alt="LA Kings Insider with Rich Hammond" />Kings goalie Jonathan Quick has played 1,309 minutes, 40 seconds, this season, which puts him just under five minutes short of Evgeni Nabokov’s league-leading ice time. Quick has started 22 games, tied with Nabokov for the NHL lead, and he’s one game and approximately 10 minutes ahead of third-place Craig Anderson in both categories.
I asked Quick the other day about his heavy playing time, and the response was exactly what is expected of a goalie: essentially a shrug and a quote about feeling good and staying in shape. But with the Kings facing 13 games in 23 days, starting Wednesday, when will it be time for Erik Ersberg to get some work? Terry Murray said today that Quick will play Wednesday but that he hadn’t decided who would start Thursday at Vancouver…
MURRAY: I’m going to keep an open mind on it. Quick is going to play the first game, for sure. We’ll take it a day at a time with that. I do have an open mind, and I am aware that he’s been working very hard. The number of games we have played, in this part of the schedule so far, it’s a pretty high number. We had played as many games as any team in the league, up until the other day with San Jose, and our road work has been good and it’s been hard and demanding. So the awareness to it is there, for sure.”
To follow up, I asked Murray if the Kings’ lengthy “holiday break” — they’ll go eight days between games –
MURRAY: “Well, we have a great work load to get to that point. There’s a lot of games there. I’ve got to have an open mind. If Quicker is feeling good and playing good and stays physically ready and sharp, then I could continue with him, but I’ll be ready.”
Do whatever it takes to get Quick back to playing like last year’s version of himself. He is the key to the season. Sit him, assign Ranford and Hextall to him if you have to. Do whatever it takes.
The Kings will only go as far Quick can take them.
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NHL Power Play (another NHL radio show on NHL Network) said today Biron will be traded when Dipietro comes back. I would love having a veteran between the pipes. Don’t get me wrong. I like Quick. He just isn’t a #1 yet. Too young. And bringing up another young net minder would make things worse.
Speaking of NHL Power Play, did anyone catch the Williams interview today? Rich, any chance of getting that up so those who missed it can hear?
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Im sorry Quick is not a true #1 goalie. I dont know about Biron but Bernier will do.
Players on my Sh*t list this:
Ivanans- cant skate or hit.
Purcell- cant score
Quick- cant stop long shots or make the easy saves.
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Jofa,
Bernier is just another unproven prospect at this point. We can only hope he is the future #1 goalie, I’m not trying to be negative but realistic.
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How quickly we forget or in some cases, don’t know about.
To all you people throwing Quick under the bus, try to think back in the not too distant past and remember what it was like with Labarbera during a shootout. You might as well have just skated off the ice and be happy with the 1 point. Or Disco Dan Cloutier. The first half of his first full season was basically training camp for him trying to get over an injury. Bless him, he tried, but he wasn’t the answer. He was on a young team with no expectations so what was there to lose?
I wish Quick would stop some routine shots to be sure, but we he’s got all the tools, but needs to work on consistency, just like rest of the team.
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I sure as hell remember! It took Sean Burke to finish that season! (and he did a pretty good job, actually–bet he’s a great coach too.)
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