You want to make the playoffs, right, Anaheim Ducks? I mean really, really wanna with all your heart? Well you don’t let a weaker team come into our building and score with thirteen seconds gone in the first period off a turnover that your captain makes. At center...
It was a sad night in SoCal Saturday. Sad, and a little bit pathetic. The two NHL teams, like Casey at the bat, struck out. For no good reason, because each of them was playing a team either below them or significantly below them in the standings. And both lost and...
Anaheim Ducks fans love their number seven, Andrew Cogliano. They thought the two-game suspension which ended his consecutive-games streak a ripoff. They were right about that. But Lord love him, if this guy’s hands were any more stony, he’d never be able to floss his...
The Ducks beat the Oilers in Anaheim on Friday night, and all anyone could do after the game was talk about Connor McDavid. Could this be because on the first series of plays in the game he grabbed a puck and went to the right of the Ducks’ zone, then burst around Cam...
It looked to be a boring game with few shots and an easy win for the home team in Los Angeles Wednesday night. The Kings opened a lead with just over a minute gone. Here’s the situation: right off a faceoff, the puck went from center to Kyle Clifford. He zipped a...
ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Sure, you’re tempted to ask the easy question—can the Ducks make the playoffs? Sure they can. Ask the hard question: can the Ducks compete? They got partway to answering that on Thursday night versus the Winnipeg Jets. So how would they make it?...
ANAHEIM, Calif. -- The coach of the other local NHL team, John Stevens of the LA Kings, used the “blender” metaphor last week to describe the changes his team needed to make to jolt themselves into scoring some goals. But it was Randy Carlyle of the Ducks who really...
The San Jose Sharks defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins last week. Just like the Anaheim Ducks did. The San Jose Sharks defeated the LA Kings last week. Just like the Anaheim Ducks did. Thus an Anaheim-San Jose matchup looked to be a pretty good battle, maybe even an...
For all the hype, none of the pertinent questions about the Kings and Ducks were easily answered Friday night. And especially not the one Kings fans wanted answered: Where’s the offense? Invisible, in the form of many of the key players. In fact, before the first...
The LA Kings played decent hockey for periods of Thursday’s game versus the Pittsburgh Penguins. But with talent like that on the other side of the ice, that’s not good enough. LA ended up on the short end of a 3-1 score, losing for the fifth time in a row. They...
Three or fewer. That’s how many penalties Randy Carlyle of the Ducks has as his goal for the team. They exceeded that by a factor of two, taking six for twelve minutes of disadvantage, against Colorado on Monday. The Avs scored one power play goal in the game....
Sunny Monday in January, probably in the 70s. Why not play NHL hockey? That’s what the Kings and Sharks were saying by the very act of dropping the puck at 1pm on January 15th. I took the train—no point in getting into late afternoon Los Angeles traffic on the way...
The Ducks battled the Kings Saturday night in a not-unimportant game. Anaheim was coming off a loss to Calgary, and the Kings had lost two straight—to Calgary and the Predators. The Ducks had gained points in four of five games, including three wins. The Kings had...
Christian Folin of the Kings was back from IR. Nashville was in town. That was the news from the LA Kings on Saturday night. If that sounds like nothing much, then you’re used to this new-look Kings team that has rolled through half their season having gained 53...
Three fights in one period. It needn’t be said that you rarely see that any more. But Saturday night in LA, it was the perfect storm. Retribution needed to be had for a nasty hit that Kurtis MacDermid put on Ondrej Kase of the Ducks when they played early in the month...
One team playing in Anaheim on Friday afternoon had clearly celebrated Thanksgiving the day before, if their early slumber on the ice was a fair indication. That would be the home team, who found themselves down by a pair of goals before the game was five minutes old....
On Teemu Selanne and Paul Kariya’s night, it was a goaltender who stole the show. John Gibson played a fantastic, 50-save game in keeping the Ducks ahead of the Florida Panthers 3-2 Sunday. He was happy about the results after the game, as he should have been, though...
The LA Kings began the year like a house on fire. By which I do not in any way refer to the actual houses that caught on fire in the North of the state. No, it was their record that blazed. They tied a franchise record for most points in their first fifteen games....
Anze Kopitar has scored a point in the last nine games (prior to Thursday), the longest such streak of his career. The Kings have lost four of those games, won one, and gained an OT point. The last three, though, they’ve lost, including a stinker to Vancouver on...
No disrespect to Paul Kariya. That’s what I’m supposed to write just before I tell you that he shouldn’t be going in to the Hall of Fame. Not this year. Not with Teemu Selanne. Right? I’m not saying he should never be there. There are cases like his—Cam Neely, Eric...
Anaheim's John Gibson was unavailable for comment after Sunday night’s game versus the Lightning in which the Ducks gave up 37 shots, took 29, and lost 2-1. Had it not been for Gibson, it would have been 5-1. Or worse. Definitely, it would have been much worse. It...
LOS ANGELES – The Kings have handily outclassed Eastern Conference teams this season, going 9-1-0 against them thus far. Their only loss was on the road in Toronto. Thursday, they repaid the Leafs with a victory at home. The game saw Toronto plagued by...
Las Vegas, NV – Hockey people not from here keep saying the same thing: Vegas hockey is about everyone else but the people in Vegas. It’s a place that’s good at attracting tourists, and having a hockey team will be just one more way to bring people from elsewhere to...
So much happens in the Vegas Golden Knights in-arena game presentation that it doesn’t seem like there could be more spectacle than there is. And then there is. The excitement begins before the game, in the form of a question from a dominating male voice: “Are you...
Los Angeles—Drew Doughty scored late in the third period and Jonathan Quick made 23 saves as the Los Angeles Kings defeated the Buffalo Sabres 4-2 on Saturday at Staples Center. The team was celebrating Halloween early, since they'll be on the road for that last...
The Anaheim Ducks showed little of the urgency they needed to prolong their 25-game home unbeaten streak against the Calgary Flames, and it cost them the win at Honda Center Monday night. In fact, neither team lit up the scoreboard as Calgary scampered to a 2-0...
A revitalized Los Angeles Kings team under new coach John Stevens took on a Philadelphia Flyers squad that had played in San Jose the night before and started off the season with a win. For the Kings, it was a good start to what some have seen as a more-of-the-same...
The Los Angeles Kings are looking for more scoring this year, hoping to better last season’s points total and erase the memories of not making the playoffs in 2017. They got hopeful signs via a pair of goals from Michael Cammalleri along with five points from their...
It took almost a full period just to figure out who was playing with whom on Saturday afternoon in Anaheim. Of course the whole (hockey) world knows that the Preds were without Johansen and Fisher. But the Ducks had a surprise loss of their own, Rickard Rakell going...
Bobby Ryan needs his a$$ kicked. I’m not saying that as someone who isn’t happy for Ryan’s success this playoff season. I’m saying that because he’s just the latest player to deliver a big hit to a vulnerable opponent, which happened in Friday’s game in Ottawa. The...
