alt="LA Kings Insider with Rich Hammond" />Anze Kopitar’s postgame thoughts…
(on struggling offensively against Vancouver this season…)
KOPTIAR: “They’re definitely a good team, but those are the challenges that we have to face. We’re first in the West, and they made the playoffs last year, so we’ve got to beat this team in order to get there and get that push for that playoff run. To make it there, that’s a team we have to beat to go a long way.
“It seems like we’re getting some quality shots, and a couple chances, but I think Luongo helps them a lot. He’s one of the best, if not the best in the league, but that can’t be an excuse. We’ve got to get more traffic in front of him. We’ve got to get more shots, more bad-angle shots, or just something to get us going. We certainly didn’t do that today.”
(on Terry Murray’s early timeout…)
KOPITAR: “I think it was obvious from up top, too. We came out flat. We didn’t do anything and we got scored on on the first shift. Terry just called a timeout and let everybody know that we’re not here just to watch. We’ve got a game to play. That was the message.”
(on the game…)
KOPITAR: “Special teams were the difference. It was a one-goal game, and we had the 5-on-3 and we didn’t generate anything on that. Then they draw a penalty and they scored five seconds into their power play. That made it a two-goal game. Yeah, we came back, and I thought we had a pretty good second period. It’s hard when you chase, especially a team like this with a strong goalie and strong defensive play, it’s hard to chase the whole game.”
Does Kopi read the blog before he interviews, because all of that sounded VERY familiar….
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Im glad they can see where the problem lies, now the question is (we know they’re good enough) are the smart enought to do more than just talk the talk.
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Let’s be realistic: Kopi had a good game, was skating well and moving well, but his line was checked well. Even so, they gave us a goal. Well done.
Vancouver played well and their 2nd and 3rd lines played better than ours.
Frolov played well defensively and got the only goal. People need a new hobby other than habitually bashing Frolov.
Brown played with heart, speed and determination. He also cannot hit the broad side of a barn from more than 15 feet out. He goes 100 miles an hour to nowhere. Please slow the game down, and make small, controlling feints on entry, buy time for traffic to establish, and when you shoot take 15 percent off the velocity and just get it on net. How many times have you seen Scott Niedermeyer just toss the puck through traffic, relying on the timing of the shot with crossing screens? You cannot skate past everyone and shoot through the goaltender’s chest.
The whole team was making point shots on entry as if we just wanted a face-off. There was no depth to the attack, no possession time leading to attack triangle, it was just cross the blue line and fire.
The 5 on 3? Puuuullllllllleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaase.
Parse struggled. Jones struggled.
Purcell remains a good skater despite my voodoo doll pins in the ankles, plus he remains a black hole of offensive zone posession opportunities, he is the elephant graveyard where potential scoring chances go to die.
The third goal was not Quick’s fault at all; a long breakaway type pass was kicked back immediately instead of going deep, and happened to come just when we were changing the bench side defenseman. When Greene came off the bench, Doughty was already committed to the middle of the ice to prevent the cross-pass, as he should be. Mason was able to come in off the wing at light speed with lateral movement, Quick had to slide across and Mason just found the 5 hole, otheriwse he has half the net if he holds on, Quick was helpless. If anything, the long bomb pass might have been a bad idea, but I really don’t think so.
Vancouver played well, we missed Stoll in the third and had really come on in the 2nd. We were in the game, but we got zero secondary scoring and did not take smart shots on the rare occasion when we had clean entry and deep zone possession time.
We need to dictate pace better against Vancouver. They want a back and forth game against us, and we were one-dimensional trying to outskate them. We need to have layered attacks. They were overcommitting to the center of the ice so half board give-and-goes with a guy coming out of the corner would open up the ice out high for a low to high point shot, and the low passer goes to the net after he passes it to make crossing traffic and screens, or tip-in attempts. With Luongo, it is always like playoff hockey, you need time in zone to establish net-front presence, then the shot has to get through at any speed for a tip or a screen. Open blasts from the point won’t score, but tippable floaters can make for the goal-mouth scramble and dirty goal.
Energy was basically good after the first couple of minutes.
This was only one game.
The schedule is actually our best friend; we had many road games early, and we have flourished with that. We only have one five-game roadie left, the others are not as long, so we have the worst of the road behind us. Plus, the break of 8 days helps our guys heal even if it does not give us an advantage in games played. By that I mean we are playing games close together, and maybe injuries have resulted from that lack of recuperation time between games, but at least we get a break for guys to heal and we start from today forward with an excellent record that can withstand a short bad streak without being catastrophic toward our playoff hopes.
All in all, there have been very few games this year where we were never in it. We have won most of the close games we have been in. We have not played our best yet we are still sitting super high in standings. We have excellent players that will come back, and we have time off to re-set and re-energize before we attack the second half of the season. Plus, injuries are giving guys responsibilities and ice-time that can help long-term, and while doing so we established tons of points in the bank.
It is not perfect, but it is very very good. It is probably well beyond realistic expectations before the season, but now our expectations can reasonably be higher than just getting into the playoffs. This is a very good year so far and we are building what could be a great year.
GO KINGS.
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That’s right Kopitar, more shots, more traffic IN FRONT and more people driving to the net and fighting for the puck along the boards since Vancouver outnumbered us down low all night long and winning more faceoffs and 50/50 pucks. Our defense needs to tighten up also.
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Nice analysis Player-X
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I thought it was interesting that one of the Vancouver forwards mentioned on the Canadian feed how frustrated Kopitar gets when he’s checked closely – how it was part of their game plan to get in his head early.
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