Canucks at Kings: All The Goalz
On Saturday night, due to a Robyn Regehr injury and the fact that Kings would exceed the salary cap by $160 if they called someone up (that is not even an exaggeration), the Kings played with five defensemen against the most prolific offense in the Western Conference.
It turns out, if you have the puck all of the timez, and score all of the goalz, you don’t need defense all that much.
LAK finishes with a 61.86 Corsi%, while VAN finishes with 38.14%. Jeff Carter led LAK at +23. Henrik Sedin paced VAN at +6. Per @war_on_ice
— James Nicholson (@ulyssesjim) November 9, 2014
After killing off a pivotal 5-on-3 early on in the first period, the Kings would begin their onslaught of the Vancouver Canucks by scoring 3 goals in a span of 8:28, including season firsts for Marian Gaborik and Jake Muzzin.
And then, the two greatest occurrences of the night would transpire.
KOPI!!!!! So sorry Canucks! I'd buy you a round of drinks but I heard you don't have any cups!! Hahahaha
— Gustl Kopitar (@GustlTweets) November 9, 2014
I always envisioned Gustl as more of a sweetheart, but sassy Gustl will do just fine.
The second period would end with a pretty dominant puck possession performance by the Kings and one more goal, this time from Tyler Toffoli. He’s now tied with Tanner Pearson for most goals on the team now (7), and his tally spelled the end of the night for the resurrection of Ryan Miller.
During the third period, Jeff Carter reminded us all not to fret about him possibly setting career-long pointless streak, because he’s still better at hockey than most everyone else.
Jonathan Quick’s shutout bid was killed with less than eight minutes left in the game on a somewhat lucky deflected pass by everyone’s favorite ex-King, Linden Vey, who probably won’t look back fondly on this game despite looking forward to it so much earlier in the day. But honestly, how many times this season is Quick going to lose his shutout with a fraction of the game to go in blowouts? I suppose we should all just be content with the fact that he’s allowed 1 or fewer goals in 7 of his 13 outings this season.
Alec Martinez earned the honor of being the night’s 1st star thanks a 3-assist performance, a career game-high for him. We should all cherish this, because the Kings might not be able to afford him next year:
Report: NHL salary cap might not increase – http://t.co/WVAio5ek6Y pic.twitter.com/RtZGzkIFGO
— All The News (@AllTheNewscom) November 9, 2014
That is Gary Bettman’s jazz hands impression.
For now let’s just enjoy and take solace in the fact that even when the Kings literally cannot ice a proper roster, they can still crush the souls of the Vancouver Canucks.
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