Wild at Kings: What was the point of this exercise?
After a pretty fast start against the Winnipeg Jets, the Kings were back to their slow-burn ways against the Minnesota Wild. The problem was that they never truly got to the point where they were playing their game.
They let the Wild, who are fighting to maintain a wild card spot in the Western Conference, outdo them in possession for much of the game. By the end of the first period, shots on goal were tied at 8, but the Wild’s 52.4 Fenwick For percentage gave them the edge.
Luckily for the Kings, Alec Martinez scored his 11th goal of the season to put the home team up 1-0.
Martinez and Muzzin actually struggled the most in the first period out of all the Kings defensemen, putting up a -14.5 and -17 percent in relative Corsi respectively. But Martinez got the goal, and Muzzin had the other most noticeable moment from the Kings in the first. He and Jeff Carter came together to clean out Nino Niederreiter on open ice, and Niederreiter was not to be seen or heard from again.
There’s probably a joke here about being in a sandwich that involves Jeff Carter, except a Muzzin-Carter sandwich sounds awful from the get-go. Niederreiter now knows this from experience. Ouch.
Zach Parise tied the game during a power play at 3:37 in the second period, but Justin Williams eventually put the Kings ahead to make it 2-1.
The best thing about this goal was Marian Gaborik taking advantage of the sleepy rhythm of this game to calmly wait for a perfect pass opportunity to Williams. It looked so casual, and yet the timing on it was excellent.
For the third period, the Kings did who even knows what, because it didn’t involve scoring goals or even generating many worthwhile scoring chances. The Wild scored twice, though. The first was on a fun little move from Matt Moulson, because him scoring against the Kings seemed inevitable.
The second goal against in the period was incredibly lame, and Jonathan Quick should’ve had it, but he failed. Wild went up 3-2. The Kings came out on top in possession by the very end of the game, hilariously, but it didn’t matter.
Actually, the entire Kings game could probably be summed up in the fail GIF of your choice. Here’s one that I like right now:
Only the top line looked like they were particularly engaged. Everybody else was half-asleep and as bored as I was. Head coach Darryl Sutter summed it up nicely after the game, with this quote:
Darryl Sutter: "There are some puck battles and there are tough parts of the game that you have to be able to control or tie…
— Jon Rosen (@lakingsinsider) April 1, 2014
Sutter, 2/2: …and we had a lot of guys not into that tonight."
— Jon Rosen (@lakingsinsider) April 1, 2014
The Kings weren’t into it. The Kings earned a dumb loss. It was all a waste of time to everyone except the Wild. Goodnight, moon.
Uggggghhhhhh when I knew Quick was getting the start tonight, I asked for ONE thing: DON’T SUCK. And after stopping two glorious attempts for the Wild on the breakaway, he stinks it up with a sooooooft goal, reminiscent of how poorly he played against the Phoenix Coyotes. Um Quick, if you don’t cut that shit out, you’re not going to go far in the playoffs. So get it together and Sutter, stop playing Quick. Bench his ass because he needs the practice or something, I guess.
Anyway, this game was dumb and let down inevitably by the goalie because it’s a dumb team that sucks and is somehow barely clinging to a playoff spot but yet, we allowed them to beat us anyway. Typical Kings.
Stop that.
[…] that boring and horrible game against the Wild yesterday, the Kings have been playing some of their best hockey of the season. The Gaborik Effect seems to […]