You can’t beat the Ducks for jargon. A while ago, I wrote an article about coach Dallas Eakins called something like, “Less Psychobabble, More Hockey” in response to the constant stream of pop psychological (nonsense) that extruded itself from his mouth. Then the...
Every once in a while, an NHL defenseman throws a puck right into the front of his own net, and watchers say to themselves, “Wow. They teach you not to do that in Pee Wee.” Well, there’s an excuse for you! But what if your team’s D looks so inexperienced as to...
Funny coincidence: The LA Kings hosted South Asian Heritage Night with Florida in town Sunday evening. Two nights before, I had given a talk to students at Gujarat National Law University on the topic of “Kinetic Motion as Cultural Expression: The Case for Canadian...
Not enough, and not in time. Said another way: despite coming back from 3-1 down after the LA Kings scored a shorthanded goal Thursday night, the San Jose Sharks piled up two points but are still doing too little, too late. The game was notable for the way LA, as...
The Anaheim Ducks should have come storming out of the gate on Sunday afternoon at 5pm for their game with the Sharks. San Jose had lost 8-0 at home the night before. The Ducks need all the points they can get, especially against teams in their own division. They...
Well, so much for my fancy theories. I thought I was speaking the truth when I said that the Kings and Ducks would show their true levels when playing common opponents this week. And I was right in the first instance—the Ducks lost to the Islanders, but the ...
This week was supposed to show hockey fans where the two SoCal teams were heading, and most people figured that that was in different directions. The Kings and the Ducks play two common opponents this week: the New York Islanders and Boston. The Kings were supposed to...
Down the Freeway went the Kings on Friday night to play the Anaheim Ducks. The Kings came in riding a three-game win streak, the Ducks with two wins against Divisional opponents. Each would use their old hand pro goalie—John Gibson and Jonathan Quick.This would...
This is a very important week in the West. If that’s true, then it’s a very, very important week in the Pacific. Probably that’s news to a lot of fans in the East, because they are concerned with the ever-long questions: Will the Leafs start to get better...
Tampa Bay needed but four defensemen on Tuesday night to stifle the LA Kings and win 6-4. Six weren’t enough to defeat the Ducks on Friday, though they once again let in just four goals (plus an empty netter). The game featured the return of Corey Perry to...
You wouldn’t think you were watching the NHL’s premier offensive powerhouse observing the Colorado Avalanche playing in Southern California on Wednesday and Thursday nights. On Wednesday, it was a two-goal performance, including on empty-netter. On Thursday up the...
Colorado came storming out of the gate versus Anaheim in SoCal on Wednesday, only to see the first period of their game yield no goals for either side. It was a surprising result, on two counts. On the one hand, Colorado was scary early, with shots and chances from...
After the LA Kings went down to Tampa Bay 6-4, Coach McLellan spared no criticism. He wasn’t angry, on the surface at least. But he methodically dismantled the first three goals against. Make that four, because he added the fourth as a kind of afterthought. “We ran...
It was a night of two debuts and a return as the Kings took on the Penguins in downtown Los Angeles Thursday. For LA, the game marked another chance to show what they can do after they upset the New York Rangers three nights prior. For Pittsburgh, it was the ...
No easy test, the Pittsburgh Penguins. Not with you-know-who (Evgeni Malkin) back in the lineup for the first time this year, and especially not when that same person scores two of four goals and almost gets an empty net marker to complete the hat trick. He...
The New York Rangers came to LA Monday night with the chance to become the league’s point-leading team. Their opponents, the Kings, merely hoped to vault themselves out of a Wild Card spot and into their Division’s top three teams. The Rangers would have to do it...
When a monkey wearing a diaper drops the ceremonial first puck of a hockey game, you know you’re in for a show. The Anaheim Ducks celebrated Anaheim Angels night with just such an occurrence, and the little dude threw the puck right down flat on the ice between the...
Has the Great Compression begun? That’s got to be a question that is starting to occur to West Coast hockey fans as teams battle a tight race for the Wild Card positions in the Conference. This is aided by the observation that at the very least, Anaheim is ...
It was supposed to be a big NHL double-header night uin SoCal Thursday. The Kings would host Nashville while down the highway the Ducks were set for Detroit. Never happened, as you likely know—the Ducks have Covid problems and had to postpone their contest until...
Calgary didn’t exactly romp through Los Angeles on Thursday night in the first of a SoCal back-to-back, but Darryl Sutter was the coach who said “It’s a 3-2 league” a few years ago when he coached in Cali, and that was the score by which his second-time-new team, the...
The Anaheim Ducks love to make things exciting. Take for example Wednesday night in Anaheim with Vegas in town. They kept the pace even and the score 0-0 through one period. Then they exploded in the second, scoring four goals while allowing one, to appear to be...
It would have been advisable for the Kings to beat that Ducks Tuesday night. After all, they had two games in hand, and they came into the game having gone 1-3-1 in their prior five games, but winning the last of those, against Ottawa, 4-2. All of these contests, by...
The Anaheim Ducks started well against the Toronto Maple Leafs at home in a Sunday 5pm start. The measure of their early success was that period one ended 0-0 with the shots in favor of the Ducks, 14-10. They were on their way to a 40-31 margin, including 20 shots...
It was all LA Kings to start the game versus Ottawa at 4pm Saturday. Los Angeles got the first goal and dominated in the shots. But by the end of one period, the game was tied. What did this signal for a team that came in badly needing a win to get back to positive...
I’ve spent lot of Black Fridays in the Anaheim Ducks’ barn watching hockey. They were all good Fridays, as far as I was concerned. This year, I’m still sitting out due to Covid concerns, but with me or without me, the Ducks rocked the Senators, ending up winning...
Worse and worser. Things were like that for the LA Kings versus Toronto in Los Angeles on Wednesday night. To start, Andreas Athanasiou was on the Covid protocol list and thus not playing. He was replaced by Lias Andersson. Also out was Kale Clague. Sean Durzi took...
The Kings would be off a bit had they read their game versus Arizona as a must-win. More like a got-to-have. Sounds the same, but at this point in the season, less is at stake, despite two points counting the same no matter what time of the year they’re gained. But...
The Kings faced a test on Saturday afternoon which the Ducks failed a couple of nights ago: needing to beat the Carolina Hurricanes. By measure of the score, the Kings failed the test, just as the Ducks had. But by the eye test, LA was way, way stronger than the Ducks...
Now this is a test. The Carolina Hurricanes stormed out of the gate, winning nine games in a row. Coming into Anaheim on Thursday, they were 12-2-0. The Ducks, after limping out of the gate, are 8-0-2 in their last 10 games. They had a league-leading eight-game win...
A month ago, Los Angeles losing to the Washington Capitals in a tight 2-goal game (the second of which was an empty netter) would have provoked a mild reaction. “Oh, that’s too bad, but, you know, the Kings . . . .” As the voice trailed off, it would signal the...
