Not Tonight
Overheard on the elevator on the way to the dressing rooms after the Kings beat the Edmonton Oilers 5-1 Thursday night at Staples Center: “I knew they were sleepy on the second shift.” This from a hockey insid...
Two Magical Goals
Kyle Clifford in a cowboy hat. That’s what greeted fans on the LA Kings website Saturday, along with the announcement that it was “country Music Day.” Anything to sell tickets, I guess, but to whom?
Honestly...
What’s Right About It?
The Ducks lost to San Jose, who have now won five in a row. If you like the Ducks, that’s disappointing. But it’s not all bad.
What the Ducks did right, period one: they scored early, on a pure skill goal by...
Not Tonight, He’s Not
“Nobody comes to the rink to stay close or to have moral victories.” That was Todd McLellan’s pronouncement after the Kings won Tuesday night, and a good one. But that leaves a question: What’s a bad hockey tea...
Ducks Fall Way Back
If nothing-nothing can be interesting, then period one in Anaheim on Tuesday night with the Wild in town was fascinating.
The Ducks have said they want to start faster. They said that Friday. They did it Sun...
More of the Dead
As a misread metaphor, Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos) might have been better used for the LA Kings than the Anaheim Ducks as each team used the motif to promote its weekend games. The festival honors and...
The Way Too Early NHL Power Rankings 2019-2020
Year in and year out the NHL can fluctuate tremendously. The teams that should have been good are irrelevant, and teams that have a so-so roster end up making cup runs. It’s sports, and it happens; but it happe...
Lizotte Keeps Passing Superbly
It was Kings-Ducks Monday night in the first Freeway Faceoff of the year at Staples Center. Well, the unofficial first. It’s not a Faceoff, official-like, until the regular season. The fans turned up in OK numb...
Ready for Camp
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter who wins these NHL rookie tournaments. Heck, it doesn’t even matter who wins the individual games. The Ducks, for instance, went 2-0-1 in the three games of the nine-game set they ...
Starved on Left Coast
Six teams’ worth of rookies, around 150 altogether, gathered near Anaheim the weekend of September 7-10 to contest the 2019 Anaheim Rookie Faceoff tournament at the brand new Great Park Ice and Fivepoint Arena ...