy instead of Slovenia. While that’s not the reason Team Europe was created, it sure feels like it. The NHL feared Denmark or Switzerland or Norway or whatever else getting embarrassed in three games. I’m not sure this outfit will do much better.

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Modern Day Catastrophists – Kings vs Hawks Preview, Hypnotherapy Session

By 1290

20232_king-of-hearts vs evil empire

Game Time: 7:00PM Central
TV/Radio: CSN+, NBCSN, SportsNet, WGN-AM 720
Hollywood Bowl: JFTC, Royal Half

On paper, it’s surprising that what’s become very clear as the vocal majority of Hawks fans aren’t more nakedly jealous of Kings fans. With basically an equal amount of success as the Hawks, Kings fans have been able to enjoy the organization from management to players being unrepentant pieces of since the summer of 2012 (when Drew Doughty was also accused of sexual assault and no one even to this day still seems to give a shit about) without having to mansplain themselves to Social Justice Warriors out to ruin the good times of white men everywhere.

Whether that’s a function of no one giving a fuck about the Kings on a national level even after winning two of the last four cups and leading their division for most of this year, or that Kings fans as a whole merely think it’s funny when it happens to other people without the slightest bit of self-reflection, their loyalty remains largely unquestioned to this point. The option of being able to enjoy their shit SPORTS franchise in uninterrupted complacency without being made to ask larger questions is certainly an option most would take.