The Kings are preparing for practice in Columbus, at the only (I believe) practice rink that is attached to the arena. The University of Denver had the arena ice this morning, preparing for its game against Ohio State.
One stat to chew on this morning: the Kings rank 25th in save percentage (.880).
That is not a stat I want to chew on Rich ><
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Who’s 26-30th in that stat Rich?
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If those two are not careful, how will they spell relief?
B – E – R – N – I – E – R
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So, is it time to panic yet?
I guess we’re not as bad as I thought we were after watching the Coyotes game, and not as good as I thought we were watching the subsequent 4 games.
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Is Bernier ready yet? Please God I hope so!!!
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How long do the Kings wait until they call Bernier up? I’m not saying we push Quick aside, but how many more games does Ersberg get to lose? At this point, I’m not so sure Ersberg would get claimed if the Kings tried to send him down to Manchester. Quick has definitely earned an opportunity to prove himself at the NHL level and I would like to see him be the main guy the rest of the year, unless he just completely falsl apart. I do think that having some competition is a good thing, especially for young guys like Quick and Bernier.
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I caught a bit of the game on xm radio. During the intermission (Det broadcast), they were talking about the Kings. While I missed a lot of the details what I did hear was discussion over the Kings chances of making the playoffs. The interviewer spoke of them being a ‘bubble team’ but the guy who was being interviewed said he didn’t see them making the playoffs. His reasoning was goaltending. He specifically spoke of the Ericsson goal and said that shot should have been saved. So…. 880 percentage. That’s not gonna get it done. Combine that with a high of two goals scored during any game on this road trip and it’s clear somethings gonna have to change to meet their goal of PO’s this year.
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Sometimes I wonder if my perception of good goaltending is messed up. The Kings have had such crappy goaltending for so long I question whether Quick is actually good or not. I thought he was last year, but we were recovering from the Babs era. Obviously Quick hasn’t been as strong this year. Does Quick have the makings of a quality goaltender or is he a gatekeeper until Bernier is ready?
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It’s still early folks..Man, people are sure jumping off the Quick bandwagon and wanting Bernier to come in to save the day! Early season #’s don’t mean too much, just wait for about 15-20 games..They’re 4-2 right now and some of you are already wanted to give up on Quick. Relax, people..it’s a long season..
Plus, the PK unit has to do a better job.
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Hey Rich, have fun in Columbus, if you get a chance, watch the Buckeye game on campus with some Ohio State fans, its an away game, but that town is a blast on gamedays if you find the right spot.
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Better yet, when do the Kings deal for a proven/experienced goalie? Bernier isn’t ready yet, and the other two are looking shaky.
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I really don’t think we should pull the plug on Ers and we certainly cannot blame the 25th placement solely on him when he played only one game so far.
Having said that, I believe the best option would be to add Ers to a trade package (should we decide to give up Fro) at some point in the season.
Having said both those things, I don’t think we should bring JB up to ride the bench… so, basicially, just let this unfold and talk again come game 20 or so…
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wow. it continues to amaze me how some of you evaluate goalie success. It is not “black” and “white” – sure you want your goalie to stop everything that comes his way, but lets be realistic here. Take away the empty net goal and the ridiculous deflection by Zetterberg and you have 3 goals scored on Quick last night. The Ericksson goal should probably have been stopped. Even the commentators could not believe how it went in since it clearly looked like it was going wide. I think Quick knocked it in himself. Ok, bad goal. The Holmstrom goal – Jack was simply out-manned in front of the net. However, 90% of the defencemen in this league are out-manned by Holmstrom – he is a monster in front of the net. The Maltby goal is another defencive lapse … Holmstrom lost the puck but all of the forwards and defencemen collapsed around the crease leaving Maltby free to knock it in. I’m not saying that Quick could not have stopped it – we saw Lundqvist do it, and Osgood do it – but even they let those in from time to time. Quick is doing a fine job for 7 freaking games into the season. This team is still finding its groove as evidenced from the bi-polar PP and PK over the first 7 games. Relax people!
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3 rookie defensemen and lots of inexperience will usually mean lots of unstoppable opportunities like Maltby’s and Zet’s.
Plus, doughty cannot turn the puck over after we’d just made it 2-3 late in the 3rd.
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Throw out the stats against Phoenix and the Ersberg game, and that puts the Kings in the middle of the pack with a 90% save percentage.
Why, you ask? Well, the team, including Quick, were admittedly flat on opening night, and Ersberg was a bit rusty in his debut. So using the other five games, I believe, gives us a bit better idea of the goaltending potential.
And after all that, it’s still too early and too small a sample size to draw meaningful conclusions based on stats.
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The numbers don’t lie here. an .880 save % is not playoff-caliber goaltending. I understand its early but
some of you need to think back to comments you made since the end of last year. If the Kings would have had Quick for the whole year instead of LaBarbara, we would have made the playoffs? Don’t tell me that doesn’t sound familiar. If that did occur and he played the same way he’s playing now…still think he would have been the difference? Not from what he’s showing us.
If we’re expected to be a playoff team this year, how many points can we give away because of subpar goaltending? Do we honestly believe we’ll have a big enough cushion getting into the playoffs that we can afford these types of games?
I hope Quick turns it around because he did look good last year, but if this continues, we need to see if Bernier can be the savior for this franchise.
Inconsistent goaltending will assure us of not going to the playoffs.
Not an easy call for TM/DL
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Early season numbers don’t mean much. You don’t want them to turn into season-long trends, but think of it this way: we were 4-1-0 in our first five games, and Detroit was 2-3-0. But even with their injuries, the Wings are still a very good team (as we saw last night) and are probably gonna make the playoffs. Likewise, even though we were 4-1-0 in our first five, don’t start printing playoff tickets yet. It’s far too early.
And also, we are still 4-3-0. Still above .500, and we are 2-2-0 against 2008-09 playoff teams. Before you decide to jump ship, consider that this was our first back-to-back of the season, and they came against two very quality teams against the Rangers and Red Wings. So don’t think that because we’ve struggled to finish those two games, we’re gonna do it all year long. We’ve played 7 games. We have 22 more opponents we haven’t yet faced this season.
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NYKingsfan….. I liked your comments above…. probably because they echo mine… and looking at later comments posted by Rich (TM’s quotes) he seems to feel the same way. You know how CBJ’s got into the playoffs last year? Yeah well it was very solid and consistent goaltending all year… not half the time great and half the time questionable. I DO realize that goalkeeping is an incredibly difficult position with a huge learning curve…. but basic stuff (Ersberg not coming out to cut down the angle on Gaborik) and Doughty not helping him are the things that will hold us back till some of this stuff gets cleaned up.
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