Raw Jewels: Snubs, Water Activities, and Doughty Boom

“Raw Jewels” is a grab bag of LA Kings news items, photos, and other franchise-related finds around the Internet.

 
Tommy Ain’t Got Time

The Kings lost to the Dallas Stars on Monday, but Tommy Lasorda didn’t disappoint.

Waiting for Lasorda to snub the opposing team’s captain has started to become something Kings fans look forward to seeing. He walked onto the ice for the ceremonial puck drop, which was part of him promoting the Kings-Ducks outdoor game at Dodger Stadium in January, and then completely ignored Stars captain Jamie Benn after shaking Anze Kopitar’s hand.

 
Even More Kopitar

Last week, Manchester Monarchs beat reporter Andy Tonge mentioned that Gasper Kopitar would likely sign with the Kings; ECHL affiliate, the Ontario Reign.

Yesterday, John Hoven from Mayor’s Manor confirmed the news by tweeting about little brother Kopitar’s projected debut.

SAVE THE DATE: Don't make plans for next Sunday just yet. That could/should be the day @GasperKopy13 makes his home debut for Ontario Reign.

— The Mayor John Hoven (@mayorNHL) December 28, 2013

Did know that you can buy two center ice seats at a Reign game for like $80? Higher-level seats are around $15 with fees. Gasper Kopitar is no Anze, obviously, but the Kings aren’t playing that day. Why not check out how the guy is playing these days?

 
Did I Want to Know This?

The LA Kings site occasionally posts fluff blogs where players answer basic questionnaires. Last week, there was a “Get to Know” about Jeff Carter and Slava Voynov, from which we learned that Voynov apparently loves “Breaking Bad,” and Carter’s favorite sport away from hockey is —

 

The random ellipses after the answer makes it. If only we could believe that Carter said this just to see if the Kings site would type it. Water sports are totally legitimate, of course, but it’s also not hard to be more specific and say something like “jetskiing and wakeboarding.” So, el oh el, as the kids say.

Bonus: this fan picture seen on Tumblr —

Sweat shorts and water sports Carter, everybody.

 
You Kneed to Stop

On Friday, the @NHLPlayerSafety tweeted out a link to their video breaking down how on-ice kneeing is evaluated.

The video was originally posted in February, but recent incidents in games — notably, Dustin Brown getting a game misconduct for kneeing Tomas Hertl but no supplemental discipline — have raised new questions about Player Safety’s guidelines. The great part about this video is that Brown isn’t in it at all, because his knee to Jaden Schwartz hadn’t happened yet and the Michal Rozsival hit during the 2012 playoffs was actually thigh-on-thigh.

 
Doughty Coming At You

Sports Illustrated put together a list of biggest NHL hits in 2013. Number one on the list comes from Drew Doughty smashing the magic right out of a Pavel Datsyuk move in February.

Pay no attention to Datsyuk undressing Martinez, which could’ve been disastrous. Doughty busting the play up eventually led to a 2-on-1 for the Kings in other direction. More of that always, please.